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On Pastor Pfleger, Apostle White to Cardinal: ‘Let the Spirit speak to your heart about ...

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By Eric O. January, CPA CEO of Conduit Funding, Inc, Author of the Mo'Sense book series Nationwide ...

All-Star weekend event to raise awareness for asthma-related illnesses Franchisees Karim Webb and Edward Barnett Credit: Jason ...

Springfield, IL - People of all ages are invited to help set a new Guinness World ...

Amendment Would Significantly Simplify, Speed, Strengthen FOIA Process Springfield, IL — Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan ...

The world will remember Troy’s name Tonight the State of Georgia has killed an innocent man. In ...

Crown Royal Black salutes Chuck D Chicago, IL (BlackNews.com) -- Crown Royal and the DuSable Museum ...

Archive for April 8th, 2011

Illinois to Rep. Walsh: Move forward, not back; No government shutdown! No defunding the Affordable Care Act!

Posted by PMac On April - 8 - 2011 ADD COMMENTS

(From The Campaign for Better Health Care)

Illinois - The Campaign for Better Health Care (CBHC) came out against Rep. Joe Walsh’s crusade to defund the Affordable Care Act by shutting down the federal government. “This is nothing more than an ineffective approach led by an ineffective leader. Politicians are supposed to present ideas, create solutions, and forge partnerships. Rep. Walsh wants to eliminate the law that is already helping tens of thousands of his constituents – including his own family,” said Jim Duffett, CBHC Executive Director.

Rep. Walsh’s wife has a pre-existing condition. After the Representative decided to forgo his federal health insurance plan, his family quickly realized why the Affordable Care Act is so important. Health insurance companies refused to cover his wife and the family was left scrambling to find coverage.

But despite all of that, Rep. Walsh is still determined to repeal the ACA and its patient protections to force 32 million Americans who now will have access to health care coverage back under the control of insurance companies – so they too can be denied coverage.

“This is not the leadership we need to move our country forward,” said Duffett.

CBHC believes the people of the 8^th District deserve better. People like Tim Fraas of Elgin, IL, who needed a heart transplant in 2008 because of a serious health condition: congestive heart failure. “My operation alone cost $750,000; not to mention the expensive medications and procedures I still require. Luckily, I had great insurance through my wife’s employer. But even with good insurance, we are over $60,000 in debt to the hospital, and we spend over $200 a month on my medications,” Fraas explained. “Without insurance it would be over $1900 a month. And with the ongoing checkups and expensive medications, I am nearing my lifetime benefit cap – and then what happens?”

Tim was a huge, healthy man; and within three years, he was disabled with a new heart inside of him – it could have been anybody. However, with the Affordable Care Act in place, insurance companies can no longer set lifetime limits on benefits, and Tim knows his coverage will not be taken away when he needs it the most.

Tim’s 24 year old daughter Amanda works 3 part time jobs to put herself through college – she is studying to become an American Sign Language interpreter. “She would have already been dropped from our insurance policy if it was not for the Affordable Care Act – but now my wife and I rest easy knowing that she’ll have coverage until she graduates and can find a job,” said Fraas.

The Affordable Care Act is not just “ObamaCare” – it’s also AmandaCare, it’s TimCare, it’s EveryoneCare. Clearly, Rep. Walsh just doesn’t get it. He thinks defunding or repealing the Affordable Care Act will improve our health care system. He’s wrong. His idea of success will take Tim, his daughter, and all of us back to the days when the insurance industry could deny or drop your care for no reason and insurance companies operated with impunity.

“The law is not perfect. And yes, we should work to make it better. But what we shouldn’t do is throw up our hands and throw it all away. The Affordable Care Act is working for millions of Americans and Congress should move forward instead of taking us back,” concluded Duffett.

News

Topinka urges Congressional leaders to avoid federal shutdown

Posted by PMac On April - 8 - 2011 ADD COMMENTS

Comptroller highlights importance of funding for state

Springfield, IL – Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka on Thursday sent the letter pasted below and attached to members of the Illinois Congressional Delegation. Noting the importance of federal dollars in light of the state’s precarious fiscal condition, Topinka urged lawmakers to extend budget negotiations and avoid a federal government shutdown.

Dear Members of the Illinois Delegation:

As the deadline for a federal budget agreement nears, I am writing to ask for your support of efforts to extend negotiations, and avoid a federal government shutdown. As you know well, Illinois uses federal funding to provide critical medical, human and education services for our state’s most vulnerable residents. Those dollars are particularly important given the state’s precarious financial situation, and our inability to cover costs in the event of a complete shutdown.

Our state receives approximately $77 million a day in federal funds for everything from Medicaid and public health payments to road and rail improvements. In fact, federal funding of the Medicaid program in Illinois alone averages more than $41 million a day. Those dollars provide a health care safety net for our residents, and ensure that those most in need receive critical medical attention. Beyond that, federal dollars today are being used to complete road and rail projects already underway and cover costs for the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

The looming federal government shutdown becomes more ominous given our state’s fiscal condition. As I write to you today, our office faces a bill backlog of more than 219,000 invoices totaling more than $4.7 billion. Those bills from businesses, schools, health care and social service agencies are for services already provided to the state, and date back to October 20, 2010. There are other daunting financial realities as well, including the state’s obligation to repay more than $1.3 billion by June 14 for prior short-term borrowing.

