Local uber-blog Stuck on the Palmetto reported it first: Book Banning: Business As Usual In Miami-Dade County (UPDATED).
It seems some parents are tired of waiting for the school board to hear their complaints, so they are seizing copies of a book that is insufficiently anti-Cuban for their tastes from right off the school shelves. Not state action here — pure vigilantism.
And the Herald got there eventually.
The University of Miami may not have behaved as well as one might wish in dealing with the demands of its striking janitors last year, and worse with students who supported the union, but at the end of the day the University stepped up to the plate and offered a decent contract.
The same cannot be said about Nova Southeastern University, which is engaged in a very unfortunate — I almost wrote something much worse — campaign to prevent a similar unionization of its workers. Their jobs are being handed off to new sub-contractors. Workers active in the union movement are not being rehired by these new contractors.
Coverage of NOVA behaving badly can be found in the article linked right above, and in Better wages, healthcare not enough, a column by Ana Menendez.
The Justice Building Blog, a gossipy yet serious attempt to talk about what happens in the local courts, is on a bit of a roll recently: I recommend both Diary of a Mad Jurist and Traffic.Parking (about how to improve conditions in traffic court). Having been through it recently, I especially like the idea of moving traffic ticket soundings (in which the magistrate offers most offenders a plea — usually, so many dollars, no points) online. But I wonder if the proposed rule about never allowing continuances isn't a bit harsh. Even the feds allow them for illness, for example.
On the other hand, I do think that last week's post about the TV exposé of local cops is a bit late (unless maybe the local station is doing reruns?). I wrote about it a year ago.
Today's Miami Herald has a cute Valentine's Day story about a Broward County couple finding love in traffic court.
When I went to traffic court a couple of weeks ago, all I got was my ticket dismissed. And as the cop didn't show up, I didn't even get to explain why the ticket — supposedly for stopping several inches beyond the line at a stop sign but in fact for behaving legally in a manner not enjoyed by a police officer — was an outrage. So much for my first pro se appearance in court…
Note to self: if you wear a tie to traffic court in Miami, they all think you are a lawyer representing someone else.
UM President Donna Shalala appeared on the Colbert show the other day. She endorsed Sen. Clinton for President, agreed with Colbert that Iran is supporting terrorists and (with a little prompting) that they are “absolutely” the enemy and said she was against universal health care.
The high point of this fairly dismal segment may have been when Pres. Shalala said she brought her own pillow to cabinet meetings in the Clinton administration. Unfortunately, this was not because the meetings were so dull, nor it seems for pillow fights, but just to sit on. Or perhaps it was when she got that frightened look in her eye — surely a rare event — as Colbert asked this former President of the University of Wisconsin to imitate the sound a cheese curd makes when you bite it.
There’s this rumor going around that I refuse to believe. Please help me debunk it.
The story — related to me at dinner in all seriousness by a serious person who convinced me that he believed it– is that Homeland Security have banned tailgate parties at the Super Bowl, which you may have heard is being held in Miami this year.
I’ve been somewhat distressed to see how meekly Americans put up with ‘security theater’ requirements that restrict their freedoms while adding at best minuscule amounts to actual security. But if the day comes when football fans will give up their tailgate parties due to some diktat from Homeland Security, well, that’s the day that I’ll have to admit beyond peradventure that the people who hate our freedoms have won.
I did a little google search and can’t find anything which suggests such a limit might be in force, which strengthens my belief that this is an urban legend. (I did find some fun debunking of other Super Bowl related urban legends.)
I did find this long list of security restrictions on what you can bring into Dolphin Stadium but I don’t read this as applying to the parking areas where the tailgate parties happen.
Full text of the somewhat Draconian security rules for entrance into the stadium reproduced below. I wonder if the rumor is based on these?
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