SO-CALLED JOURNALISM: INDY LOOKS AWAY FROM REAL NEWS TO GAZE AT CORNELL

While Santa Barbarans navigate soaring gas prices, property tax hikes, and the ever-present threat of another 'sustainable' development project that looks suspiciously like more luxury condos, the crack team over at the Santa Barbara Independent has found a truly pressing local issue to tackle: student life at Cornell University. One has to admire the dedication. While regular folks worry about their utility bills, the Indy's intrepid reporters are apparently scanning newsfeeds for any prestigious, far-off institution to pontificate about, perhaps hoping some of that East Coast elite intellectualism might rub off on their pages.

It makes you wonder, doesn't it? Is there a burgeoning trend of Santa Barbara students suddenly transferring en masse to Ithaca, New York, that we're all missing? Or perhaps a significant endowment from Cornell to the Independent's newsroom that warrants such journalistic globetrotting? Given the typical fare, one might even suspect they're trying to distract readers from the actual local issues that might make certain elected officials or developers uncomfortable.

Indeed, while the Indy's blurb gestures vaguely at issues on 'all of our colleges and universities,' the actual headline points squarely at Cornell, an institution notorious for attracting the progeny of the very coastal elites who fund and dictate much of California's progressive agenda. It’s a convenient narrative, allowing them to moralize on a distant problem without having to confront the uncomfortable realities of their own backyard – like, say, the ever-expanding bureaucratic bloat at our *actual* local university, UCSB, or the skyrocketing cost of living that makes attending *any* local college a pipe dream for most working families. But hey, at least we know what's happening in upstate New York!