Down With Fancy Book Learnin'

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 11/12/4 | Mark Morford

[SmithL]

Is this why everything's so mangled? Is this why we're so divided?

Is this why we're so damned confused and bothered and itchy and wondering why we are ever at each others' throats and ever snickering in each others' direction and ever sighing heavily and wishing we could somehow have a magic glimpse into the year 2104 to see how the hell we survive it all?

Because there remains this astonishing and yet ever present fact: all the major cities of America, the great cultural centers and the places with the most concentrated populations and the most extraordinary restaurants and the highest percentage of college graduates and the most progressive laws and the truest sense of the arts and food and sex and music and dance and money and technology and lubricant and drugs and porn and love and fashion and spirituality, well, it seems they all voted blue.

True. From terrorism-ravaged New York to Botox-ravaged Los Angeles, Chicago to San Francisco, Philly to Portland, Seattle and Miami and Boston and Minneapolis and Detroit -- blue as the sky, blue as the Danube, blue as the color of your soul-crushin' wine-slammin' I-need-a-bath-and-an-emetic postelection melancholy.

And what's so frighteningly cute in a slit-your-karmic-wrists sort of way about this whole election thing is how astoundingly vicious and ingrained and apparent the Great American Culture War has become, has evolved, has mutated and grown and smiled and is right now eating us alive and belching out a great cloud of regressive, conformist exhaust.

[SmithL]

Morfordite Alert

[wideawake]

Mark, honey, I can read in ten different languages and I still voted for the President.

[asgardshill]

eating us alive and belching out a great cloud of regressive, conformist exhaust.

Mark Morford - America's subject matter expert on eating things and stuff coming out of tail(pipes).

[NRA1995]

I love the smell of sour grapes in the morning.....smells like victory

[SmithL]

Here's the Map:

[KJacob]

Has this person not seen the inner cities? Surburbs tend to vote Republican. But I guess hearing him whine is better than hearing him gloat.

[Rummyfan]

Is this why we're so damned confused and bothered and itchy and wondering why we are ever at each others' throats and ever snickering in each others' direction and ever sighing heavily and wishing we could somehow have a magic glimpse into the year 2104 to see how the hell we survive it all?

Itchy? Speak for yourself Mr Morford.

Because there remains this astonishing and yet ever present fact: all the major cities of America, the great cultural centers and the places with the most concentrated populations and the most extraordinary restaurants and the highest percentage of college graduates and the most progressive laws and the truest sense of the arts and food and sex and music and dance and money and technology and lubricant and drugs and porn and love and fashion and spirituality, well, it seems they all voted blue.

Truest sense of sex and lubricant and drugs and porn? What a sad sad man.

[Izzy Dunne]

the truest sense of the arts and food and sex and music and dance and money and technology and lubricant

Whoa, stop right there - the "truest sense of lubricant" ???? I have a hunch he's not talking about Pennzoil 30W.

[Hoodlum91]

????

The inner cities are a bastion of knowledge? What is this man on?

BTW, I'm a Mensa member and I voted for Bush.

[Dallas59]

Because there remains this astonishing and yet ever present fact: all the major cities of America, the great cultural centers and the places with the most concentrated populations and the most extraordinary restaurants and the highest percentage of college graduates and the most progressive laws and the truest sense of the arts and food and sex and music and dance and money and technology and lubricant and drugs and porn and love and fashion and spirituality, well, it seems they all voted blue.

That's why the majority of Americans said NO to Kerrys agenda.

[Murp]

The average grade level of those inner city voters, that turned the metros blue, would not approach 5th grade.

[TheBigB]

"truest sense of lubricant"

There's got to be some way to turn that phrase into a tagline, but I don't know if I'm brave enough to try...

[najida]

Geez,
This guy is such a social bigot.

Stupid one too.

(And I have two degrees and I voted for Bush)

[Porterville]

I didn' know Dallas voted for the loser... or Bakersfield or Fresno or Sacremento or the host of other city centers away from the coasts.

[TheBigB]

Your two degrees, Dumplin', are "hot" and "scalding hot."

[sandalwood]

Of course, there are plenty of exceptions, plenty of well-educated culturally astute people across the land who somehow still voted for Bush, often against their own interests or deeper conscience

STFU and stop pretending like you know any "well-educated culturally astute" people and can somehow speak to their "own interests or deeper conscience".

Sheesh...some people think they know everything.

[randog]

(And I have two degrees and I voted for Bush)

Same here. Two SCIENCE degrees (not leftist arts degrees Certificates-of-Completion) and I've been to every continent except Africa and Antarctica (and not sure I want to add those to the list).

[najida]

Awwwwhhhh sugar-bugger,
You make me blush!

[najida]

Well,
I have one in an art and one in a science (which blew my professors away) because I have equal use of both sides of my brain.

HOWEVER, I still can't balance my checkbook worth a damn :(
So that chunk of my brain is still out to lunch.

[bella1]

I'm sorry, but did he just cite Detroit as a center of culture and enlightenment and fine resaurants? Your kidding, right? Oh, by the way, I graduated college on the Dean's list and voted for Bush.