THOSE CHAMPAIGN COUNTY BLUES

URBANA- When I asked a veteran Downtown Urbana regular what he thought of the Blues, Brews and BBQ Festival, his first reaction was negative, citing the lack of local musicians, local eateries, and microbreweries appearing at the event. His comment echoes the editors of Smilepolitely, who observed far too many local restaurants were missing from this year's Taste of C-U over in that other town, and no real explanation has been offered to account for that.

Someone named Mike posted to the SmilePolitely website the following explanation for why local restaurants don't participate at the Taste of the other town this past June:

 I am sure the greater majority of them have run the numbers and many (most) have decided it’s not worth the expenses to them. Last time I checked (several years ago), entry fees, tent rental, and health permits, were almost $800, and that’s before transport, equipmet rental, food costs, and staffing costs (staff’s HATE working the Taste, and contrary to popular belief cannot be forced to work it), likely another $2-3000 at least. For a small business that likely represents more than a whole day’s gross receipts with no payback. Billboard/TV/Radio ad contracts for several months are less than that. After all, it’s not the vendors’ civic duty to represent at the Taste.

I agree that the BB&B Festival was pretty lame, but I don't think the reasons are what you think they are.

First of all, there's just too much live music in this town for anyone to get too worked up about a live music festival.  I mean, every night of the week, any day of the year, there's live music going on in bars all over town.  All kinds of it.  For a town this size, it's simply ridiculous how much live music there actually is.  That's certainly a good thing, but the problem is, why would I go to a festival on one weekend, for something I can get anytime I want, anywhere in town?  Sure, I suppose it's nice that kids get to go to the festival.  But how many teens and tweens do you really think there are who are interested in the blues? 

I mean, I suppose, if I was a die-hard blues fan, it might be kind of cool to hear the son of one of my favorite blues musicians playing.  But then, if I was a die-hard blues fan, I'd probably be turned off by the fact that most of what they were playing (at least while I was there) was what I would call "blues rock" rather than "the blues".  See this slightly-overlong clip from the movie "Ghost World" for a somewhat exaggerated demonstration of this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaM6lTmhnak

Secondly, there's the "Brews" part.  You complain that there weren't any local microbrews there.  Well, I suppose you're right, but what local microbrews?  I mean there are a couple of VERY, VERY small ones, but this isn't Denver, CO.  The only brews I saw people drinking were those blue plastic cups full of Miller Lite.  Fine, if that's what you want, but once again, any crappy little bar in this town, no matter how cheesy, would have a better selection than that, so why go out to a festival?

And barbecue?  Let's not kid ourselves here.  This is not Texas.  It's not Memphis.  It's not even St Louis.  It's Urbana, IL.  Yeah, you can GET barbecue here.  You can get barbecue in any town this size or larger.  You can GET gyros and sushi here too.  Don't you think it would be a little stupid to have a sushi festival here? 

That's really the problem.  This festival was just something made up, that has pretty much zero reflection on the town we're in.  Nobody cares about it, because it's not an organic expression of what this town is about.  At least the Sweetcorn Festival makes sense.  Travel about one foot beyond the city limits, and you will see more corn than you would ever have cared to lay eyes on (not sweet corn, per se, but you take what you can get).  That's how most festivals tend to be.  Like, the Broomcorn Festival in Arcola may seem lame and stupid to an outsider, but, well, Arcola WAS the broomcorn capital of the world there for awhile.  It might still be, for all I know.  It's something unique to the town, which makes the citizens there take at least a LITTLE amount of pride in it.  Even weird ones, like Mattoon's Bagelfest are better, because there actually IS the world's largest bagel factory there.  Plus, I imagine everyone over the age of about twelve there appreciates the fairly amusing irony of a bagel festival in the heart of rural Illinois. 

That's kind of why it was so dumb.  It's like they were trying to make it seem like some kind of down-home, Mississippi delta type thing.  Well, that's not really what this town is.  It's funny that the mascot was an alligator.  The nearest alligator is, what, like twelve hundred miles from here?  If you go to the northwest, there are all kinds of little town with Lumberjack Days or Paul Bunyan Days or whatever.  Well, why not have that here?  It'd be fun to walk around in flannel and eat pancakes or whatever, right?  Well, yeah, I suppose it would, but it would also be pretty stupid, because this isn't really a lumberjack town.

