that being said…Ha. I’m a hipster. An aging hipster (oxymoron?).

Me & all my friends qualify.

for me, the only real reason to maybe bash the stereotype of a “hipster” more than any other – ironic plaid pants notwithstanding…and the handlebar mustaches wtf? – is the apathy issue. the whole “lazy self-satisfied baby” thing.

hipsters tend to have strong opinions but little follow-through.

any my fear is, via that laziness, they’ll buy into the guilty liberal thing and vote for who the SFBG tells them to. or Pirate Cat Radio, for god sakes. or, even worse i guess, not vote at all.

but i agree with ct, it’s the nature of the transient. some will stay, and some will achieve their generally-main-stream goals and move on up to whiteyville. most do.

anyways, please, hipsters, truly i love you. transient or not, handlebar moustache or not. i am among your numbers. you are the reason i’ve lived in the hood since 1991… because with you comes good coffee and fun bars. if i harsh on you it’s because there is so much potential for the “hipster” community to improve our hood…and so little activity or involvement.

please, if you live in the Mission in November….please, GET SMART AND VOTE!

But if you consider yourself a temporary resident, you tend not to put as much effort into plugging into your neighborhood — getting to know the neighbors, the people who run the local businesses, etc.

The last one of these flare-ups was 4 or 5 years ago, and this won’t be the last either. It trivializes the problems to say that they can all be solved by talking to your neighbors — but talking to your neighbors does help other things, including getting the word out about problems in the community.

and please please please stop with the ‘white hipster gentrification’ party line – it’s starting to sound like the mission antidisplacement coaltion nuts who shoot themselves in the foot everytime there’s a decent proposal for mixed-use low income housing in the neighborhood (remember the armory proposal?) it’s so retro “third world” politics. the mission, BTW was an irish, Norwegian, German, and Italian neighborhood before the Latinos moved in. So who exactly has been displaced?

Tacchini from what i understand is a bit…uh…politically disadvantaged, career-wise.

also, per other posts, the SROs are a MASIVELY political issue…all tied up in the bullshit “progressive” machine (ie Chris Daly et al)…

so changing them will be hard.

i’m not a violent guy (anymore), and i admit i have really vivid fantasies involving those SROs ans some high powered explosives.

we’d empty them out first, of course.

Check out the Mission Community Council if you want to stay more informed about the neighborhood and how you can be involved in improvement &c. And voting is so easy, if you’re really lazy just register permanent absentee and your ballot will always come to you.

At the risk of sounding like a racist (I’m not, i just walk through there every day and the shit is up in my face every day)….it’s a primarily African American crowd over there, and as we all know, the hood has no significant Black community.

i have no idea if the Mission gangs are the suppliers, but the street action looks imported to me.

i was (poorly) making a point that the Latino community has been in the Mission for over 50 years, and has been largely ignored by the city.

i think the killings are pretty clearly centered in that community – i feel bad for the families – and it’s interesting that that’s pretty much who came to the meeting: Latino activists, other PROGRESSIVES that want to help that community, etc. Pretty much no one else…not in any numbers.

anyways, i think all these comments & thoughts & considerations are great. it’s really a pleasure to see so much passion for our hood.

i’ll say this again & again: if you care about the Mission….and it sounds like you do…

GET SMART AND VOTE!