Mind your own business David Rosenthal

The Miami-Dade School Board is facing legal challenges and complaints after the board decided to ban a book about Cuba. I find it all rather silly, The board has more important issues than one book in some of its schools. The complaintants including the ACLU are dumb too. If a student wants to read the book, they can go to a public library or have their parents buy it for them. No one has a constitutional right to a book.

Then there is this news out of today's Miami Herald.

The Miami-Dade school district summarily dismissed a complaint seeking to ban a controversial children's book from library shelves, saying the activist who filed it had no legal standing.

In a letter dated Thursday, the principal at Henry Mack/West Little River Elementary said that activist David Rosenthal lives in Broward County and has no children at the school, where he filed the complaint against Cuban Kids. ''Upon consulting with the School Board attorney's office, I have been advised that I cannot process your request,'' wrote principal Reva Vangates.

Rosenthal selected the school because it is one of only six Miami-Dade schools that has the book, which Rosenthal considers offensive for its positive portrayal of life under Fidel Castro.

''If they don't change their minds, I'll file suit or attempt to talk to the [School] Board members and see if they can't try to influence the attorney,'' he told The Miami Herald.

The district rule about challenging library books says a complaint can be filed by ''any citizen,'' but School Board Attorney JulieAnn Rico wrote a memo to School Board members earlier this week saying that rule only applies to citizens of Miami-Dade.

''Our board rules apply to our county -- any other interpretation flies in the face of local control of schools,'' said district spokesman Joseph Garcia. ``His interpretation would allow someone to challenge our textbooks in Miami-Dade County. That's not a realistic and practical way to run a school system.''

The rule does not indicate the complaint must come from a parent or guardian of a student enrolled in the school.

''It's either ignorance on their part or a disingenuous attempt to quash the complaint,'' said Rosenthal, who was been a leading voice in the successful campaign to remove another children's book, Vamos a Cuba, from school libraries.

You're the one being disingenuous Mr. Rosenthal. For you're neither a resident of Miami-Dade County or have a child as a student there. Therefore your complaint has no standing. Now take your stupid complaint and stick it in the appropriate place.(Where the sun don't shine)

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