You mention that there weren't too many local vendors there.  That's true.  But if there that's all there were, we'd have a hard time having a barbecue festival.  There's Lil' Porgy's and Hickory River Smokehouse.  They were there.  Then there's Po' Boys, Famous Dave's (which is a chain) and Black Dog Smokehouse, which has only been here for like a year.  Having local vendors there really only makes sense if you plan to get a lot of people from out of town.  If it's mostly locals, like the BB&B Fest was, what's the point?  I can eat at Lil' Porgy's whenever I want.  And usually, I get to sit down, at an actual table.  If I'm going to go to a festival, I kind of want stuff I can't get all the time.  Like, did you try one of those pulled pork parfaits?  They looked absolutely revolting, but they were delicious.  At least to have once or twice a year, maybe.  And who's going to come here from out of town for this?  Can you imagine someone in, say, Indianapolis saying to their friend "Hey, you know what?  Let's drive down  to that Urbana Blues, Brews, and Barbecue Festival next weekend!  We can get some of that delicious Urbana-style barbecue people are always talking about!".  Yeah, right.

You mentioned the chili cook-off.  I remember when they had one of those a few years ago.  And do you know what I remember about it?  Almost all of the contestants were people from out of town, who just travel around to these things to show off their chili.  There was a newspaper article about it, where the reporter from the News-Gazette interviewed one of the chili guys.  He explained all the differences between Texas-style chili, Santa Fe-style chili, Cincinnati-style chili and whatever else.  The reporter then asked the guy to describe what Illinois-style chili was like.  He said that he hated to say it, but that it tasted like canned chili.  That sounds about right.  The very fact that a person FROM Illinois actually had to ASK what Illinois-style chili was like should tell you something about how culturally relevant a chili cook-off is in this town.  I mean, I'll eat chili.  I like it.  Who doesn't?  But, well, I like clam chowder too.  It would be pretty dumb to have a clam-chowder cooking contest here, wouldn't it?

I don't know what Urbana could have.  Hipster Days, maybe?  Like, have a Fake Ironic Mustache Growing Contest?  Food booths where you could buy food, and get a discount if you could tell a story about a great place in Chicago where the (whatever kind of food it is) is SO much better than anything you can get around here?  It would have to be something like that.

Because you're right about one other thing.  This town really doesn't have much togetherness.  It's not that kind of town.  You see, in order to have togetherness, you have to agree to put your differences aside and agree to just have fun together, without picking fights all the time.  This town, in contrast, is a place where people are never really happy unless they're at each other's throats.  Remember the whole Chief brouhaha?  That pretty much set the tone of this town for quite awhile.  Two groups of idiots who simply REFUSED to let it drop.  And you!  For you, this whole festival was nothing more than yet another excuse to piss and moan about the police.  Well, face it.  If you're unwilling to stick a cork in it for just ONE DAY, then I really don't believe you're all that interested in the "togetherness" trip.  Sorry.

So yeah.  A town of people who don't really want to get along, going to a festival someone just made up is not really a recipe for a great turnout.

To Anon 10:46- Thanks for your intelligent input. To reply, I will start with your suspicion that I am not "all that interested in the 'togetherness' trip" because I was "unwilling to stick a cork" in yet another opportunity to "piss and moan about the police." Apology accepted. I really tried to enjoy the festival for all its flaws. Like I said, the event has a lot of potential in the layout of the space and I enjoy large crowds having genuine fun. I truly believe more of this is helpful to the community. 

Local Yocal,

Let me get this right.  You thought that there were too many cops at the festival, you indicated "dozens of uniformed Urbana and County peace officers."  It would be interesting to know how many at any given time.  You should look into that and let us know how many there were.  I would be interested to know exactly how many there were.  Actually, I am more then interested how many there were.  I challenge you to produce information on exactly how many cops were there and post it here.  Because I was at the festival too (did not exactly dig the crazy prices and usual BBQ joints).  I saw like 6.  That seems like a pretty small amount for a crowd that you indicated was estimated at 12,000 between the two days.

You also did not like that the cops were armed with guns, pepper spray and batons.  Other then the last time you were in England, when did you see an American cop without.  Maybe in an old John Wayne movie where he was a cop (True Grit where he plays Rooster Cogburn comes to mind   http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073636/)  Maybe it was those incredibly menacing polo shirts that they were wearing instead of the starched dark blue LAPD'like uniforms.  Sounds suspiciously like you felt almost under seige in Nazi Germany with dozens of cops with menacing weapons. 

