42 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

  1. Yesterday we took our children down to the riverfront. While there we stopped at the playground next to the Riverplex. Two black youths were playing there, and I kid you not they had their pants fully unzipped and down around their KNEES. Their boxer shorts were in full view. Whenever they would walk they would just hoist them up a little and waddle a few feet. I had a hard time explaining this to my kids. I also remember hearing somewhere that this might be a gang sign. Forgive me if I am wrong about that. Nevertheless, I’m shocked that the security at the Riverplex would allow this inappropriate conduct. It is not “family friendly”. Until the Riverplex can do something about it we will NOT be back!

  2. Anybody go to the “family fest” at the Civic Center? Very disappointing. $8.50 per child/person plus the exorbitant parking fee for a lame production.

  3. Re: Riverfront situation. The kids were probably harmless, its just a style to prove that they are lazy, and rebellion for all of those years hearing people say…tuck your shirt in, or pull your pants up. It can be seen on television, and too often thats where a child gets his education, from the subconcious mind-stealer hypnotic brain drain therapy box, called a television set. I wouldn’t worry though, it doesn’t mean these kids are starting trouble, yet, I agree its obscene and banned in most cities under public decency laws.

  4. Good points smart person. Otherwise, the kids were quite attractive and didn’t seem to be causing trouble. It’s just a shame they have to ruin their image with something as silly as that.

  5. Diane, did you see Peoria Pete? Personally, I’ve never had a problem at the riverfront. We usually park near the visitor’s center and eventually make our way over to the playground.

  6. I go to Mrs.Gs on Main Street frequently and have noticed the young adolescents with their pants hanging down on their thighs. Saw one the other day that had light blue boxer shorts and there was a big brown stain right up the rear. Disgusting sight.

  7. People need to remember Peoria is a urban city. You may see unusual and different things here. Most things are harmless but may shock you if you live in Tazewell county or Dunlap. Don’t be affraid. Little black kids are pretty harmless. Now the time I was going through downtown Pekin and saw this guy with no teeth, that scared the crap out of me.

  8. So, are we to assume that if the boys with their baggy pants were white you’d feel differently? And your comment that they were “attractive and weren’t causing trouble” is also telling. Isn’t the fact that they were well behaved more important that what they were wearing? What would you like Riverplex to do, since their behavior wasn’t problematic? Should there be a dress code for a public park?

    What I glean from your comment is that: a. the kids were black, b. they don’t dress like your own kids, c. they must be in a gang, d. they were well behaved, and e. your white family shouldn’t have to be at a public park with kids of color who don’t dress like you. I feel more sorry for your own children who seem to be subjected to your stereotyping and judgement.

  9. Yo get off the assumption thing this sh*t is old as hell and assume me nothing but “ass-of -u-n-me”
    get a life..!!

  10. So if the boys with their baggy pants were white would you feel differently? I just wondered because you mentioned their ethnicity. And your comment that they were “attractive and weren’t causing trouble” is also telling. Isn’t the fact that they were well behaved more important that what they were wearing? What would you like Riverplex to do, since their behavior wasn’t problematic? Should there be a dress code for a public park?

    What I glean from your comment is that: a. the kids were black, b. they don’t dress like your own kids, c. they must be in a gang, d. they were well behaved, and e. your white family shouldn’t have to be at a public park with kids of color who don’t dress like you. I feel more sorry for your own children who seem to be subjected to your stereotyping and judgement.

  11. jill, if it is so acceptable why don’t you strut around down there wiht your pants down around your knees and your fat ass hanging out. Ha, i’d like to see that piggy.

  12. Just outside Madison WI, (the city we should be trying to emulate) Walmart opened a new store on the site of an old K mart and put in underground parking. If Walmart can do it Target should be able to. I know box stores aren’t the greatest, but I think Peoria could actually support a Super Target. It would be nice if we could convince one to come and use one of the vacant box stores….or let them build a multilevel store on museum block. Super Target with underground parking would bring more money downtown in a month than a museum would in an entire year.

