happy new year!

I encountered Assassins in college. No, I wasn't involved in organized crime/gang activity/paramilitary groups in college.

Assassins.

From Wikipedia:

Assassin (also Gotcha, Assassins, Paranoia, Killer, Tag, or Elimination) is a live-action roleplaying game. Players try to eliminate each other from the game using mock weapons in an effort to become the last surviving player.^[1]

Assassin is particularly popular on student campuses; several universities have a dedicated "Assassins' Guild" society which organizes games for their members.

Assassin is lifestyle-invading. Game-play occurs at all hours and in all places.^[2] Since an elimination attempt could occur at any time, successful players are obligated to develop a healthy degree of watchful paranoia.

Assassins is a game people play in college, to my knowledge at least. A student describes play at Stanford:

“It was really easy to kill people once you finally found them, thanks to a rule that a kill counts if the gun is hidden,” he said. “So we had people sitting down in dining halls and getting shot in plain view of everybody by somebody with binder paper wrapped around their water guns.”

Apparently, this game is not exclusive to the realm of the college campus. Chicago Assassins is Chicago’s premier water gun assassination tournament club and holds three-week tournaments throughout the year in the metro and suburban Chicagoland area, and the next one is scheduled to start 1 January 2008. In 2007, StreetWars came to Chicago. StreetWars began in New York City during the summer of 2004 and is a three week long water gun "assassination" tournament that travels to cities around the world. Created by Franz Aliquo and Yutai Albert Liao, the tournament is based on the college and high school game Assassin.

Here are a few of my favorite Chicago Assassins rules:

• All assassins must conduct tournament play within all applicable city and federal laws.
  • Assassins are not allowed to act like terrorists, break into targets’ homes, eradicate targets in such a way that results in injury, or otherwise break the law during tournament play
  • If an assassin breaks the law at any time during tournament play he or she is immediately disqualified and will forfeit all accumulated points and eligibility of tournament prizes
• Water guns are the on acceptable weapons to be used during tournament play
  • A “water gun” is any apparatus that is designed to create a jet of water
  • Water guns must not have ever held any type of liquid other than water. This includes using a squirt bottle that at one time held a cleaning product but has been “cleaned out really well”
  • Water guns cannot have any type of medical connotation (ear wax bulbs, large plastic syringes, etc. are not allowed)
  • Water guns can be modified, but can never be made to look like an actual firearm. This includes painting a water gun black. Doing this is illegal
  • By using anything other than a tournament-approved water gun, the assassin’s kills are void and assassin is disqualified from tournament

If this game does, in fact, originate from Dorm culture its occurrence in cities certainly is an interesting manifestation of the shifting demographics of cities.

Oh but wait, now you are going to tell me more than ever people are going to college, including low-income, working-class people from cities with possibly an experience allowing them exposure to the organized crime/gang culture this game mimics in a sense -- I believe these populations are less likely to attend campuses affirming four-year degrees (where dorm culture is so salient) and primarily encounter higher education as commuter students in other institutions (where maybe they don't play assassins).

Pew / Internet, Information searches that solve problems: How people use the internet, libraries, and government agencies when they need help

At first glance, I thought the latest Pew / Internet report would suggest who actually uses the internet at the library; it does such while offering a more profound analysis of how people, distinguished by levels of internet access, obtain information regarding "common problems that might be linked to government" [health problems, social security benefits, decisions regarding school enrollment/financing] and which groups frequent the library.

In making the distinction between high and low access, Pew reports that age (generation) emerges as the most salient factor followed by income/education level.

Notably, the report finds that "Since these matters are generally personal in nature, it should not be a surprise that most people (87%) reported using the internet at home, rather than at work or in a public venue, when they sought information or assistance with these matters." So, people are not going to access the internet at the library regarding the topics Pew interrogated.

Who is going to the library for what?

"Young adults in tech-loving Generation Y (age 18-30) [led the pack]" with high-access to the internet for general library patronage. Pew comments, "This is not to say that internet access is the cause of library use: rather, having low-access to the internet is strong proxy for having limited access to or, perhaps, recognizing the need for information."

And, my question, who uses the internet at the library? Evidentially not likely for civic matters or to investigate education, government benefits or aid.

"One demographic group did stand out: African-Americans were by far the most likely to report using the computers at the library, with four out of five reporting such activities. For comparison, just over half of white library users reported such activities at the library."

Regarding computer use at the library, Pew reports that "39% percent of library users report receiving help on reference services and 38% report one-on-one instruction in using computers or the internet".

& Finally, this little bit is interesting:

"Those with low-access are less likely to be satisfied with how things are going in their community, 64%, compared with 71% of respondents overall."

Will the internet/does the internet enhance community/civic life?

Legitimacy, agency, authenticity and other buzzwords.

Recently, a popular Petworth blogger has featured two voices rarely appearing on his side of the world(wide web), transferring them both from their original contexts and into his kingdom. In both cases, the stated identity of the author is disputed by readers in the comments.

Thoughts From A Reader On School Closings

“I am writing today, because i am discouraged by the list of school closings,

Bruce Monroe was on that list and is the best school I have seen in dc!

Yes the building could use some work, but the programs here are awesome to put it in the lease

This school just received a relationship with The Rosenbaum foundation for aSingapore Math pilot program Bringing the worlds foremost math expert on board.

They are about to with with A.I.R and their math group and the Federal Government to implement this.

The staffs morale is hurting and I am so discouraged with this system.

Why should we stay in it.

Do we care about our kids they will be lost and destroyed at Parkview.

Please reconsider this

From the heart of a teacher who cares probably too much

enrollment here is up, test scores are up, help us!!!!!!!!!!!

we have great leadership and our parrents are comming to me and want to go charter after this.

thanks”

eric

This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 9:35 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

The essence of this missive regards the intrinsic values of keeping schools open in communities; however, the resulting conversation revolves not around the author's argument but around legitimacy of the author. The author of the email is denied agency because he/she is held to a standard of spelling and grammar that is not truly relevant to the intent of the message. Interestingly, the blogger, Petworth's prince, recontextualizes this email by introducing the author as a reader with thoughts on school closings, not a teacher, as the writer asserts in the message. Implicitly, the blogger casts shadow on the legitmacy of the email author's authority as a teacher. The blog's readers proceed to dismiss the ideas forwarded in the email because of the manner in which it was written.

I believe that literacy isn't the same written & typed. Writing legibly and correctly is very difficult for me as I type nearly all of my communication. I think at the pace of typing, not writing; my writing suffers accordingly. A large part of my job involves acquainting older people with email and the internet. People I work with often send me emails laden with typographical spelling errors because it is simply too onerous a task to type a perfect message when one is not accustomed to the QWERTY. Furthermore, the author was writing something to a blogger, not to his students. To question his legitimacy as a teacher based on his email to a blogger seems unfair -- it might be fair to say that this person doesn't type well, but is that relevant?

A little googling yields that the school in question is an elementary school. Obviously, it is not my intent to suggest that all elementary school teachers possess the functional literacy of an elementary school child, but it must be recognized that the credentials for elementary school-teaching are not as high as one might think. Case in point, commenter DCer, writing:

That was some serious piss-poor writing. If Mr. Ginsburg is a teacher then he did the second worst job of defending his right to be a teacher, second to Mary Kay LeTourneau that is, let’s be honest. In all seriousness, I think that strange, grammatically incorrect writing style HAD to be some some kind of joke where a local wag pretended to be an incompetent teacher.

I volunteered for the Bruce Monroe library event that Target put together in September and, you know, the school facility was pretty awful. Let’s not forget that Bruce Monroe was one of those horribly-designed “open” classroom spaces that should have been closed down and converted in 1979.

I have a friend who teaches there and she was basically crying that all her friends who never got their teaching certifications were going to be fired.

What? Didn’t Cafritz require those certifications?

Yes, she explained, but a lot of the teachers never bothered to go to college and are upset that they might get fired.

“HIGH FIVE FOR LOSERS GETTING FIRED!” I said. She sighed and said, “Yes, they really should, but some of them are good teachers.” I gave her “that look.” “Ok, she admitted, no good teacher would refuse to get certified or get a Master’s Degree.”

Dr. Ginsburg, if this ridiculous email isn’t a prank, a PhD teacher will have no problem getting a job anywhere.

If you don’t have a PhD, and you aren’t currently in graduate school, you don’t really belong in the teaching field and I’m sure that there will be options for you outside of academia. (emphasis mine)

But I still vote that an email riddled with so many grammatical mistakes was a prank- no one is that stupid.

The commenter makes some pretty interesting inferences, in addition to disputing the legitimacy of the teacher. Not once did the teacher mention anything about job security, yet that is how his message was read by DCer.

I also don't wish to suggest that teaching small children can be done by dunces. But, you don't have to have a masters degree to be an early ed teacher. You don't even need to have a masters degree to teach high school. Many people get k-12 teaching certification while in college; many people get certification after college without being enrolled in a masters program.