In a later post you indicated that there should have been MTD buses to take people home and a road side safety check to arrest people who were DUI.  I get the MTD, but the road side safety check.  How the heck does a road block fit in with your desire to have more officers friendly cops.  That is not my idea of officer friendly.  Kinda reminds me of Nazi Germany - "Mein Herr, show me your papers."  

Anon 9:40pm- I see my writing needs to improve, since you seem to have missed the sentence following the question about road side checks at the Festival. That was NOT a call for there to be road side checks next to the parking lots at the Festival. (Talk about your fish in a barrels?)

I was juggling several concepts at the same time with that question. Everyone knows people got drunk at the Festival, not many, but a few were staggering that I could see. Since drinking was occurring all day and all night, many leaving the Festival drove over the .08. (How many beers is .08?) Can we agree that having alcohol service all day and night with thousands of people driving to the event, increased the chances there would be more drivers driving over .08? 

The Festival's design caused there to be more drunk drivers, in my perception. Police knew where most of the cars were being parked. Would it have been an opportune time to prevent drunk drivers from ever getting on the road? Seems so. Why didn't the Multi-Jurisdictional Traffic Enforcement Team do that then? Why did police allow drunk drivers to go on the road, risking another Esworthy Tragedy then, IF YOU'RE TELLING ME IN THE COURTHOUSE, I HAVE TO GO TO JAIL AND PAY ALL THESE FINES FOR DRIVING OVER .08!, asks the man who is charged with a DUI.

The inconsistency of enforcement, the government facilitating binge drinking in the middle of The Drunk Driving Crisis without providing a ride to impaired drivers when it had the means to do so (what do all those MTD taxes buy anyway?) makes a man sitting in a holding cell for having 4 beers before going home from work, wanna write some comical blues about his government.

In the middle of the Drunk Driving Crisis (over 900 DUI cases last year) it's interesting you joke sobriety road-side checks are equivalent to Nazi Germany checkpoints. (The police really do have an Image problem!) You have a good point, jokes aside. The bottle neck of traffic created by such a road-side check next to a parking lot would have irritated the taxpayers to be sure. Had it been known in advance that such a road side check was scheduled, could have discouraged African Americans from attending the festival, and soured the experience for many 18-35 year-old people who would not come back next year. If the police proposed this idea, it's likely organizers of the Festival would have politely asked they not do that.

It would be interesting if a lawyer could F.O.I.A. how many drunk driving arrests there were over the weekend, where the driver had drank at the festival. The miracle of the weekend was there were no drunk driving fatalities. Same as this year's UnOfficial. Maybe there's no need to have road side checks of this kind. Speaking of F.O.I.A.'s....

"I challenge you to produce information on exactly how many cops were there and post it here." I would accept, but I can't afford a lawyer to file a F.O.I.A. and I doubt the "exact" number would be something law enforcement would like us to know. Officers may have had several kind of patrols occurring at once. Visible uniformed officers is one kind, but there could have been undetected plain clothes police officers in attendance too to keep an eye and ear on the crowd. They may have had squad car patrols on the perimeter we didn't see and there's no telling how many officers were put on call for the just in case. And if they had surveillance teams upstairs, inside the Courthouse and in the ClockTower or on the Parking Deck or inside Lincoln Square Mall's video surveillance room; I doubt law enforcement wants that published for tactical reasons and lest somebody like Local Yocal cry racism in the middle of their Image Crisis that the Kiwane Carrington killing has them in.

So I don't believe the police departments would be forthcoming with an accurate exact number.

Then again, it may be no big deal because they may have not had the manpower (money) to do all the imagined patrols above. Perhaps what we saw, was all there was. It's a great idea to F.O.I.A for that breakdown though, I just don't know a lawyer who would file a F.O.I.A. for free. Somebody write a blues tune about trying to find a lawyer in this county please!

For a clue to how many officers there were, the publicity department of the police will probably release a total $ amount of what it cost the departments to staff the festival, (as a friendly reminder to the taxpayers that if you want to have fun, it's going to cost ya'.) I wonder if The City of Urbana charges Fluid Events for police expenses? 

I maintain that there were more officers in uniform than polo-shirted cops (can a wardrobe list be F.O.I.A.'d  and you saw 6, at what time of day? I felt at peak times clusters of 2-3 uniformed officers in about 4 different places on the main walkway, so to me it felt like 12 were out there. And it's difficult to know to distinguish from private security firms working with the Mall or Fluid Events.

