MEANWHILE, IN PALO ALTO…: I’m

MEANWHILE, IN PALO ALTO…: I’m just going to reprint this Reuters story (which CNN is also running) on the recent machinations of the Palo Alto City Council in its entirety and let everyone have a good laugh: “In a bid to improve civility in the town’s public discourse, a committee on the city council has ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

MEANWHILE, IN PALO ALTO...: I'm just going to reprint this Reuters story (which CNN is also running) on the recent machinations of the Palo Alto City Council in its entirety and let everyone have a good laugh: "In a bid to improve civility in the town's public discourse, a committee on the city council has spent hours debating guidelines for its own behavior. 'Do not use body language or other nonverbal methods of expression, disagreement or disgust,' a new list of proposed conduct rules reads. Another rule calls for council members to address each other with titles followed by last names, a formality not always practiced in laid-back California. 'I don't want to muzzle my colleagues,' councilwoman Judy Kleinberg, who headed the committee that drafted the rules, told the San Jose Mercury News. But, she added: 'I don't think the people sitting around the cabinet with the president roll their eyes.'" [Are you painting a fair portrait here?--ed. OK, for more context -- which does suggest that perhaps Reuters is overhyping the story -- here's a Palo Alto Weekly recap on the origins of this proposal. Was that an eye roll? C'mon, I saw that!!--ed. Too bad we moved away from Palo Alto in 1996]

MEANWHILE, IN PALO ALTO…: I’m just going to reprint this Reuters story (which CNN is also running) on the recent machinations of the Palo Alto City Council in its entirety and let everyone have a good laugh: “In a bid to improve civility in the town’s public discourse, a committee on the city council has spent hours debating guidelines for its own behavior. ‘Do not use body language or other nonverbal methods of expression, disagreement or disgust,’ a new list of proposed conduct rules reads. Another rule calls for council members to address each other with titles followed by last names, a formality not always practiced in laid-back California. ‘I don’t want to muzzle my colleagues,’ councilwoman Judy Kleinberg, who headed the committee that drafted the rules, told the San Jose Mercury News. But, she added: ‘I don’t think the people sitting around the cabinet with the president roll their eyes.'” [Are you painting a fair portrait here?–ed. OK, for more context — which does suggest that perhaps Reuters is overhyping the story — here’s a Palo Alto Weekly recap on the origins of this proposal. Was that an eye roll? C’mon, I saw that!!–ed. Too bad we moved away from Palo Alto in 1996]

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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