So I went to buy a newspaper outside this restaurant in Waikiki. The band playing on the second level patio, was doing a version of "Lay Down Sally" with eukeles. It was bizarre, looking up and seeing three customers getting into it (one being a guy in his late 50s with a Jimmy Buffet shirt).

The machine ate my 4 quarters. I talked to the cashier at the restaurant, who said they weren't responsible. A waitress heard us discussing this, and said the machine is in their lobby, and they had been having problems with it for a few days. She gave me the buck back, and I found another machine.

I thought about all the time I've purchased papers. I'm willing to bet that with those machines, at least 25% of the time, they don't work properly. That's a high percentage. If Coke machines worked with that ratio nobody would ever buy a can. But for some reason, the way those things are designed, they just work so inconsistantly.

For some reason, this reminded me of a story I heard right before flying out here.

At Fallbrook High, the principal eliminated the school newspaper, and cut the journalism class.

The reason for the "Tomahawk" cancelation, had nothing to do with "tomahawk" being offensive (the Atlanta Braves had to deal with that controversy years ago).

The paper had an editorial criticizing the Bush administration's support for teaching abstinence in the public schools.

Another had something to do with a superintendent not opening the school as an evacuation center during the fires in 2007.

So, as is usually the case with the ACLU, they are spending their money fighting something that I don't agree with.

They say it violates students free speech rights, and the lawsuit is demanding that the paper continue, and that school officials can't censor any future publication of the two articles.

Don't get me wrong, I hate to see the newspaper and journalism classes eliminated. I learned a lot from Mrs. Emery, my journalism teacher at Mira Mesa High.

But, one of the things I learned way before those classes, was that your boss gets to call the shots. And, if you are a student in a school, they can do that.

I watched in 5th grade, when my friend Chris Mills, was sent home for wearing a shirt that said "Get Stoned -- Drink Wet Cement."

In 10th grade, this surfer named Shawn was told to turn his shirt inside out in our Spanish class. It said "Surf Nazis." And, I remember this teacher and him arguing the point. Her saying "I don't care how it's used, but 'nazi' in any way it's used, can be offensive."

I had been wearing Led Zeppelin and Doors T-shirts, on days I didn't wear the collared Le Tigre shirts. I wondered if a religious teacher would find offense, since some Christian groups thought Led Zeppelin was some satanic heavy metal band. And, I always figured if they told me not to wear the shirts, I wouldn't. I understood the reasons, and that anything can be a distraction, and the classroom isn't a place for distractions, but learning.

I don't remember all the details of the Poway High situation, involving a kid wearing an anti gay shirt. And others wearing shirts opposing that view. But all of that bothered me as well.

We have to stop saying that kids deserve free speech. They're in school. And, maybe that's a time they can learn that "Yeah, you should be allowed to wear the shirt with your favorite band on it. But you know what Little Johnny? Some people find the words 'Butthole Surfers', to be offensive."

If I remember the Fallbrook story correctly, the principal claimed that the story was censored, because it appeared to have been written by an adult. I think that would be easy enough to determine. Take the kid that wrote it, and ask him a few questions. But, that shouldn't even be an issue. I think if a teacher has a problem with content, they have every right to censor. And, for young journalism students, it's a chance for them to learn a valuable lesson. That you may be right, but if your teacher (ie "boss") doesn't want it to run in print, they have the last say.

And, if you want to go start your own publication, and print what you want, find advertisers, distrubtion, and all that jazz, well, yeah...this is a free country. You can do that.

If someone tries to keep you from doing that, than call the ACLU.

*note: last time I wrote something knocking the ACLU, one of their members left a nice message on my voice mail, offering to explain a few things to me. I called back, we played phone tag, and I haven't heard from him since. who ever that was, if you read this, feel free to call back.