Seen yesterday at Union Square, pre-game pep rally in prep for The Big Game on Saturday…

The Cal vs. Stanford rivalry is the only college rivalry that is actually based on social ideology.  And by ideology, I don’t mean the traditional left/right variety.

Stanford is a school next to a mall and some golf courses.  The faculty is populated by cheerful well-to-do authority figures who want you to be like them.  They serve as your counselor, they help you choose your classes, they advise on fraternity memberships.  They want you to succeed, because you’re one of them - the few, the proud, the elite, the future 94123 d’bag.  You exit Stanford feeling really, really, really good about yourself.  And take with you 200k in debt.

On the contrary, you exit Cal-Berkeley happy to have survived the experience.  Berkeley is exhilarating; and Berkeley is real.  Surviving Berkeley is: being broke for 4 years.

Both sets of alumni wish to run the world, but only one group of alumni feels entitled to run it straight into the ground.

Leland Stanford didn’t attend the university that bears his name.  He simply founded it — with money stolen from the pockets of the working class citizens of San Francisco.  For shame, Mr. Stanford.  For shame.

The University of California, by contrast, was established by Henry Haight in 1868.  The UC was designed on the University of Michigan model and sought to make higher education available to all residents of the state, regardless of their ability to pay.

It’s not jealousy, it’s resentment — and there’s a big difference.  You see, we know those smug, snarky clowns in red and white are someday going to make The Bay Area a worse off place, if they haven’t already.  And we are not happy about it.

Your Editor is by no means a sports fan.  He knows very little about it.  With that said, if we had to predict the outcome of The Big Game based solely on attractiveness of the cheerleaders and skills of the band — our money is on the fellows in maize and blue.

Cheerleading Stanford Youtubage here.

Cheerleading Cal-Berk Youtubage here.

Flickr set here.