The Day of the Gas

Joseph Waumbaugh, who was a University of California student before he became a cop, and a cop before he became a novelist, has a hilarious op-ed in the Los Angeles Times about the infamous incident of pepper spray at UC Davis. This, he speculates, is how the atrocity came to besmirch the American nation:

A campus cop — one of the 99% that the Occupy protesters are championing — looked at a bunch of envious kids who'd missed the great era of protests and Woodstock that their forebears experienced. All they've got at UC Davis is a pitiful little sit-in, but they're arm-locked and caterwauling and making the most of it.

After watching the scene for several hours, something like this goes through the campus cop's head: "I'm not busting my hump trying to untangle these entitled little twits and hauling their butts away for a few hours, which will only make their day and bring them back feistier tomorrow. My sciatica is killing me and I can already feel the arthritis in my hip and I don't get paid enough for this kind of truss-busting crap, so I'm gonna give them a taste of Come-to-Jesus juice. And if that doesn't make them go home, screw it." Then he casually strolled along the seated row and let them have it.

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford