I just finished reading this article in the New York Times about the stampede at E2, the club in Chicago. There are a couple of things about the article that made me really mad. One was Jackson's intention to sue the city for the incident on behalf of the victims, even though his support helped keep the club open. I don't think the city was particularly negligent in this case. They inspected the building, knew it wasn't up to code, and issued a ruling saying that the part that wasn't up to code whould be shut down. They probably should have tried to make sure the ruling was enforced, but had they inspected the building, ten minutes after the investigators left, the second floor could be reoccupied. There wasn't really very much they could do. Also, Jackson keeps insisting that he didn't know about the court order, implying that the city should have publicised it more. But Jackson knew the club had been having problems with building inspectors before; that's why he spearheaded a campaign to help out the club and its owner. You think that before he would start this campaign, he would look into the allegations of the city (and, you know, read the building inspector's report) before jumping to the club owner's defense on the off chance that the city was in the right. This is also a direct quote from C.L. Sparks, who works for Jackson: "There is a conspiracy against black business owners. For them to be open, somebody let them be open and somebody knew." Right. The city really was planning to discredit the owner of some two-bit club on the near South Side by planning a stampede. Because it doesn't make the city look bad or anything. The owner of the club kept the club open after being told it was unsafe because he could make money from it. Plain and simple, that's what happened. The city wasn't conspiring against black business owners. If I were the city of Chicago (which I admit would be difficult), I'd sue Mr Sparks for libel.