Nato Chicago

The 25 Interesting (and Odd) Chicago Facts website advises us that Chicago takes it name from a native American word for onion field which covered the land where the Windy City would later be built.
All those onions must have been quite eye watering and there could be a few more tears this weekend as the city that 'Married with Children' was set in hosts the NATO summit.
The city has spent $65m to host the summit and have spent another $1m in riot-control equipment including long range acoustic weapons and upgrading police riot shields as they also welcome tens of thousands of demonstrators who are expected to flood the city.
The G8 summit which is also taking place this weekend was initially scheduled to be held in Chicago, but security concerns saw it was moved to the Presidential compound, Camp David, which is easier to defend against placard waving nurses.
These types of events always attract mass protests and regrettably they often escalate into violence so the heavy security is probably warranted because there are a lot of angry people around as NATO and the leaders of the G8 countries have both been acting pretty shoddy of late.
There will be people protesting about NATO's involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya as well as the 99% who have been diced and spliced by the West's leaders.
Local police have arrangements in place to shut down mobile phone services to prevent protesters from coordinating their movements through social networks and the Red Cross have a large number of shelters on standby in the event of riot related injuries.
All the ingredients are there for a stormy weekend in Chicago, angry protesters and hyped up police officers armed with sparkly new riot shields, but i never understand why these events are held in major cities.
America is a big place and there are many empty spaces in it so if it has to be held there, build a special place away from the heavily populated areas that is awkward for protesters to get to and harass the leaders.
Another alternative would be to host the meetings on a ship anchored in the middle of one of the great lakes or mid-Atlantic or an even better would be for NATO and the G8 countries to not go around bombing oil rich countries and generally hacking so many people off that they feel they need to protest against them in the first place.