Ironic to pick apart the grammar of somebody advocating for education/more resources for schools? Cruel? A way of discrediting the voice of someone seemingly excluded from these conversations who has attempted to enter them, through a private email no less? You decide.

Is it okay to not listen to people who do not speak correctly?

Moving onto the second instance, PrinceOfPetworth replicates a rant posted on the rants and raves section of craigslist DC days after posting an interview with a police commander -- recontextualizing it so as to give an alternative perspective on crime to that forwarded by law enforcement. Of course, the difference is that the ranter is not allowed a conversation with the blogger, rather the ranter is relegated to the commentary of the blogger & his readers, not allowed to respond.

And Now A View From the “Crew”

Yesterday we heard a perspective from law enforcement. So, much like the opposing political party gets some air time after the state of the union, today we will hear from a self proclaimed member of a “crew”. Now, I’ve been called every name in the book, and I have very thin skin so I cry a lot, wait I’m getting off track. Point is I certainly don’t want to be accused of not giving all sides a platform. So a big thanks to my neighbor for pointing out this “rant” from Craig’s List in DC. Now, it is from Craig’s List so I obviously can’t vouch for the author but the original post is here. Without further ado:

“I know who I am. You…not really knowing it…hit it right on the nail!
I am a thug. NO!….I do not rob people or steal from anyone. I work a 60 hour week every single day but Sunday…..but I am a thug!
I carry two guns…..yes, I’m a pistol packing black man whose family can walk their neighborhoods without worrying about being attacked, assaulted, harassed, intimidated or molested…..mainly because I’m a KNOWN THUG.
Everyone knows me in 17 of the criminal neighborhoods in metro DC and PG. They know me as well as my 38 friends….or crew as you might want to call it. My grandmother can walk to the store if she wants and not one hoodlum, crackhead or street urchent(did I spell that right)will accost her….they call her by her name….Hi Mrs.So and So! My sisters and cousins can go to any club in the area and not be molested…because everyone knows who her peeps are..as well as members of my crew…their families are safe as well.
None of my female relatives or acquaintances have to worry about abusive boyfriends or husbands and even the most drunkiest dude who disrespects them at a event, club or venue…..just the mention of a name….either mine or a crew member(sic)will make his ass sober up…stutter and apologize profusely!
If by chance and I do mean…by chance….a family member of close friend is killed…..we don’t need the police, the courts, the fancy lawyers or a technical aquital….we will settle our “own justice” and it works!

Let’s say this ‘hypothetical situation’: Two men are found shot to death in seperate locations. the police don’t put two and two together, but when they do they ALWAYS assume it’s a drug deal gone bad (smile).
When in fact…..it is ‘retribution’ for a street robbery that occurred 6 weeks earlier…a robbery that involved one of our close friends or family members. She’ll never ever have to worry about them coming back to hurt her again or worry about them threatening her or worry about them period.
See problem solved…..not your form of justice….but then again….as you already have stated….I’m thug cultured.”

I just wonder how he rationalizes innocent civilians getting shot in the crossfire of rival crews? And don’t “known thugs” eventually got shot themselves anyway, when someone tries to knock off the big man to show how tough they are?

This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 11:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Similar to the conversation resulting from the blogger showcasing the teacher's email, a lively discussion evolves regarding the authenticity of the "thug". Consistent with the teacher case, grammar and spelling become a point of interest as one commenter writes, "Pretty high level vocabulary for someone who can’t spell “urchin” (but who can spell and use correctly “accost,” “hypothetically,” and “retribution.”) I’m not saying that this fake thug isn’t posting some real thoughts of someone out there…" While there is some debate, a consensus is not completely made and questions of authenticity do not overshadow the content of the rant as much as they do in my other example. Another commenter writes, "I don’t know, the rant sounds pretty legit to me. Everyone IS on the interweb these days."

Notably, these debates regarding what sorts of identities belong online and how they should be articulated occur in blogs pertaining to gentrifying communities. If anything, they indicate the stereotypes that are maintained among the participants. Perhaps they also suggest what types of entities are permissible in their real space community. Obviously, nobody wants their community ridden with violence -- however, the "thug" challenges the matrix of power that sustains the status quo. Likewise, the commentary suggests that full computer literacy is prerequisite to successfully teaching early childhood education.

Miranda (and other readers), what do you think?

men I'd like to talk to talking about a woman I'd love to know

Anthony Townsend and Andrew Blum recently "commiserated about the lack of dialogue between architects/urban designers and information technologists"

Blum references outside.in's Top Bloggiest Neighborhoods list in a piece written for a collection paying tribute to iconoclast urbanist Jane Jacobs, a critic of the 1950s urban renewal politics. Shaw, a gentrified D.C. neighborhood, earns the distinction. Blum too acknowledges that the communities appearing on the list are "gentrifying or recently gentrified". Yet, Blum falls short to probematize completely the effects of social media on changing communities.

