Six months ago, a Wake County middle school principal, seeking to head off escalating trouble between black and Hispanic seventh-graders, ordered both groups into the school auditorium for separate talks in which she made clear that misbehavior would not be tolerated. Whatever the principal said apparently worked: Tensions were defused, order was restored and authority was established.

The American Civil Liberties Union wants to make sure that never happens again.

The ACLU, on behalf of two parents, this week filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, asking it to do what the school system declined to do — namely, to acknowledge “that the decision to target their children for discipline based on race and ethnicity was made in error and [offer] assurance that it won’t happen again.”

I’ve long admired the ACLU for its willingness to defend the rights of even the most reprehensible souls among us. It’s important and necessary work. But the organization has had its share of clunkers, and this case is one of them. The ACLU seemingly doesn’t understand, or care, that gathering students in an auditorium for a talk from the principal is neither punishment nor discipline. It’s education. It’s teaching them that boundaries are in place, and that actions will have consequences.

How does that become a federal case?

The ACLU has inadvertently provided a peek into the inner workings of the culture of victimization. Its lawyers would have school principals be willfully blind to specific tensions, and instead treat any small, containable trouble as a school-wide problem. Because to do otherwise would be to run the risk that a student might be made to feel that he or she is individually and specifically expected to behave.

And of course, that kind of oppression can’t be tolerated.

Talking to our global enemies, as Barack Obama has indicated he will do, is a fine and noble idea. But as this essay points out, it’s an idea doomed to fail, at least in the case of Iran. The problem, the author explains, is that Iran’s leaders, nearly three decades after seizing power, still consider themselves to be revolutionaries — and as such, they bring zeal, not practicality, to the negotiating table (if they come to the table at all). As the essay notes: “The reason [talks would surely fail] is that Iran is gripped by a typical crisis of identity that afflicts most nations that pass through a revolutionary experience. The Islamic Republic does not know how to behave: as a nation-state, or as the embodiment of a revolution with universal messianic pretensions. Is it a country or a cause?” It’s an important difference, because countries regularly make concessions in order to get concessions. A cause, however, gives no quarter.

If you’re a Democrat, or someone with no political identity beyond a generalized loathing of Republicans, you’ll love this piece from the recent New Yorker. It makes the compelling case that conservatism as a movement has exhausted itself, largely because it always worked better as a force of opposition rather than as a ruling party. With Democrats now the ascendant political organization, the GOP is headed for a long period in the wilderness. But don’t exult too quickly: The article finishes by noting that John McCain is the sole Republican who could buck that inexorable tide.

I’ll finish today with a pop quiz. What does this site do that Words Assembled Well used to do, but no longer does? The first person to answer correctly wins a Yankee dime.

For a while, Michael Peterson — the Triangle columnist/novelist who killed his wife and is now serving a life sentence in prison — provided me with a surefire conversation starter whenever I was introduced to someone: “I’m the Triangle columnist/novelist who didn’t kill his wife,” I’d say.

As far as I know, Peterson and I were the only two people in the area who fit that description. It gave us a certain kinship.

That bizarre bond doesn’t extend far, though. And it certainly doesn’t extend far enough for me to climb aboard the theory that Kathleen Peterson’s death was actually the result of an owl attack, as Peterson’s former Durham neighbor claims.

The neighbor, whose name is Larry Pollard, has spent years collecting information to support his thesis. He told the News & Observer recently that prosecutors now have a duty to re-examine the Peterson case:

“If this is potentially exonerating evidence, then the state has a responsibility to look at it,” Pollard said. “If they don’t look at it and just blow it off, they’re doing just what they did with the Duke lacrosse case. All of this may be coincidence. I don’t know. But the state has a responsibility, a duty to look at it.”

Uh, Larry? There’s a big difference between evidence and a theory. You don’t have evidence. You only have what might be politely called an “interesting idea” about the case. I’m sure you get a lot of mileage out of it at cocktail parties and such. But until an owl comes forth and confesses to having attacked Kathleen Peterson, it’s never going to matter how plausible you manage to make this theory. There’s nothing in the way of tangible evidence to back it up, and there never will be. It’s not the sort of thing that can be proven.

In short, Larry, the state isn’t required to gum up the legal system so that any wild theory to a crime can be aired. Furthermore, your invocation of the Duke lacrosse case only demonstrates the essential silliness of your crusade. There was actual exonerating evidence available to investigators in that case.

But their problem was that they instead bought the accuser’s wild story about a rape — a tale that was almost as crazy as yours.