My perception was there were more uniformed cops out than usual for an event like this. To know if there was an increased police presence than usual we would have to know the statistics from other outdoor festivals comparable in size. It may be police don't have enough manpower to staff every large outdoor drinking situation. Police prioritize  which battles to fight the hardest. Unofficial is growing in scope. The National Guard might have to be called in for that event. All I can say, is I go to these festivals across town and go to the places where a lot of outdoor drinking occurs, and I don't see officers walking the beat in full uniform. 

On the carrying of weapons: Yes it's standard procedure for a lone officer in a squad car, or even his sidekick in the passenger seat, patrolling a broad geographical area, to be carrying all the tools of law enforcement.

Police do have options, however, on how their tools are stored on their person. My opinion is it was unsafe and rude to have officers carrying their hardware exposed on their waist, walking so close and inside the crowds as they were doing. That technique of exposed weapons with people all around their blind sides, jeopardized officer safety because a drunk and/or deranged person could have walked up close upon an officer and done something horrible. Police already understand this risk; and that "social awkwardness" I described before might explain the attitudes and demeanor of too many officers at the Festival.  

It struck me as rude because guns and batons scare children and there were many people under 17 at the festival. Bringing a gun to a party is no way to meet people at a time when police officers need to have better social skills if they want to regain the trust of those most likely to attend a festival that features music invented by black people. Suspicions are raised that weapons were needed to monitor black folks- something they don't do so visibly at other events, like at the Krannert Performing Arts Center for example.

The real reason may be that weapons are needed to monitor drunk folks since over 70% of aggravated batteries, rapes, robbery victims, ect. involve alcohol intoxication. It would be nice to know what the strategy was to having so many officers in full uniform and gear. Perhaps cops wearing uniforms and weapons PREVENTS anything from ever happening because it sends a visible warning to the "bad guys" that "we are here, and you will likely be caught." Like I said before, I don't know what intelligence officers were operating under. What kind of "bad guys" did police expect to be at the Festival? Too many African Americans in Champaign County would answer "just us". 

My rudeness accusation about the weapons is, during the time of the pending investigation into the Kiwane Carrington killing, now is not the time to even appear like Police have got a problem with black people congregating to have good time. Could you at least put the guns out of sight?

More later. 

Holy smokes, that was a lot.  This is my retort - Good, I am glad that you were no suggesting a road block.  If your concern is the police why would you want a road block.  As for the DUI implications of such an event.  We are in agreement.  There are implications.  I would even agree that they are significant.  That being said, I don't like road blocks.  That being said that US Supreme Court says that they are legal in certain cases and DUI enforcement is one of them.  What the heck is the Multi-Jurisdictional Traffic Enforcement Team.  I have lived in this city since the early 80's.  I have NEVER heard of such a team.  I think you might think that there is a "team" of muliple law enforcement departments banded together for traffic enforcement.  I can assure you that there is not, however.  Maybe you are thinking of road blocks again.  Often times it is two agencies - the Illinois State Police and whatever local agency that ISP is doing it with.  Often times those road blocks are funded by grants from the Illinois Department of Trasnportation (you can see this every time there is one on the news.  ISP is up there chatting away about them and whatever department and that it is supported by a grant from IDOT.) 

I feel you on the Esworthy bit, but again, you are talking about a dragnet of cops looking for DUI's.  Either your position is that there are too many cops or not enough.  You can't say that there was too many cops hanging out with 12,000 people, but not enough looking for some DUI driver's.  You are saying that it would have been better for them to do so, and I guess conceptually I kinda understand what you are saying, but which is the more like a "seige?"  Cops walking around on the street or cops stopping a ton of cars for minor traffic offenses looking for DUI's?  I would argue the second is.

As for you comment about the government facilitating binge drinking, I don't think so.  The festival was going to happen.  What about block parties, what about Unofficial, what about every Friday and Saturday night.  The government doesn't facilitate it.  The government responds to it.  They do the best with what they got to deal with the problem.  Alcohol is legal.  People are going to drink it. Some with drink too much.  This is not like the liquor stores are run by the government (like in some states and countries).  There is no facilitation, just response.  And you are totally confusing me on the drinking issue.  You complain that the cops knew where the cars were and could have caught more DUI's, but then later on you talk about hauling in the working man for having "4 beers after work."  In literally the next paragraph after the working man, 4 beers comment you talk about the "Drunk Driving Crisis."  Are you saying that there should be DUI enforcement or not.  You can't have it both ways again.  You then go WAY OFF into left field saying that a road block could have "discouraged African Americans from attending the festival..."  WOW, so you are saying that only blacks drink too much?  How about they are the only ones that like Blues music?  You need to let the systematic racism thing go on this one.  It was a music event with booze.  Nothing more, nothing less.