  13. Yes Diane, we all know who racist you are… just look at your lily ummm, brown children! Ha!

    I have teenage nephews that will wear their pants baggy…although not past their butt. Whenever I am around and their pants are like that, I always give them a good yank. They have learned to wear belts around me. 🙂

  14. Sorry no go on the Target store on the riverfront. Lets leave that for North Peoria or East Peoria. Not sure if the museum is the right thing as proposed either but whatever it is it needs to be unique and draw people from around the state and central Illinois. I still think a mixed use on that site of residential loft condo’s and apartments. Maybe the Imax and some small speciality shops and reastuarants and pubs. Whatever it is it needs to be a 24/7 draw.

  15. Boy, Diane, anonymous blog posters are just all about attacking your parenting!

    Pants around the knees are like hair in the eyes for me. Looks silly, but it doesn’t hurt anything, but it makes my finger itch to “fix” it.

  16. HMMM… Lets way something here. If you read this and play the race card girlzzz!! you just don’t have much goin on.. I feel sorry for you.
    O.k. I am a eighteen year old. Just out of high school.
    My mammy didn’t teach me how to dress or have self respect when I was abit younger. So all my homies down the street taught me these things.
    Today I am going to go out job hunting.
    I got dressed this morning got my black JZ tee on my cool blues ridin’ low baby.. yea..Put on the nikes
    off I go. Oh almost forgot a squirt of smell good.
    Well I hear Caterpillars hiring yea that’s it. (aboard the city bus)Crank up my ipod. Man, down to Cat I go. Da*n I’m slick Rick cuz I’m a cool cat.
    Ohh..uh heres my stop. Dang man I forgot my belt oh well.
    I goes to HR yea appplication please.
    GOOD..
    I’m gonna work at Caterpillar.
    (“back on the bus”) goin to Kamotsu I’ll put an app in there to.
    *months later back at home.. no word from the job hunt and still unemployed.?
    Get the point here.
    Everyone needs to have self respect, when you have this you will also have higher self esteem. It is then you will GET respect from others because you will be respectable of others.
    This senario I would surely put towards those young people that still wear and dress gothic… or perhaps the Britney dressing wannabe’s. Moms if you let your daughters dress scantilly like Ms. Spears ,you too fall in to this.
    Who is going to give me a (decent) job if I walk into HR looking like I just came from a night club?
    No offense to anyone.
    God loves us all. Which is more said than from the presidential candidates.

    Stop The violence!

  17. I must not get out enough… apparently you all have seen it before! Yes, in addition to other anti-social behaviors I object to children being allowed to walk around with their pants down around their knees exposing the entirety of their skivies and God knows what else I tried to avert my gaze. And yes, I would expect the Riverplex to monitor and forbid this. I cannot see how this form of “self expression” could possibly contribute to their future as productive and responsible adults! Anyone who would condone it needs to spend a week with my folks.. heh heh.

  18. “And yes, I would expect the Riverplex to monitor and forbid this.”

    Except the playground you were at was a public Peoria Park District playground, not a Riverplex playground. The Riverplex staff, to the best of my knowledge, does not monitor the playground next door any more than they monitor activity in the big grassy field.

    I’ve never heard of Peoria’s parks having a dress code, nor is it their responsibility to “contribute to their future as productive and responsible adults.”

  19. Isn’t it odd how people want to be respected but then they want to act like morons. Morons don’t get respect neither do 18,19,20,21,etc,etc year olds with their clothes down exposing what they have or don’t have under them. But my question to the others. So would it be fine for those who don’t wear underwear to have their pants down to the knees?
    I bet there would be a dress code then when the police showed for indecent exposure. Sorry to inform you but that IS what “not being dressed in public” is called..”indecent exposure”
    YES it is a law. Some are parenting and some aren’t.
    Kudos to Ms.Vespa

  20. Now let me see if I get this right. Today’s youngsters can walk around with their pants down around their knees exposing their skivvies and it is okay. But if I dressed in my bra and panties and even put a shear cover over myself and walked down town I would be arrested for indecent exposure. How come they can do it and I can’t? I would have as much or more covering over my panties then they do but I can’t get away with it. how come?

  21. Well shear.. I would say that the parents that say it’s harmless and “they’re just being kids”. Awww how nice.puke… Would probably look at me and you an say your not kids and we should know better.

  22. IMHO, dressing like that makes you look like a fool. That said, “dressing like a fool” should not get a person kicked off a playground!

