Via The Anchoress, a nice little Comedy Central segment on Code Pink vs. the U.S.M.C.:

David Linden and I had a discussion in the early 1980s about Berkeley vs. Boston. He had just got back from a trip to Massachusetts, and thought Boston was sort of a "snotty" city. "I mean," he remarked, "that entire place could use a very large Kleenex."

"But isn't Berkeley just as snotty in its own way?" I enquired.

"Well," he responded, "I've never got the impression in Berkeley that it wasn't okay to be an academic. But I certainly had that feeling in Boston."

I do love Berkeley, but part of its charm is its willingness to degenerate into self-caricature. It is a place devoid of irony. Very earnest. And, yes: the crepes are very good there.

My brother The Panther, a muti-decade denizen of the SF Bay Area, has accused me of being "very Los Angeles," and I imagine that's supposed to be a putdown. And yet, one would never hear an Angeleno sigh and remark, upon contemplating a menu in a cute little cafe, that she is "always torn between the sweet and the savory," as David's ex-girlfriend did with me some years ago. I stifled a smile. Torn. Torn.

Because Bay Area folks are every bit as Bay as I am an Angeleno. (Or Angelena. I never can decide whether to feminize that word; most Spanish speakers tell me not to bother, that it can function like the German mann.)

I was never able to get mad at the Berzerkleyites over the Marine recruiting issue; the whole thing just made me giggle. Berkeley is Berkeley, as obligated to act out its role as keeper of the 1960s flame as any picturesque little town along the Rhine, with its people traipsing around in traditional costumes of their own sort. Caught in the past, dependent upon its tourist traps. Living the dream. Have some wine, Man.

* Title stolen from a comedy skit written by my favorite former Marine.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 04:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Perhaps the reason it's hard to kill American soldiers and Marines is that they are really fucking good at what they do.

Just sayin'.

Via Insty.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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