Throughout the mayoral campaign we said that the search for a "consensus Black candidate" that ultimately led to Carol Moseley Braun's chaotic candidacy smacked of the same racial politics of the late-60s to early 80s, and that the group of African American politicians, pastors and business leaders were more concerned with maintaining their status quo than looking out for the needs of the greater community they purported to represent. Carol Felsenthal's interview with N'DIGO publisher Hermene Hartmann does nothing to dissuade us from our opinion. more ›

Hey, folks! The Chiditarod Urban Iditarod, which bills itself as "'possibly' the world's largest mobile food drive," is coming close to capacity for this year's edition on March 5. more ›

We've been saying, with regard to the "consensus Black candidate" fight in the Mayoral campaign that ultimately settled on Carol Moseley Braun, that race is still a factor in the election, just not in the way Braun, Danny Davis or James Meeks wanted to frame it, using a playbook written at the height of the Civil Rights movement that just seems a tad bit antiquated in an America where Barack Obama crafted a wide coalition of voters to become President. A new Tribune poll shows that a lot of folks throughout the city share our sentiments about this. more ›

Inspired by Bill Rankin's map of Chicago that laid out the city's racial and ethnic dividing lines, photographer Eric Fischer wanted to see what other cities looked like when mapped the same way (Fischer previously geo-tagged the entire city). Last week, Fischer shared the findings via his Flickr page, also making his own map of Chicago. Both Rankin's and Fischer's maps use data from the 2000 Census, with Fischer matching his map to Rankin's key in which each dot represents 25 people: Red = White, Blue = Black, Green = Asian, Orange = Hispanic. Rankin's maps, created in 2009, also map out race and income. more ›

It's late July, which to sailors in the Midwest (and even from around the globe) means it's time for the 102nd Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac. The race begins from the Chicago Yacht Club on Saturday, July 24. The longest freshwater sailing race in the world at 333 miles from Chicago to Mackinac Island, Michigan, the 2010 Mac will feature over 360 boats crewed by 3000 sailors on the multi-day jaunt up and across Lake Michigan. more ›

It's a fable come to life. What does a tortoise versus hare race actually look like? Well, now we know. [via] more ›

Warm and sunny weather graced the fifth annual Chiditarod shopping-cart race, as over a hundred teams competed in what may be “the world’s largest mobile food drive” this past Saturday on the Near West Side. Chiditarod mimics the famous Alaskan Iditarod except the dogs are replaced by people in wacky costumes and the sleds are shopping carts. It is a one-of-kind event, incorporating a food drive, with a costume/talent contest, pub crawl and 5-mile race. Traffic was blocked for the starting point but after that racers had to use the sidewalks or alleys and adhere to all traffic lights. Many people were caught off-guard when they saw the teams race down the sidewalk in colorful, crazy outfits and pimped out shopping carts. One startled woman shrieked, “What on earth is going on?” while a young toddler kept asking her Dad if it was Halloween. The race began at Hubbard and Wolcott and included six check points at local bars in the area. Talent contests included karaoke, haiku, pole dancing and a cheer-off. Each team was required to cross the finish line with 40 pounds of food or more. Proceeds benefited the Chicago Anti-Hunger Federation. The prize list, race results and donation totals have not officially been announced yet but we did track down a few winners: more ›

It's a familiar story: after taking an entry-level test, would-be firefighters claim racial discrimination kept them from getting a job and take their case to the highest court in the land. But unlike last year's New Haven, Conn. case where white firefighters were the plaintiffs, this year more than 6,000 blacks from Chicago are making the same claim, the Tribune reports. more ›

It's been a rough week for Cook County Board President Todd Stroger. February's tough primary is drawing nearer and Stroger's reeling from the Board's override of his veto of their half-percent tax roll back. That veto override was a bitter pill for Todd to swallow, which may account for his demeanor in this interview he conducted with the Chicago News Coop; the interview happened right after the override. Perhaps it's no surprise given that particular failure, but Stroger exhibited a feeling of abandonment, beginning with Mayor Daley. more ›

It’s no secret that black gay youth from the South and West sides orbit around Boystown, particularly around the Center on Halsted, but some Lakeview residents say they feel threatened or intimated by these teens who they often describe as unruly and rowdy. more ›

No one knows - yet - how many tons of food were collected during the local mobile food drive known as the Chiditarod this year - but more than 500 participants spent a damp Saturday afternoon hauling at least 25 pounds of food per team over the finish line. more ›

This year's presidential race has been a national dialogue on what matters to Americans at this point in our nation's history. But it's also been a sometimes difficult debate on the very real gender, ethnic and racial tensions that lie just underneath our country's perception of itself. more ›

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. more ›

Barack Obama took the first step in cooling off the war of words between his campaign and Hillary Clinton's. "I've been a little concerned about the tenor of the campaign," Obama said in a press conference called yesterday evening in Nevada. "We've got too much at stake at this time in our history to be engaging in this kind of silliness," Obama said. "I suspect that other candidates may feel the same way." more ›

You know we love animal stories. But we're a tiny bit freaked out by glow-in-the-dark cats? Mah genetic manipulation! Let me show it to you! [video] more ›

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the Jim Oberweis campaign will be announcing “a major endorsement” today, and that that endorsement will be from Dennis Hastert. Oberweis is running for the 14th Congressional District seat that was vacated when former Speaker of the House resigned earlier this year. Although Hastert endorsed Oberweis for US Senator in the 2002 Republican primary, Jack Ryan won that race, later withdrawing after his (sexy) divorce files were unsealed. An... more ›

