Last night, on getting the news that the five Hispanic members of the Miami-Dade Country School board love Castro so much they are bringing his policies to Miami, I flew into a venomous rage. I was so incensed that I wrote a screed so vitriolic I am certain I would have started my car one fine morning and been blown into so much picadillo. After all, if a black school board member says he was afraid to vote against the Cubans because he feared for the safety of his loved ones, then what chance would a lone gringo blogger have?

But as I have learned the hard way, it is often best to let such a stew simmer for a while before serving it to the public, and this morning I decided that it just wasn't the kind of thing I want to post here. Not out of fear, mind you — I am perfectly willing to call out an opportunistic political hack or a witless lickspittle toady whenever the need arises — but anger doesn't always produce quality prose.

This evening I received a lovely message from the ACLU, however. It reads, in part:

The ACLU of Florida's Greater Miami Chapter is currently talking with potential plaintiffs who are interested in combating this censorship. If you or anyone you know has a child(ren) in a Miami-Dade elementary school and would like to join the ACLU in this important fight -- either as a named plaintiff or anonymously -- have them contact Nathalie at: [number redacted].

Since the message was sent to ACLU friends and members I'm leaving the phone number off this message, to try and reduce the volume of crank calls my friend Nathalie has to take. If you want to help — and I hope you will — leave me a comment and I'll send you the number.

As much as I would prefer to simply wait for these blustering fools to die off and let people who understand freedom of speech take leadership in the Cuban-American community, they have created such a culture of fear and hatred that it has spread down to the successive generations. We can only hope that the intelligent, freedom-loving youth of the community will continue to learn to fight back against the exilios.