FOIA's - sure, look at the numbers.  I am guessing that you will not like the number of arrests.  You will probably think that they are too low.  Just a wild a$$ guess though.  You don't need to be a lawyer to do a FOIA.  Ask BD.  He is definately not a lawyer and he does 'em.  So, the challenge remains.  Get the number or cops at the festival to support your "dozens" comment.  I will soon be expecting a retraction of that comment.  I am guessing that you are exagerating the numbers to make your post more inflammatory though.  As for the "undected plain clothes police officers" thing, I don't think so.  What is the point of having the police at such an event?  I will tell you what it is.  It is to deter any problem.  If there was a problem a plain clothes police officers would have had a sense of duty to intervene, but that would have just complicated the issue since the person or group that he was dealing with would have been skeptic that the police officer was, in fact, a police officer.  Simply put, I can guarantee that all of the cops there were in uniform.  It only makes sense.  Okay what about "surveillance teams."  Come on...seriously.  No, there weren't surveillance teams.  This is like the 3rd year of BBBBQ and there haven't been any real problems.  I have been at all three (had a good time too!!!).  Everyone is totally cool and are just hanging out on a summer day/night enjoying the music and drinking a cool one.  Sounds like a perfect night to me.  The surveillance thing brings up the cry of systematic racism.  You you dare to bring Carrington into the fold on this?  Really, again, only black people listen to blues music?  Maybe the cops wer   Let it go.  I don't know if you were looking around when (if) you were there.  IT WAS ALMOST ENTIRE WHITE PEOPLE!!!  The FOIA rules are pretty simple.  Basically they say release the information unless there is a reason not to (and those reasons have been legislated to them).  If the FOIA says, "How many police officers worked the BBBBQ festival in total AND at any given time?"  Do you really think that the cops will refuse that information.  I doubt it.  You should also ask WHO PAID FOR THEM.  I am guessing that Fluid Events did in order to be given the permit to have this festival.  To answer your question about when I was there.  I was there on Friday night from about 7 pm until then end of the music (about 11 pm).  You should also ask the cops about the last few years of the festival and the staffing.  It would be interesting to know if it was the same.  My sense is that it was or slightly less.  As for the security people.  It was not hard to distinguish them.  There were two firms.  One was in red T-shirts at the ticket booths and one was in blue T-shirts checking ID's.  They were clearly not the cops and thus, not included in my recollection of 6 police officers.

The National Guard for Unofficial.  I am speechless on that.  I guess I will suggest that you are overreacting.  Kinda makes me scratch my head.  You complain about cops in polo shirts carrying a gun and you suggest camo uniformed NG troops with M-16's?  Holy crap!!! 

The cops walking the beat in the community, you are right.  Should happen.  If you want that to happen, get ready to shell out more for cops.  It is a good way to do things, but horribly inefficient for policing I am guessing.  Maybe more bikes?  Yep.  Could do that too I guess.  We are on the same wavelength on that.

