FEEL THE WEIGHT OF THE NEW THUMB YET?

A 33-year old middle-class family man was peppersprayed and arrested for swearing at a cop while attempting to return to his hurricane flooded home in St. Petersburg, Florida .

A 52-year old special education teacher from Maryland was traveling home with her sons from a Florida vacation when she was arrested at Tampa International Airport by the Transportation Security Administration for carrying a weighted bookmark that luggage screeners say looked like a weapon. She was charged with carrying a concealed weapon because the bookmark looked like a weapon.

Both of these articles where on the same front page of the printed Tampa Bay section of the St. Petersburg Times. I had heard the bookmark story on the local news already but when I saw the multiple stories of heavy-handed police actions crowded onto a single page, I got to thinkin'....

Is thinking a crime yet? Okay, that's off topic, but not for long...

My point is, I think, more of a question. What has changed so that people can now be arrested for nothing but the whim of a cop?

Can I get arrested for calling a cop a COOTIEBUG? Tell him "NYAH NYAH NYAH YOU LOOK FAT IN YOUR UNIFORM PIGGY PIGGY PIGGY EAT A FEW MORE DOUGHNUTS CHUBBYBUTT"? Or is "go fuck yourself" or "fuck off" enough to have my ass dragged down to the brig?

Or can I go to the airport and try to get on an airplane with a pen? Or a cell phone? Or my teeth in my head? You could use the pen to stab, the phone to konk and your teeth to chomp. What about those big Italian horn necklaces or oversized crucifixes. I'd say they can put an eye out!

Can we be arrested for writing these blogs? Will this soon be disorderly conduct? Will this mode of communication be a weapon "not specifically listed, but could be considered dangerous" and illegal, like the bookmark?

We Americans are under the thumb now, but how much more weight can our freedom bear before it is completely broken?