Can You Dig(nify) It?

Here's a nice juxtaposition from two articles on facing pages of today's Austin American-Statesman:

In a story about a conservative radio host named Laura Ingraham visiting Austin, Ingraham is quoted as saying, "'Red state America loves our military. We know what blue state America stands for. It means that being pro-life is being for the spotted owl, the snail darter, a centipede. Red state America is about being for human dignity.'"

Across the page is a story to illustrate her point:

"Five people were hospitalized after what reportedly began as a spring break fistfight snowballed to a fight involving more than a hundred people near the Radisson Resort, near the southern end of [Padre] island.
The cause of the 5:30 p.m. melee remained unknown Wednesday, but witnesses told The Brownsville Herald on Tuesday that it could have been caused by the destruction of a religious sand sculpture or sparked by rivalries between schools.
Some witnesses said the brawl was mostly between students from the University of Texas and Oklahoma University. Others said it was between UT and Texas A&M students, and some witnesses said the brawl involved Baylor University students. [...] Some witnesses said the brawl was started by people who intentionally walked on a sand sculpture of Jesus, but others said the work of art was a casualty of the violence. "

Don't be so sure that the students trampling the sand Jesus were people of blue-state values, either. They may have been attempting to uphold the second commandment, which forbids the making of graven (or gravel) images.

A minor complaint, but I wish that the second article had used the word donnybrook. It is St. Patrick's Day, after all, and would thus have been much more appropriate than melee.