Tools of the trade business - what the heck do you want them to do?  Hide their stuff?  Maybe under a coat?  Really?  First of all it was ridiculously hot out there so a coat won't work.  That is unless you give the cop a personal airconditioning unit to drag around.  All I have to say is that if you think that a police officer carrying all the normal things they carry is rude then you are too sensitive.  American police officers have been carrying guns and batons since the invention of America (the gun and the baton came along WAY before that).  I guess you need to move to a more sensitve society.  England is the first to come to mind.  No wait a minute.  Cops in the UK are becoming increasingly more armed.  They actually have "gun trucks."  All of the cops in the ninja gear ride around it in with automatic weapons.  Uh...let's see...Canada.  Nope, they carry guns too.  France?  Nope - guns.  Germany?  Nope, guns?  Isreal?  Hell, civilians carry automatic guns there.  I am out of suggestions.  I think you are going to have to get used to the gun thing.  Let me run a hypothetical past you on the gun thing.  Let's say that the Urbana cops left their guns in their lockers.  Maybe just carry some pepper spray and a baton.  Well, they could hide those things.  Of course, they would still have their vests on to stop bullets so they might feel a wee bit underprotected, but let's just play this out.  Okay, all of that happens.  Life is good.  Cops kissing babies.  Hugs for the whole crowd.  Life is grand.  Now, let's just say that some wack job decides to come in the festival and shoot the place up.  I know, highly unlikely, but it has happened.  There have been shootings at schools, workplaces, churches for god sake (I still don't get that one).  What would the reaction of the general public be to the cops then?  I personally would be pissed.  Think of all the innocent people that could be hurt with the police unable to provide ANY meaningful reaction to the wack job shooting.  Okay, the gun truck idea like in the UK.  Most shootings are over in a matter of less then a minute, not 15 minutes, not 10 minutes, not 5 minutes.  There have been a number of horrible public shootings that have been ended by cops.  Some of them even by off duty cops that happened to be in the right place at the right time (talk about a real hero - walking through mall with your wife and kid and run toward a gunfight.  Balls of steel in my book).  Sorry, guns and cops are part of the deal.  Cops in America just carry guns.  If you don't like it, if it makes you uncomfortable, then don't hang around where the cops are.  As for the exposure of cops with guns to kids under 17...huh?????  Ask any grade school kid if cops carry guns.  They will all say yes.  They know it is part of the deal.   You bring the black folk back up because the cops "need to monitor" them.  Again,  you are totally paranoid and out of touch with reality.  The festival was a community festival with most white people there.  I guess the cops were watching the white people then...let that racism thing go.  It has no wheels and is only making you out to be a HUGE racist for suggesting that. 

I moved on to the next paragraph you wrote and you say that the real reason for the guns and stuff was because "70%" of all those violent crimes you listed involve intoxication.  On the face, I will accept your assertion that the violent crimes involve intoxication.  I get that.  I can see that.  But the weapons are totally unrelated to the beer.  Again, it is part of the deal with cops.  Not the music.  Not the black people the cops were sent to oppress.  Just had them because they always do.

Here comes Carrington again.  Wow...um.  I already addressed that.  There was a festival.  Had a bunch of people.  Booze was involved.  Cops came and walked around.  Cops carry guns and sticks.  Let it go.  Just let it go.  You are off base big time. 

I wish there would not be any trolling accusations thrown around. It's no help to the discussion. I must say, with all respect Anon 4:27, your reading comprehension is so off at times, I am concerned that you are deliberately twisting stuff up. If it's real confusion you have, I suggest you read my posts a little more carefully before we go any further. Thanks again for your interest.

Facts:  Kilborn Alley Blues Band was on the bill.  They KILLED in the mall Saturday at 10:30.  So was Bruiser and the Virtues, Billy Galt and the Blues Deacons, and the Sugar Prophets-- as well as the aforementioned Candy Foster and the Shades of Blue.  Joe Asselin gave harmonica lessons.  Deak Harp did his one-man band thing by the BIG CITY BLUES booth.  I assume there was a lot of local talent on the Samuel Music stage.  When you see Bernard Allsion up there, he was raised in Peoria.  I'm pretty sure I saw his mom walk by.

The brand spanking new local blues society had a booth.  Several local radio stations had a presence-- WEFT blues djs emceed the whole festival.  The Urbana Free Library was involved; the Urbana Park district was running and making money off of the games.

The bbq was by Po' Boys, Little Porgies, Hickory River, and Holy Smoke.  There was another provider who I did not visit who had a 309 area phone number painted on their van.

There were many, many local chefs involved in cooking demonstrations.

I didn't visit the beer tasting so have no ideas about local brewer representation, but was delighted that for at least Friday evening one beer tent was benefiting an upcoming local GLBT pride event.  Only in its third year, you'd have to think this event could evolve with intelligent criticism on such matters as beer participation.

Sweet corn is so NOT organic to our time and place our sweet corn festival has to have its corn trucked in from Colorado.

A blues festival turns out to be a pretty neutral site for a whole community in contemporary USA to get together in pleasure.  There were a LOT of people at this thing, by visual inspection, probably many children of Europe peaceably mingling with the children of Africa, and others too.  Looked to me like income wasn't much of a barrier to being present, though it surely is to full participation in eating, drinking, and some forms of playing (sadly, the inflatable games for kids).

I'm not a shill for Fluid Events-- their taste in national blues acts doesn't match up very well with mine.  But if you are going to criticize this festival, you ought to know what you are talking about.

