Where's the beef?

"East-Coaster" is a far too generic term. It really means this: an irresponsible, self-absorbed, boorish, spoiled rich brat from within a 100-mile radius of New York City who looks at"the locals" the same way an 18th-century British lord would look on the American colonists. Every time you see a BMW with Connecticut plates parked with an E-pass, an address in one of the swanky new downtown apartment complexes or full expenses (including bail) paid from daddy's credit card, you've found a genuine East Coaster.\nIt's hard not to show contempt for this type of person, and though I described the East Coasters in the worst of terms, there are degrees of acuteness in their various traits.\nThere are certainly plenty of people like this at IU, however, and not all of them are from the East Coast. "East Coastness" is not a plague confined to any geographic region, but it results from the combination of affluence and lack of a solid upbringing -- the former gives people unlimited means and the latter, unlimited desires.\nWe tend to associate these vices with people from the East Coast (or Chicago) because these areas are wealth-ridden (most likely to produce such a person) and nearby (most likely to produce such a person to attend IU). We don't get many such students from the Southern upper class or SoCal because they aren't as close.\nDon't fault the area for the trash it produces -- that aspect is common to the individual's background and personality, not place of origin.