First Drop-By

Now that my parents live in Brattleboro VT, they have the ability to drop by. They did so for the first time today, but their camper-van is currently snowed in, so they put off driving it back for later.

But for the first time in thirty years, my dad has a beard.

He shaved it off way back when because it went gray before his hair did.

But now that his hair is completely white, he decided to grow the beard back, only to discover that it is still fairly dark, and only peppered with gray.

He looks pretty cool, actually.

Bong Hits 4 Jesus

Now this will be an interesting case. On the one hand, we have Dubya's "Justice" department and former persecuter Kenneth Starr arguing in favor of censorship, and a former high school student who wanted to embarrass the administration of his public school.

It seems obvious to most that "embarrassing a public official" is exactly political speech, and thus well inside a mountain of judicial precedent protecting said speech.

But many school officials have been effectively granted in loco parentis authority which stops just short of washing offenders' mouths out with soap.

This will be a big test for technocrats Chief Justice Roberts and Junior Justice Alito. But quoting the article:

A Bush administration lawyer, Edwin Kneedler, argued for a broad rule that public schools do not have to tolerate a message inconsistent with its basic educational mission.

"I find that a very, very disturbing argument," Justice Samuel Alito said, adding that schools could define their educational mission so broadly to suppress political speech and speech expressing fundamental student values.

Moreover, Justice Kennedy used to be known for his ardent defenses of freedom of speech, even when in the minority of the Rehnquist court. It looks as if he's ready to assume that identity again:

Justice Anthony Kennedy asked Kneedler if the principal could have required the banner be taken down if it had said "vote Republican, vote Democrat."

Kneedler replied the principal has that authority.

No, the principal doesn't. Let's see whether Chief Justice Roberts can get something akin to a unanimous (consensus) decision defending the student here. The big roadblock seems to be Justice Breyer, who once again is trotting out authoritarian verbiage as soon as any reference to drugs is made.