So many people complain about the incivility of modern life there must be something to it. Louts abound, they say. Cretins and clods proliferate. Boors and churls fill in the gaps.

Fact is, some days you feel none too cordial yourself.

This social malaise is rampant and escalating. How do we know? You the People tell us so.

Nobody pumps your gas anymore, grumps a correspondent. And the dude who takes your money looks at you funny and asks whats wrong with your credit card. Like making change is such a bother.

Another laments:

You can dial 10 businesses in a row without hearing a single `live voice. When an actual person picks up, they say peevishly, `And whats so important today that you need to TALK about it, sir?

The list of grievances goes on enough to clog your Kindle. Some of them are too colorfully worded to see light in your everlovin Beacon, but the common denominator is indelible. Frustration!

Now comes a remedy.

Simply put, its this:

Mandate good manners.

Happened in Deerfield, Florida, where a city employee strolled past the mayor one morning without saying hello. Mayor fumed. The employee was summoned to the office and told she had caused her department and fellow workers irrevocable damage.

By the way, her supervisor added, as of now youre suspended.

Employee said later, They talked about firing me. I cant lose this job! My family needs to eat.

Do such naked fear tactics work?

Perhaps in Florida, you say they havent even learned to count votes there yet. But citizens in more enlightened communities would recoil from having their niceness mandated by fiat.

Just the same, there are times when regulating public behavior might come in useful around here.

At Edmonds City Council meetings, the comment period could be monitored by a voice meter. If a speakers testiness slides over into abuse, he or she gets the hook. A second offense activates the trap door to the basement located under the speakers microphone. Mandated insult control.

At the 5^th and Main Street fountain, where motorists are obliged to wait their turn before proceeding, anyone who selfishly jumps the queue can be stopped and directed to the Fishing Pier, then told to keep driving. A sound recorder will capture the ensuing SPLASH for educational purposes. Mandated drivers ed.

No doubt you have suggestions of your own, no doubt equally helpful. Meantime lets look in on that female employee in Deerfield, Florida who, as it turns out, wasnt suspended after all.

Instead the city administration issued her with a citation detailing the nature and gravity of her offense. Today this Scarlet Letter occupies a permanent place in her employee file. A stark reminder.

Has she neglected to say hello to anyone since? Whether a mayor, councilor or passing felon?

Not a chance! she says. I say hello coming and going, just to make sure I get all the syllables in the right places.

Maybe, just maybe, there are worse things than a perceived lack of civility.

Maybe we just found out what they are.

An honest mistake (or two)

If you happened to miss the New York Times correction of one of its recent articles, we reprint it here at no extra charge:

Our appraisal of Walter Cronkite's career included a number of errors. It misstated the date the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and referred incorrectly to Mr. Cronkite's coverage of D-Day. Dr. King was killed April 4, 1968, not April 30. Mr. Cronkite covered the D-Day landing from a warplane; he did not storm the beaches.

In addition, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, not July 26. The CBS Evening News overtook the Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC in the ratings in the 1967-68 television season, not after Chet Huntley retired in 1970. A communications satellite used to relay correspondents' reports from around the world was Telstar not Telestar.

Lordy, Myrtle! All those errors in just one news story! And this in the hallowed NY TIMES!

But at least thats the full list, right?

Well, no

Howard K. Smith was NOT one of the CBS correspondents Mr. Cronkite would turn to for reports from the field after he became anchor of the CBS Evening News in 1962, the mea culpa goes on. Mr. Smith left CBS before Mr. Cronkite was the anchor. And because of an editing error, the appraisal also misstated the name of the news agency for which Mr. Cronkite was Moscow bureau chief after World War II. At that time it was United Press; it was not United Press International

And so on. The marathon correction fell just a little short of being as long as the original article.

But whos laughing? Not your everlovin Beacon. Time now for some soul baring of our own.

Only last week we misspelled a word in a headline. Rarely happens, but we erred. Egregiously. Threw an e into ballyhoo where none belonged.

We were stricken. Distraught, even. Our entire staff felt the pain. And it was still several hours before the bars opened.

Now, thanks to the Times public plunge from the pinnacle, were over it. As they say in Jockville, weve got our swagger back.

If it can happen to the New York Times