    If they ‘whipped it out’ or were mooning people, then clearly that’s unacceptable for a public park. Somebody wearing running shorts and no shirt is showing way more skin that those kids were, however, and I think most people would find that to be an acceptable state of dress.

    I obviously was not with diane at the park, but in general I think this situation is most often a case of xenophobia and “uptightedness” (new word!), rather than a punishable offense by today’s urban youth.

  23. I’ll admit I had to google the word “xenophobia” and it doesn’t apply to me. I have been to the 4 corners of the world from chicken busses of Guatemala to remote villages of Indonesia. A foreigner in a strange land has no right telling others what to do, but I do feel it incumbant on parents to teach the children in our own backyard right from wrong. I’m done 😉

  24. It isn’t xenophobia, it is Ethnocentrism. Not everyone is always going to do what you (general you) do. Different strokes for different folks, etc.

    As for Super Target, I do think a multilevel Super Target that takes up only part of the block (leaving the rest for other uses, including residental) is far superior to the suburban style museum that is currently planned. And it is Target, people in Peoria know what it is. No need to convince people to think outside the box, which always seems to be half the battle.

  25. BeanCounter hit the nail on the head — there has to be residential down there, too. Put in residential, Target, and a Barnes & Noble (for example), and you will start to see synergy downtown that will lead to more development.

  26. I just don’t get why complaining about “kids these days and their clothes” has to include a statement about their skin color. And why the next immediate thought would be that the well behaved children were exhibiting some sort of gang thing. Additionally, why would someone suggest that a dress code be policed at a public playground? Just because someone says they don’t prejudge doesn’t make it true, either. When things offend me or make me angry, I find it helpful to remind myself that there are far worse things that my kids could be exposed to and if the most awful thing I experience in a day is silly teenage attire, it’s been a good day.

  27. I have been hearing radio commercials of Jehan Gordon on several local stations (none of those have mentioned her indiscretions in their news) and noticed that her ad mentions numerous endorsements from local union type groups. Have any of these endorsements been pulled? Firefighters, teacher’s union, etc.?

  28. Why have other stores left from the area and the other end of the street?
    Hmmmm….?? Perhaps because they know that there is no money in crime ridden areas of cities. Mostly just hold ups. No upscale dept store will put up with that crap.
    Target development group isn’t stupid.

  29. What other stores leaving what areas are you talking about? What crime ridden areas are you talking about? Target is not an upscale dept store unless you are compairing it with Walmart or Kmart.

  30. Most mainline stores want to locate at large mall areas where it draws all types of shoppers from department stores to grocery, to restaurants, to entertainment. They know that if they are in the vicinity of other stores they will attract more customers then being the only one on the block. Also the attraction of lots of parking in the open is better for customers instead of underground parking. Would you rather negotiate the major streets to plenty of parking or try to thread your way through downtown congested streets with stop lights on every corner and then try to find parking in underground parking decks?

  31. I don’t think this Super Target idea is anymore wacky than the estimated 240,000 visitors to the museum. Go to the Target wikipage, they have made stores for urban areas. Those stores have underground parking some of them even have residential units right above the store. Part of Target’s whole shtick is being greener, more flexible and more conscientious than walmart. Give them the 3 acres to build it.

    Something has to get people to come downtown. I would love it to be some fabulously unique Peoria concept, but I don’t really think that is realistic. It is much more realistic to lure people downtown with something familiar, but enhanced. “Target, with a deli counter and a cart escalator, huh that’s cool”. You aren’t asking for much of a stretch. Come buy your groceries at Target and park in the Target lot underground. There is still plenty of room, blocks of warehouses, for cool uniquely Peoria merchants. Those developments will come when people live downtown and/or get back in the habit of going down there.

  32. “I cannot see how this form of “self expression” could possibly contribute to their future as productive and responsible adults!”

    I went through half of high school with my bra straps peeking out because that was the style. It was SO MUCH the style that you could buy bra strap headbands in case there was not enough bra strappage from your regular bra straps. I don’t think it did me any permanent damage.

    I do think, though, that these stupid-but-harmless fashion decisions are part of self-identification. Most of them will eventually pull their pants up.

    I still think that bra strap trend was cute, though. 😀

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