Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Fightin' words?

Evidently, in some parts of San Francisco, singing the national anthem, or kissing a girl, can be an excuse for breaking a guy's jaw. If we doubt that we are becoming two nations, this would be exhibit A to prove the point.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Much as I am skeptical of the tendencies of SF culture, I can't quite consider the brawling of two sets of adolescent drunks at a party as providing insight to the local culture in which the brawling occurs. Call me liberal. ;-)

Anonymous said...

To be a bit more illustrative, I'm fairly sure you're just as likely to get your face bashed at a party for kissing the wrong girl in Nashville, as on the Left Coast.

Bike Bubba said...

:^) That said, the article also says they got in trouble after singing the national anthem--hard to envision that in "flyover country."

Unless they did it badly.

brian compton said...

I will have to agree with pentamom on this one. You use an example that is less than convincing to back your geo-targeted assumptions that our county is divided. While I could not agree more with you about the fact the division in this great land, this seems like a late night fight after a NYE party, not an outright move against patriotism.

The article says this about he victims."

"The Yale boys were not little angels," Collins said. "They were argumentative, uncooperative with police and intoxicated."

****

What was really hot in the news out here last week was this story about a road-rage shooting.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local&id=6073776

Anonymous said...

The fight started after singing the anthem AND somebody kissing a girl. And it doesn't say that the CA boys were made BECAUSE the Yalies sang the anthem -- maybe they didn't like the way they sang it, maybe they sang it after being told to shut up...there's just a whole lot of context we don't have here.

Listen, I can understand the point about it sounding uniquely San Franciscan to beat people up for singing the national anthem. But we really can't tell from this abbreviated and most likely very tangled (all the parties being drunk) account what was really going on, and we simply don't have enough information to assume that the fight happened specifically because the SF boys "don't like patriotism."

Bike Bubba said...

Wait a second here; let's keep in mind that the evidence that this is not the "standard San Francisco area narrative" does happen to be coming from the defense attorney.

There may be some evidence here, but quite frankly, I'm not going to take it terribly seriously until it comes from someone besides the perps and their lawyer.

Anonymous said...

Here's the problem, Bert: they're ALL perps. They were ALL fighting. The only evidence that it IS the typical San Francisco narrative comes from a bunch of drunks.

Bike Bubba said...

They're all drunks according to a defense lawyer who's actively using the "smear the victim" defense, sister. Call me suspicious.

The point that it may not end up being the "standard SF narrative" is well taken. I just can't accept the testimony of a defense lawyer at face value to begin with, and especially not when "smear the victim" appears to be his strategy. I've just seen too many cases where that strategy is better called "slander the victim."