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Keller @ Large: Who Says Boston Is Inferior?

BOSTON (CBS) -- Saturday's Globe offers up the dubious premise that the debate over bringing the Summer Olympics here has raised a question: "Do we still have an inferiority complex?"

As the basis for this, the Globe cites the pot-stirring reaction to our selection as the US bid city by a columnist for the L.A. Times, who reveals his own city's inferiority complex by taking gratuitous swipes at Fenway Park, Bill Belichick, and Dunkin Donuts, three great things about Boston that L.A. can only wish they had.

Also quoted: a snotty column from the New York Times, which flatly asserts that "Boston is wrapped up in an existential debate with itself about whether it is a 'world-class' city."

Those rubes are still smarting from the fact they paid more than 10 times more for the Globe than it was worth, an experience comparable to buying a burger in Manhattan.

This is all just a waste of time, newsprint and breath.

There is no debate over whether or not Boston is a "world-class" city, whatever that means.

As John Fish, head of the Boston Olympic booster group, notes, the world already sends its students, its researchers and its patients here, not to mention the international tourists who vote with their wallets.

Whatever our problems with poverty, traffic or dysfunctional politics might be, they are nothing compared to the cesspools of New York and L.A.

Are we too parochial sometimes? Maybe, but with good reason.

So go ahead, ask your made-up questions about our "inferiority complex."

Just know that they're the hallmark of an inferior mind.

You can listen to Keller @ Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

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