The rest of America is getting crazier than the crazies in the 2024 Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco.

You crazy, America.

Too crazy. Even for Californians.

Put it another way: It makes me crazy just how crazy it is that Americans are crazier than we Californians.

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Because crazy is what California does. Crazy is our core competency. 

Our state was founded on one of history’s greatest crazes, the Gold Rush, which populated this land with crazies from all over the world. 

Since then, California has been shaped by a series of crazes: for fruit, nuts, oil, cars, weapons, aerospace, entertainment, software and the internet. All those crazes were fueled by innovation, which requires some craziness. 

Our leadership in craziness has long gone unchallenged. We produced the Manson family, the People’s Temple and Heaven’s Gate. Californians green-lighted 12 “Fast and the Furious” films and four Jerry Brown gubernatorial terms. 

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Indeed, the whole point of California is that it doesn’t make any sense.

As the author and environmentalist Edward Abbey observed: “There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.” 

Still, California’s singular craziness constituted a national service — by setting a........

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