Chicago Daily Observer

For 53 years the Detroit Branch NAACP has sponsored one of the nation’s signature events. Thanks to hundreds of volunteers, dedicated staff and many business, corporate, community, faith-
based and labor organizations we can record a history of success in what has become the nation’s largest sit down dinner. This year shall be no different.

It is therefore our unique pleasure to announce that the speaker for the 53rd Annual Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner will be the Honorable Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, pastor emeritus of the Trinity United
Church of Christ, Chicago, Illinois. Reverend Wright has challenged the nation, challenged our comfort zone and stimulated nation-wide discussion on the issues of how we must move forward together as both a nation and a people. We look forward to his participation here in the city of Detroit.

You may have missed some of the most interesting news in Chicago last week.

It wasn’t as exciting as the cougar shot to death in an alley, or the earthquake that shook us out of bed, but in its way, it was as startling:

On Thursday, for the first time in more than a decade, the Chicago Housing Authority opened its waiting list for federally subsidized rental vouchers. By the end of the day, with a month left to apply, people had picked up more than 256,000 application forms.

More than a quarter-million. In a day.

“Don’t Go Crooked, Go Straight to Roy’s!”
Billboard advertisement for a former garage which specialized in wheel alignment jobs.

The late George Murray, who cut his journalistic teeth working for the Hearst newspapers in Chicago, once contemplated the irony that significant portions of the Appian Way are still serviceable long after the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, but the Little Caesars of the asphalt and road paving companies operating in Illinois cannot construct a road surface that will last for more than a few years at most under optimal conditions.

If you need any evidence of the perpetual motion machine that is “the political combine,” to use the term popularized by Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass, look no farther than the road construction industry. The paving contractors make substantial political contributions to whatever politicians are in power, the politicians award public works contracts to favored firms to ... Read More...

“Sometimes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. This is Pope Benedict XVI‘s big chance,” says Sun-Times religion columnist Cathleen Falsani, who recommends he speak “words of solace,” of “love. Just . . . love,” He should be grateful for such advice. Mine would be that he just make sense.

Another advisor, Bob McClory, wants the pope to say he doesn’t know what’s wrong with the church and so to call a bunch of meetings to find out.

Bob the grizzled veteran – Medill-Northwestern, Chicago Reader, National Catholic Reporter, and the nation’s flagship Catholic liberal organization Call to Action fill out his credits – and Cathleen the still-fresh-faced columnist with ten or so years reporting and writing under her sash both want Benedict XVI to chill and stop clinging to a creed outworn or at least frayed at the edges.

“It is time for change,” ... Read More...