Update

Ah, I'm glad someone brought this up.

I had a long post going before this one, where I shared personal details. Bringing my kayak to campus 1L. Keeping it at the boathouse in Lake Wingra -- small park, courts, fields, benches, occasional accordian music. The biggest park on the small lake is Vilas. You notice the Mexican immigrants playing their music -- it's a big park and diffuses, and it reminded me of summer evenings and weekend afternoons with my family on the Chicago Lakeshore (Lake Michigan's public parks. The best memories are the late-late nights, smelt fishing when they were really running.)

It's a sad beach at Vilas really. Almost always closed down for a few days because of bacteria. Muck silt bottom that goes about 6 inches down, no kidding. At the boathouse anyway; it's probably packed down better by the beach. The geese and birds leave feathers and crap, and the temperature is like bathtub water. I stopped paddling there because I wondered if the minor splashes on the hands and occasionally in the eye were healthy. Did I mention they've apparently got it constructed so the street runoff is piped in untreated?

Still, it's a nice enough lake and park, and public. Free. A place to get out, in the healthy enough air and water. Some men, women too, like to have a can of beer, or a few, with their sandwiches, or grilled meat. Any shared music, in the company of families with children or even workers off together, is expected in a park, diffused since you're not packed in close, and for most of us is appreciated that you're running your van battery like that. Vulgar lyrics, maybe I'd think otherwise, but most park music is upbeat instrumentals.

Those were my background thoughts and amazed reactions at reading an alcohol ban was even being considered, needed in Vilas or all city public parks. So it's an interesting story to follow, if you're local. Racism? That's the thing, is it when it's not aimed directly, similar to some of the effects of privatization of public services. Does it matter since your average man with money drinks in a bar, and doesn't take his family to parks like Vilas for the day? If somebody in one of the groups has problems with alcohol, there's no inbetween in policing than to take away that freedom for everyone? Or, like the group claims, is this a way of discouraging people to use the parks?