The Board meeting we went to a few weeks ago was excruciatingly boring, but some parts got cattier than a sorority house during period week. Looks like that was the theme yesterday, too, when things really got ugly at and after the meeting, with Bill Beavers leading the charge. But he wasn't the only one--lots of people got in on the action. Liz Gorman on Tony Peraica: "loser," "pathetic, pathological liar," "abusive weasel," "no man,"... more ›

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the death of Harold Washington. The Chicago of 1983 was very different from the Chicago of 2007: factories were shutting down, and white middle-class homeowners were leaving the city in droves, taking their property taxes and urban stability with them. An alarming upswing in crime and drugs, coupled with escalating racial tensions left many Chicagoans nervous about the future. Richard J. Daley had been dead for seven years, and... more ›

What happens when the party you believe in, that you dedicate your political career to, takes a turn for the worse? If you're Dennis Hastert, you resign graciously, take your kudos, and become the elder statesman you always knew you could be. Hastert resigned yesterday, bringing to a close an era of congressional Republicanism marked by increasingly bitter partisanship, an unpopular president championing an unpopular war, and a rash of scandals, both political and personal... more ›

Looks like we're not the only ones with a case of the Mondays: Things aren't looking so great for Blagojevich today, either. Over the weekend, Lt. Governor Pat Quinn blamed Blago for the firing of 17 veterans from security jobs within the Illinois Department of Military Affairs. "The governor proclaimed this 'Hire a Veteran Month.' He didn't say 'Fire a Veteran,'" said Quinn. All together now: Oh, snap! Blagojevich says it's a matter of federal... more ›

Just when we thought we were going to run out of reality shows to cover, the powers that be keep shoving them upon us. The Amazing Race This Sunday saw the return of the Energizer Bunny of reality series, The Amazing Race. The 12th season premiere had the highest ratings of any other program on Sunday, as 13.8 million viewers tuned in to see 11 teams of globetrotters being shipped off to lovely Shannon, Ireland.... more ›

Tuesday we gave you the rundown of who is running for a Green Party nomination in Illinois, but among the candidates, one in particular stands out. Richard B. Mayers, a white supremacist connected with Matt Hale's Creativity Movement is running against Jerome "Jerry" Pohlen in the 3rd Congressional District. This isn't the first time Mayers has run for office. In 2002 he was removed from the ballot in the 9th Congressional District, leaving Jan Schakowsky... more ›

With all the mudslinging in the presidential primary and the wrangling in the congressional races here, we almost forgot that the Green Party won a ballot line in Illinois last election. Unlike past elections, where Green candidates struggled to get on and stay on the ballot, this year marks the first time the Greens have had a state-wide ballot line, thanks to former gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney breaking the 5 percent threshold with 10.39 percent... more ›

Jesse Jackson Jr wants the FEC to tell him whether he can use his campaign funds to help his wife, 7th Ward Alderman Sandi, to unseat Bill "Hog With the Big Nuts" Beavers as ward committeeman. In the advisory opinion request he submitted to the federal commission on October 15, he specifically asked for clarification on several issues, including how much money, if any, his re-election campaign can give his wife, as well as the... more ›

Tony Peraica, Cook County commissioner and state’s attorney candidate, is having the worst week ever. As if being a homophobe right-winger in Cook County wasn’t bad enough, now the rest of the local GOP combine has turned against him. Joe Birkett, Judy Baar Topinka’s running mate for lieutenant governor, is backing Mary McMahon, an assistant state’s attorney in Democrat Dick Devine’s office, as the GOP candidate for State’s Attorney. This after he spoke at a... more ›

Add to the preparations plan for future marathons: Hand out more maps and make sure emergency personnel use them. more ›

Of the grassroots congressional campaigns this season, Mark Pera's race to unseat 3rd District Congressman Dan Lipinski is among the more notable. According to the Pera campaign, they out-raised Congressman Dan Lipinski during the 3rd quarter, $100,000 to $75,000. Even more telling was where the money came from: Pera's nearly 850 contributions came from individual donors, while just one of Lipinski's 74 contributions was from inside the district ($100 from a single contributor in Brookfield).... more ›

By now you've heard about the hottest ever Chicago Marathon, yesterday’s brutal event that claimed one life, brought ambulances to more than 300, and overwhelmed race organizers and emergency personnel. The initial stories about the fatality and the difficult decision to cut the race short, dashing the hopes of thousands of first-timers, have overshadowed the larger story about race organizers failing their own endurance test. Shrugging off the 2007 race as a once-in-a-lifetime snafu obscures... more ›

Patrick Ivuti of Kenya won today's running of the Chicago Marathon in a photo finish over Moroccan Jaouad Gharib. Both runners crossed the finish line at the same time, but Ivuti crossed 5/100th of a second before Gharib. But Ivuti's win, and Ethiopian Berhane Adere's defense of her women's title, were secondary stories to the decision by race officials to cut short the race due to the dangers they posed to participants by unseasonably warm... more ›

That steady wailing sound you may have heard this morning is 45,000 runners freaking out about Sunday’s forecast. For the 30th Chicago Marathon, Tom Skilling is promising record heat with a generous dollop of humidity. Runners, it’s time to dig deep and summon the strength that got you through that 14-mile training run in August or that sweaty half-marathon you conquered last month. To the thousands who fear death or worse this weekend, we say:... more ›