A Worker's Paradise

Welcome to the People’s Republik of Berkeley. Perhaps welcome is too strong a term for a guy who, without so much as thinking twice about it, donned his USMC (Semper Fi) t-shirt this morning before flying out to the Bay Area. What’s this? An American who supports America? In Berkeley? Who’s the freak now?

Entre nous, had the Marine Corps shirt been the result of an enlightened frolic through the closet, I might have expected to be viewed as I was: the obvious outsider. Such at it was, however, it took me several awkward minutes and several more awkward stares before comprehension rose above my horizon. Nevertheless, Berkeley seems to have that effect on an outsider, military garb or no. It takes more than one trip through the streets and alleys around the University of Kalifornia before it dawns on you that there is no method to the madness, nor is there an escape, for Berkeley is not a city that hides its fruit-basket tendencies, nor does it tacitly acknowledge them and move on. No, Berkeley revels in its insanity.

Why won’t Berkeley fall into the ocean when the “big one” hits? Because there’s a wingnut on every corner.