Mifflin: What the Hell Is Going On?

The hot topic lately around Madison seems to be how the city, university, and basically everyone who is opposed to fun are doing all that they can to make the Mifflin Street block party disappear. They claim that it is only on this one day that everyone gets drunk, belligerent, and do stupid things (because that doesn’t happen every other weekend in Madison). I think that this has been handled poorly by the city and the university. The city is dispersing over 300 police officers in downtown Madison alone on Mifflin weekend, not including the university police officers that will be around patrolling Revelry. Speaking of Revelry, aka the music festival the school has haphazardly put together with some local talent and, wait for it….HOODIE ALLEN!! (If that previous sentence was anticlimactic for you that was exactly how I felt when I first heard this lineup.) I’m not saying that this festival will be bad, but if you really want to shift the focus of attention from the legendary Mifflin Street Block Party to this all new music festival you have to bring out some bigger acts than they have. My main complaint with how these various authoritative bodies have handled the cancellation of Mifflin is that they are only reaching out to a portion of their intended audience. Let’s be real, how many of you have a handful of friends or at least know a bunch of people who don’t go here that are more ready than we are to come and get wasted at this fine campus come May 4th? The university and the city of Madison think that if they convince the students here to not celebrate Mifflin, then nobody will come, but think about the thousands of people who don’t go here, could give a shit about Madison’s rules and regulations, and will still party on regardless. Whatever the outcome, I am curious to see what will happen this upcoming May 4th to see if droves of drunken college students will continue doing what we have been doing best for all these years: getting drunk.