After a judge tossed out the animal rights fringe's lawsuit against the dairy industry demanding lactose intolerance warning labels on milk, I knew it wouldn't be long before they came up with something new that was just as stupid, and -- joy of joys -- they haven't let me down.

There's a middle school art teacher in the Chicago area who returned to the new school year from summer vacation a born-again vegan, and he set out to preach the evils of consuming animal proteins to his students. He was promptly asked to stop, and when he resisted, he was placed on administrative leave. Though not fired yet, the teacher's indignance appears to have reached its zenith, and he has filed a lawsuit charging the school district with -- get this -- child endangerment for serving milk to students. He has refused to come back to work until the school stops serving milk and takes down all signage promoting milk and its goodness.

Now, I could launch into all the arguments about how milk is actually a superfood, with new science supporting that fact almost every day. I could take swipes at the fringe research that this teacher is quoting and remind folks how it's been debunked by the legitimate scientific and medical community.

But in this case, I think it's much simpler than that. He's an ART TEACHER. It's not his job to be spouting off his personal beliefs to impressionable young minds, no matter what they may be. It's not his job to create his own curriculum and waste classtime when he's supposed to be teaching art -- a subject, I might add, that historically is highly vulnerable to being cut when schools find themselves in a cash crunch. So I'm sure the taxpayers who are paying this teacher's salary don't care for him to stray from the subject he's supposed to teach in order to foolishly challenge the school's federally mandated milk policy.

This is what we're dealing with, people. How do they manage to get so much attention? It truly boggles the mind.

- J.D.

UPDATE 9/25/07

The teacher was fired yesterday after a unanimous vote of the school board, the Chicago Tribune reported today. Board members noted in a statement that the teacher instructed his students not to tell their parents he was preaching a vegan agenda in class. I repeat: This was not about veganism. This was about an art teacher who was not doing his job. If I started spouting veganism here, I would expect to be fired, too. But rest assured, my friends, that won't happen -- unless I'm struck on the head by a very heavy object or something. - J.D.