“What aspects of the course could use improvement or change?”

This standard course evaluation question elicited a not-so-standard reply from University of Georgia student Brian Beck, who began with “Joe Disponzio is a complete asshole,” ended with “To hell with all gay teachers who are terrible with their jobs,” and included in the middle some remarks that make South Park look positively PC.

Beck’s brashness, while it certainly won’t win him a spot among my Top Friends, can probably be explained (though not excused) by the fact that course evaluations are — at least ostensibly — completely anonymous. As any stall in a public bathroom will demonstrate, anonymity can unleash the (often stupid) beast within. But anonymity, however scary, should be protected when it’s been promised.

The University of Georgia disagrees.

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“This is America. When ordering, speak English.”

So reads the now-infamous sign in the takeout window at Geno’s Steaks, where you used to be able to order a cheesesteak without a side of backwards politics. The sign — probably offensive and definitely stupid (after all: if you can read the sign, you can probably speak English) — led to a June 2006 civil rights complaint from the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission.

That’s all old news — or so I’d hope. Philly certainly doesn’t need anymore bad PR, especially when it doesn’t even represent the dominant attitude on the ground. But the Commission’s glacial pace has dragged this ordeal out for well over a year now, and — in lieu of either punishment or closure for Geno’s owner Joey Vento — they have provided instead a year of free publicity and a national spotlight. While the original sign was only seen by Geno’s patrons, images of it now appear all over the internet.

Xenophobic conservatives across the country have rallied behind Mr. Vento, labeling the City’s complaint as persecution and even going so far as to dub him a folk hero.

Yikes.

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