“Near” the Heart of Ignorance

Yesterday, in the DCist feature “Photo of the Day,” Tom Lee posted a photo of Baltimore’s Christmas Street in Hampden, which he was kind enough to inform the readers of a webpage supposedly about DC, is “NEAR” Baltimore. Thankfully, commenters chimed in with a collective WhatTheFuck?, to which Tom Lee responded:

Sorry for my ignorance of Charm City. I'd checked Hampden's location in Google Maps, but a quick glance left me thinking it probably counted as the Baltimore suburbs. Thanks for the correction.

Tom, here is a map of Baltimore with a red dot denoting the location of Hampden:



You are like, the worst quick glancer, ever. Monkeys are probably better google map readers than you. Hampden is “near” baltimore like a heart is near a chest cavity. You are the resident DCist technologist, right?!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than willing to forgive your ignorance of Baltimore. I expect it. There is nothing wrong with someone with absolutely no familiarity with a rather significant American city not being able to identify one of its most famous neighborhoods. I am sure there are some Americans who think Central Park is near Manhattan. I personally would be at a loss if asked to identify Silver Lake... or Venice Beach... or West Hollywood on a map of Los Angeles. I have no clue where 8 Mile is located... or Gross Point. Hell, I’m not even sure is Gross Point is even inside Detroit. No disrespect to Detroit, it’s just that I’ve never been there.

You were raised in Arlington. Why would you know anything about Baltimore? Of course you don’t know that there is a city outside the Inner Harbor. By the way, not that this hasn't been drummed loudly enough already, the Inner Harbor is a theme park which exists for the sole purpose of selling outsiders hats shaped like blue crabs. That isn’t Baltimore. You’ve never actually been to Baltimore. Not that you would even necessarily want to.

Obviously, what I am unwilling to forgive is DCist’s insistence of including my city in the coverage of your city when you obviously don’t have the first clue as to what you are talking about. You don’t even know that what is arguably its most famous and definitive neighborhood is located practically in the center of that city, because from your ignorant outsider’s perspective the only part of this city that exists is the Inner Harbor.

And yet, DCist STILL thinks it is qualified to cover Baltimore as though it is their possession. I know, by some perspectives, Baltimore is not huge; but it is bigger than, has a stronger cultural vernacular and a far more distinct identity than the pompous, pretentious transient shit hole that you call home. DCist should really consider its own actual perspective before it claims bigger cities as suburbs. At least that’s my perspective, anyway.

I’ll just have to remember that next time I find myself “near” DC in Shaw or Dupont Circle or something.

I Guess Our Trial Seperation is Over?

>> A local blogger finds joy in the single masses in Adams Morgan. Probably more fun than stepping in discarded jumbo slice and running into underage girls dressed as prostitutes. [Talkin' Shit About a Pretty Sunset]

>> Just when you though Adams Morgan was the "hot" hookup place, here comes Baltimore City jail. A woman is charged with forging documents and pretending to be a lawyer in order to see an inmate and fornicate. What happened to the good, old fashioned, legal, conjugal visit? [NBC4]

Oh, Lindsay. More so than any other DCist contributor, you seem compelled to pretend that DC and Baltimore are all part of one big happy metropolitan area.

Admittedly, you’re never obnoxious about it, which compels me to try my best to not be obnoxious towards you. Lord knows I was obnoxious enough in my last post, and I would rather not be that much of a shithead again if I could avoid it. Ideally, I would like to never post here again, but you people keep pulling me back in. But I digress.

Why is it, I wonder, you’re so determined to include Baltimore news on a website about D.C.? Oh, THAT’S WHY (yesterday’s Arch piece was the tip off for me, just in case you were wondering).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad our city was able to build and provide for you such a top rate education, but being the host city of your alma matter does not make that city part of the city in which you reside. Nobody in DC cares about the news in your old townie town. If you want to keep up with the news in you old college town, bully for you, but why include it on the pages of DCist? Do other DCist contributors include news from Chicago, Cambridge, Los Angeles or whatever other city their old college was located in their posts in the pages of DCist? Just remember what your experiences and orientation seminars at Hopkins taught you about Baltimoreans - that we’re provincial, scary, common, dangerous, ignorant, possibly lacking opposable thumbs, unworthy of your acknowledgment - except for the occasional frat theme party - and best to be avoided at all costs.

I know, I know. It is unfair of me to presume that that was the long and the short of your Hopkins Baltimorean experience. For all I know you could be the sweetest person in the Universe and embraced this city with open arms while you were studying here. I’m basing my assessment on my experiences with EVERY OTHER HOPKINS STUDENT that I have ever met, and that is completely prejudicial of me. So sorry. But please understand, you're a Washingtonian now, and due to the particular nature of the relationship between the Hopkins student body and the city of Baltimore, you were arguably never a Baltimorean... even when you lived here. That might make you happy, that may not. I don't know. But the undeniable facts of the matter are you have your economy, we have ours. You have your culture, we have ours. You have your creative entities, we have ours. And most importantly, you have your media market, we have ours.