As for what this blues festival has to do with a Champaign shooting, you are welcome to spin it with optimism, pessimism, hypocrisy, contradiction, incoherence, etc.  I just wish you were more skillful at doing so.

And as for allowing and not allowing street consumption of alcohol, having officially sanctioned public events that include alcohol and then arresting people for driving while intoxicated, this is surely the most sophomoric argument I have heard in years.  Societies manifest contradictions.  Orwell once said of England that everything is forbidden and everything is permitted.  Same way here.  The onlyu surprise is that you act surprised.

BACK TO THE F.O.I.A. ISSUE: What do we need to F.O.I.A. regarding the exact number of officers at the Festival as you have asked for?

Looks like Local Yocal can't even get the musical acts right either. How come there was no big L.E.D. Board on the Marquee by Lincoln Square showing the schedule of acts so I could have caught those local acts when they were playing? I never saw a schedule of events posted at the event.

Darn right you are, this is the most sophomoric debate in years. Same sophomoric debate that has been happening over at the courthouse, the statehouse, Capital Hill, city halls, the penetentiaries and gang rap for decades. The Drug War is so full of contradictions. But it's not something you can dismiss as merely sophomoric if you are sitting in jail on possession charges, or a kid getting shot for breaking into his house cause he doesn't have the key, or a woman sexually attacked by a drunk, or a cop accused of being a racist pig having to patrol the north end, ect.... 

Like it or not, this is the content of our brains at the moment. 

Thank you very much for your corrections about Local Acts and the realities of the Festival. The big crowds, the long weekend of watching musicians, and those darn distracting guns on holsters clearly had me missing some of the details. I'm glad I don't write for a real newspaper, I would be fired quickly. Thanks Anon 8:59am

So the argument is essentially this - I think something is this way.  I won't prove it and when people tell me I should and how, I will say that the answer I get isn't correct therefore I am right...

That doesn't really pass the smell test.  Sorry.

FROM THE IMC WEBSITE:

I am saddened (given the Blues) by the direction this blog thread has taken. I am responsible for starting this, it was my perceptions of officers at the Festival that began the criticism of police policy. But angry accusations about who is a "Troll Cop" was not what I intended this discussion to be- which means I should probably have kept silent my concerns about police officers at the Festival. I expressed feelings and perceptions from the Blues Festival, and many of my perceptions are rooted in the hopes and fears I have for and about the community. I believe Champaign County has problems and I believe those problems can be solved, or at least, to the best of our ability. These articles were not intended to be an Anti-Police screed. 

It's a hard job police officers have and it should require 4 years of intensive training and a starting salary of at least $80,000.

Like the guns out in the holsters that scared me at the Festival, I am also afraid of the violence and deception and unfairness our criminal justice system sometimes engages in. There are serious, honest, hardworking judges, lawyers, police officers, and probation officers are doing the best they can against an avalanche of cases that keeps growing year after year. 

However, we cannot tolerate abuse by law enforcement. Lately serious official misconduct and harm has been getting excused, minimized, and barely punished when it is discovered. The cases of middle school teacher Brady Smith and correctional officer Sgt. William Alan Myer and Urbana Kurt Hjort are such examples. Incidents occur within a context of history.

Kiwane Carrington of 2009, Toto Kaiyewu of 2009, Brian Chesley of 2007, Greg Brown of 2001 represent an escalation of police violence produces the anticipation for some of us, that when cops come, they are not there to solve a problem, but instead, become the problem.  They are sworn, (or should be), to perform their duty to protect ALL citizens of the community- whether they be mentally ill, a teenager walking in a park after dark, a medical student who is in the middle of a psychotic breaksdown due to marijuana and bad grades, or a teenager with no classes to attend trying to figure out a way to get into his house without a key. 
In addition, the racial profiling traffic studies since 2005, and the disproportional number and rising number of criminal cases against the poor and African Americans is creating great fear, mistrust and disrespect for the most important institution of our government- Public Safety. The scales of justice don't seem to be level. Enforcement and harsh sentencing seem to be directed at a certain segment of the population. Did you see the Oct. 20, 2009 Champaign City Council meeting? People are frustrated. What were those citizens talking about that night? 

I thought the festival was incredible!  My wife and I went over, had a few beers and some BBQ and enjoyed a lot of great music on a beautiful day.

No need to over think this one.  Thousands were there.  Thousands enjoyed...for whatever reason.