But the other striking thing about the list was that all the neighborhoods were in a state of change—gentrifying or recently gentrified. It’s certainly demographic: a neat and obvious alignment of hipster and blogger. But it also means that the newly emerging character of these places is being forged, at least in part, online. These are incontrovertibly real-world neighborhoods, but their community is as virtual as it is physical. With each year, we get better at navigating between the two.

Those bloggy neighborhoods excepted, we’re not fully connected, neighbor to neighbor. But we’re connected enough, I think, that the payoff is becoming visible: in a community where common ties are electronically buttressed, we may be able to reap the global environmental benefit of high-density living without sacrificing the local ties of a medium-density neighborhood.

While not being "fully connected, neighbor to neighbor," Blum fails to recognize what voices are lost in communities as common ties are forged online as a result of inequality regarding internet access and/or realities regarding internet habits particular to certain populations. Perhaps social media has facilitated the a type of new-cyber-urbanism to which Jane Jacobs would certainly object. Richard Florida suggests such is the case, and references a conversation he had with Jane Jacobs:

I don't [think] Jacobs would be a fan - at all. On the one hand, she always brought us back to human beings. Technology would never, ever in her world be a substitute for human interaction. On the other, I don't think she was a great fan of these neighborhoods or what they are becoming. She liked "messy urbanism" - the diverse mix of people, buildings, and uses - of the sort she found on Hudson Street and later in Toronto's Annex and elsewhere around this city. When I asked her about gentrification she said essentially, "There are two kinds". The homogeneous, everything is the same kind, that's happening in many U.S. cities which, she thought, had gone way too far. Then there was "good gentrification." She used Toronto as an example of this - with its diverse mix of people and incomes, where young people fix up old houses next to working class folks and new immigrants, where new shops co-mingle with older hardware stories, butchers, delis, flowers shops and pubs. To drive this point home, she added one my all time favorite zingers: "You know, Richard," she said, "when a place gets boring even the rich people leave."

It is commonly maintained that the internet/social media proves to be the ultimate democratizer. The concept seems reasonable in the era of ubiquitous computing -- everybody has access to the personal computer, computing permeates parts of life never before penetrated digitally. In a sense, the internet could be styled as messy, a space for innumerable ideas originating from everywhere. Or is it?

The blogging community within some of the DC neighborhoods I monitor often generates conversation that seems to emerge by and large from the same locus. It seems to be informed by a pretty homogeneous perspective: young, urban, professional. It aids and abets the type of gentrification Jacobs believed to had gone "too far".

Returning to Blum, what is the true "visible payoff" if the community ties sustained (and forged, I would argue) electronically if not all are logged in? Exclusion & homogenization. I'm concerned about the lack of dialogue between urban designers, information technologists and people with limited access to information technology with roots in changing urban neighborhoods.

Copwatch (REMIX) ft./ PoP & the gentry

As we all know, copwatch is simply the modern incarnation of watching cops abuse marginalized populations (and bourgeois white activists) -- a movement towards police accountability. This concept was created, I believe, by militant groups such as the Black Panthers and Brown Berets in the nineteen-sixties as they monitored police harassment of their communities (check wikipedia if you don't believe me).

Petworth blogger, Prince of Petworth, has recently clamored that the police are not harassing denizens enough.

Thoughts on my Walk Home From the Metro

Have you seen the cop car that has been parked outside the metro for a while around 6 o’clock on New Hampshire Ave. (By the by, the car was gone by 7:15 tonight.) I guess it is in response to the recent criminal activity. So, my concern is that the cops are just sitting in the car. They are certainly visible. But wouldn’t it be better if the car was parked there but they got out of the car and walked up and down New Hampshire. They two cops sitting in the car looked bored out of their minds. As I imagine I would be too. Is the car parked outside the metro in and of itself enough of a deterrent to hinder crime up and down New Hampshire Ave.? I feel like people complained and the powers that be said “alright, park a car outside the metro.” Do you think this is simply pandering? Does it make you feel safer?

So. [watch this super long convoluted, redundant academ-babble]:
As some use the internet to document abusive cops, what is perceived as police inaction inspires online dialogue among others in which a certain belief system manifests -- one that assumes infallibility in the praxis of police authority vis-a-vis a movement predicated on an intrinsic mistrust of this state-vested authority. Stop snitchin'