Blog of law articles

Oy -- I could have guessed the result when I saw that Judge Carnes authored the Vamos a Cuba decision reversing Judge Gold's reasonable and measured ruling:

In a 2-1 decision, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said the board did not breach the First Amendment, and ordered a Miami federal judge to lift a preliminary injunction that had allowed Vamos a Cuba to be checked out from school libraries.

The majority opinion supported the School Board's authority to set educational standards in Miami-Dade, saying the bilingual book, part of a library series on 24 nations, presented an ''inaccurate'' view of life in Cuba under its former leader, Fidel Castro.

''The record shows that the board did not simply dislike the ideas in the Vamos a Cuba book,'' appeals court Judge Ed Carnes wrote in the majority opinion. 'Instead, everyone, including both sides' experts, agreed that the book contained factual inaccuracies.''

But the three-judge panel's opinion -- not unlike the School Board's initial vote -- was so fraught with political rhetoric such as ''book banning'' that further appeals seem inevitable. Indeed, Carnes attacked the dissenting opinion's use of the phrase.

''That is a faulty foundation,'' he wrote in the 177-page ruling. ``The board did not ban any book. The board removed from its own school libraries a book that the board had purchased for those libraries with board funds. It did not prohibit anyone else from owning, possessing or reading the book.''

Next time can we get Kim Carnes to write the opinion? And get a load of the panel:

The ruling, written by Carnes and joined by U.S. District Judge Donald Walter of the Western District of Louisiana, concluded that the School Board also did not violate the due process rights of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Who?

Ok, I guess I can't have a problem with anybody whose entire full name consists of the first names of the musicians behind Steely Dan. You must have had some groovy parents, Judge.

Yes, the book's inaccurate. Frankly, it completely sucks as a children's book.

Do you know how many sucky, inaccurate books were in my elementary school library when I was a kid? Hail, I used to think the Indians stole our land, Christopher Columbus invented America, and steak and milk were good for you.

Be thankful there are any books in the school library, inaccurate or not. Sheesh, they've spent $250k litigating over this stupid book. Judge Wilson's dissent is well worth reading -- hey, let's put that in the school library.

Anyone else watch the George Carlin Mark Twain Prize show that was on Channel 2 the other night? I guess there were some very funny Catholics, too.

Here's Carlin on "the American okey-doke" -- NSFW, and if you work at such a place, I suggest you get the hail out of there.