Commie Book Ban (Vamos a Cuba)

[Say_What]

Life in GusanoMiami..surreal!! :eyes:

<clips>

On a recent Tuesday evening, as traffic cut through steady rain on SW Seventh Street, about two dozen graying Cuban émigrés gathered in a nondescript room near the airport to plot a new crusade in their eternal war against the ailing Fidel Castro.

Their plan — to pull a children's book called Vamos a Cuba from school library shelves across Miami-Dade County — had already attracted national media attention and provoked protests in Cuba. A legal challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union had sparked rumors of a showdown in the nation's highest court. Which was why leaders of the old guard exile community had called this meeting: to ensure a united front at the press conference scheduled for the next morning.

The press conference — to be held at the Versailles restaurant in Little Havana — would be a carefully managed, media-friendly event. This private strategy session, convened at the tiny headquarters of La Junta Patriotica Cubana, was a more freeform affair. Yes, they were here to discuss the book in question, a vile piece of propaganda. But there were other issues to talk about first.

"Angelina Jolie has a tattoo of Che Guevara ... like Mike Tyson," said Emilio Izquierdo as he shook his head in mild bewilderment.

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/Issues/2006-08-10/news/feature_full.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. GREAT article from the Miami New Times. Superba!

The author is fantastically observant, and knowledgeable. From the article:

When, at the April meeting, school board member Ana Rivas-Logan voted to allow a review process instead of an immediate ban, she found herself targeted by Radio Mambí, a popular station among hard-line exiles. Rivas-Logan, who was born in Nicaragua after her family fled Cuba in 1960, paraphrased one commentator's advice to listeners: "Let's not forget, when it comes to election time, that Ms. Rivas-Logan is Nicaraguan." Other board members who voted to review rather than ban the book were labeled Communist and anti-Cuban.
(snip)

Each person sounds windier than the one before. God, you'd just go NUTS there.

[Khayembii Communique]

2. These people are ridiculous

They wouldn't even accept the fact that Castro lived through surgery, even AFTER photos and video were released!

[Mika]

3. I am currently working with a group of American Indians ..

.. discussing an effort to get books that misrepresent the "settling" of the Americas by the Spanish and Europeans banned from public school libraries also, in a parallel move to the Vamos a Cuba case, to get the lies out of the Miami-Dade school libraries. If the genocide and expropriations of the American Indians are not represented appropriately, then these books should be banned also - IF the ban on Vamos a Cuba goes through.

It should get really interesting in Miami-Dada if the ball gets rolling (precedent is set) on this.