Senator Eleanor Sobel

April 20, 2009

Senator Eleanor Sobel
224 Senate Office Building
404 South Avenue Street
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-1100

RE: Words, words, and still more words

Senator Sobel,

Congratulations on getting the word Shylock banned from Florida statutes! Doubtless we will shortly be farting through silk because of this. Perhaps one of the more easily completed “shovel ready” projects would be to have a plethora of Zayda Grundys running around the sate with Magic Markers covering Shylock every time they see it.

I enclose a copy of a letter I sent to Mayor Richard “Little Dickie” Daley of Chicago.

In it I use the word Shylock. Does that make me subject to the Florida Word Police? I know it is interstate commerce – Florida to Illinois – and states cannot regulate it. Gibbons v Ogden. Ask someone to tell you about it. Since you have no respect for “Free men speak with free tongues”, let alone the Constitution, can I expect a knock on the door from a man with a Brown shirt and a can of gasoline demanding that I hand over any copies I have of Shakespeare’s plays?

“There is no vice so simple, but assumes some mark
of virtue on his outward parts.”