Not That Anybody Really Cares About Classical Music Agendas or Anything...

I typically give Charles Downey all the latitude he needs when he chooses to cover the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, due to that whole BSO @ Strathmore thingy in Bethesda/Rockville/White Flint/Whatever.

Unfortunately, he made mistake in terminology this weekend. Generally, when people want to pretend that Baltimore and Washington share a market, the correct terminology is “Baltimore-Washington Area.” Some wikipedia geek did the research and this was the results:

Washington radio stations often put Baltimore first - did a quick Google seach - Baltimore-Washington gets 5,230,000 hits (2,080,000 if I screen out BWI and Wikipedia references), Washington-Baltimore gets 667,000. Kmusser 18:21, 25 July 2006 (UTC

Yet, DCist predictably makes the mistake of referring to the pretend shared market as "Washington-Baltimore."

Are Washington’s insecurities so overwhelming that they really have to make up names to make them feel better about themselves? Does pretending Washington comes before Baltimore in the name for the imaginary market put Baltimoreans in their place or something?

Also, if DCist is covering classical music for both Baltimore and Washington, why isn’t DCist covering Baltimore sports? Why isn’t Baltimore art being covered? Why isn’t baltimore food being covered? Why isn’t Baltimore’s other music genres being covered? In those instances when DCist does touch on these issues, why are they treated as the happenings of a far off exurb to a lesser, younger, smaller city? Why aren’t Baltimoreans writing these posts? And for that matter, why is the name “DCist” used when it is wrong for covering both markets, even if and when someone wants to pretend that the two markets are one?

You see, this is exactly what those assholes shouldn't be allowed to vote.