This morning, Adam Beam to brings my attention a pair of columns, the first from The State:

By NEIL WHITE — nwhite@thestate.com

Hey, everybody, great news!

In fact, this news is so great that I’ve been asked to write about it instead of reporting on the South Carolina football team’s backup long snappers.

It seems that some outfit called Kiplinger’s has ranked Columbia as the No. 5 city in the United States on a recent Top 10 Great Places to Live list. It’s true, I swear.

Of course, there is one caveat. This list only includes cities with a population under one million in the metropolitan area, which means that Columbia didn’t have to compete with beautiful bigger cities like Detroit….

… and the second from The Post and Courier:

It’s so nice to see Columbia finally get some national recognition and long-overdue accolades.

After years of watching Charleston rack up all those awards — Most Mannerly City, Greatest Tourist Destination in the Universe, Best City in the South (Especially in South Carolina) — a lot of folks in the Lowcountry have been worried that our sister city to the north might develop a case of list envy.

But now Kiplinger’s, the personal finance magazine, has ranked Columbia No. 5 on its 2013 list of “10 Great Places to Live.”

Frankly, folks around here are probably surprised Columbia lost the No. 1 spot to Little Rock…

Of course, what these dueling columns are about is not which city is greater, but which paper employs a bigger smart-ass.

Sorry, Neil, but I’m afraid Brian Hicks wins that one, for this bit:

Instead, we should just lament that Kiplinger’s failed to mention the stirring sound of a rooster crowing, which is broadcast throughout downtown on Fridays during football season.

Now that’s culture…

I’m afraid that just beats out Neil’s classy parenthetical:

(I’m sure if horse poop had been one of the criteria, Charleston would have rocketed up the list.)

But then, the losing party is often capable of putting a sharper edge on its gibes, an edge born of bitterness. Of course, we knew the Holy City could do snobbery. Unfortunately, it has yet to breed a humorist capable of concocting anything that touches this classic:

Q: How many Charlestonians does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Six. One to change it, and five to sit about talking about how grand the OLD bulb was…

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