Discipline and Punish and Edit

[My favorite line from today's SF Çhronicle, in a story about the relaxation of civility rules at San Francisco State University:]

["To the relief of a campus Republican group, the 41,700 students of California State University's 23 institutions no longer face the possibility of discipline for failing to be civil to one another."]

[Now, as an acolyte always of Miss Manners, I've never thought civility should be the subject of formal regulation. The actual details of this case are yet another tired claim by conservatives that their poor selves are being discriminated against on campus. While any GOP victory is cause for dismay, I can only laugh that Republicans, once known as the party of rectitude in dress and manner, are now officially free from having to be nice.]

[Off now to Sonoma, not the most Republican place on Earth (although the only Republican I know to speak to lives there), to visit my parents et al. in advance of their incipient three-week trip to South America. Topics at dinner might include what might have been if Michel Foucault and Miss Manners had collaborated on a follow-up to Foucault's Discipline and Punish. Or they might not. Spend the night there, then visit Sean at his parents' over in Concord. A weekend outside San Francisco and all things editorial is just what's needed right now, especially since I just fired off a letter to the editor of the Chronicle castigating them for calling Highway 1 in Pacifica "Pacific Coast Highway" when, as I know you know, that's not its name. *eyeroll*]

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