As the state’s Chief Fiscal Officer, I have a responsibility to inform you that Illinois simply does not have the dollars on hand to “front” funding for federal initiatives pending a budget agreement in Washington D.C. I also understand what is at stake for our nation with the federal budget, and the sincere and adamant beliefs on both sides of the negotiation.

Ultimately, I believe an agreement will be reached that is in the best interest of our country – but fear it may not happen in the next 24 hours. For that reason, I respectfully ask that you extend negotiations and ensure funding can continue while an agreement is reached.

Sincerely,

Judy Baar Topinka

Illinois Comptroller

CC: Illinois Congressional Delegation

News

What does a government shutdown mean for you?

Posted by PMac On April - 8 - 2011 ADD COMMENTS

New Web Site, www.GovernmentShutdown.org, Has All The Answers

Nationwide (BlackNews.com) - A new web site has been launched to educate the public about how a federal government shutdown works, how it will affect them, and what their options are. Easily accessible at GovernmentShutdown.org, the web site offers a series of comprehensive articles, a listing of helpful resources, and detailed answers to Frequently Asked Questions.

Launched by a virtual organization called Government Shutdown 101, the web site is a very informative tool for people who are not familiar with what happens when the federal government closes. It dispels all myths, and helps people to understand the difference between essential and non-essential government services and agencies.

It also helps federal government employees to better understand whether or not they will be furloughed, or if they will have to continue working without pay.
What is a Government Shutdown?
A government shutdown is when the non-essential government services are closed, due to the inability of a legislative body to reach an agreement on a budget for the current fiscal year. All essential agencies such as armed services, police forces, the FBI, the IRS, etc. remain active. However, the National Zoo, museums, and national parks are closed. Other agencies such as Social Security, Medicare, and the Dept of State offer limited services.

For more details, interested ones should visit www.GovernmentShutdown.org

News

Website, lowincome.org, aims to help government employees facing furlough

Posted by PMac On April - 8 - 2011 38 COMMENTS

Nationwide (BlackNews.com) — In response to recent reports of up to 800,000 government employees facing furlough due to a federal government shutdown, one organization has taken steps to lend a helping hand. The Low Income Housing Authority, through their web site at LowIncome.org, is helping people learn about their financial options.

The web site is an online tool that offers valuable information, resources, and tips on how to find and apply for low income housing, food stamps, and other government assistance programs. It features a searchable database of more than 3,000 programs in all 50 states.

Those who are going through a financial crisis can use the site to find an affordable place to live, to be informed about what their options are, and to be encouraged that there is help available. In addition, the site can be used as a resource on how to best deal with evictions, foreclosures, bad credit, child support, and college funding for low-income students.

For more details, visit www.lowincome.org

About the National Low Income Housing Authority
Launched in 2010, this organization was created to educate and empower people who have encountered financial difficulties. The mission is to offer as much helpful information and resources as possible.

News

Two Trials and an Anniversary – Bonds, Bailey and Mixon

Posted by PMac On April - 8 - 2011 ADD COMMENTS

(From New America Media)

By Kevin Weston

San Francisco — AT&T Park shook so hard I thought I was on a pogo stick the night Barry Bonds crushed a 3-2 Mike Bacsik pitch into right center to go past the great Hank Aaron and crown himself Major League Baseball’s all-time home-run king. He circled those bases to a deafening hometown roar.

The real drama that night wasn’t whether Bonds would rewrite the records books, but whether Hank Aaron would acknowledge Bonds’ feat. Though Aaron didn’t attend, as is customary on these kinds of occasions, the aging ex-slugger did the next classiest thing, congratulating Bonds by video on the park’s big screen.

That four-bag trot and subsequent outpouring of adulation were the moments no one can take away from Bonds, regardless of what happens at his federal perjury trial. Jurors were chosen in the case Monday in the same city that praised his name that balmy yet windy August night when Barry Lamar Bonds became master of the baseball universe.

Bonds’ long journey from Bay Area local prep phenom – he was the son of San Francisco Giants’ Bobby Bonds and a graduate of Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo – to dazzling Pittsburgh Pirates’ rookie, to the high- priced free-agent savior of a floundering Giants’ franchise, to the bratty whining diva of the dugout, to “steroid boy” has been well documented, and is the stuff of modern black comedy and tragedy.

Barry Bonds is no Hank Aaron. Bonds is a freer and richer man, a less classy man, from a generation that could live wherever they wanted, date and marry white girls and command top dollar for endorsements. Aaron made it to the promised land of integration, but he was made in the Jim Crow era, the last Negro League player to integrate into Major League Baseball in 1954. Thurgood Marshall slay that ol’ dragon, school segregation, in the same year. We were just getting free then. It was a different time.

Bonds was born in 1964, a year before the Voting Rights Act was passed. The “Whites Only” signs over water fountains had been torn down by the time Bonds was old enough to read.

Bonds is free. That’s part of the reason he is hated. If he is convicted of perjury, maybe he’ll start to be appreciated by the general public more. He will have been put in his place, something that no steroid-fueled pitcher of his era – or any of his many detractors in the sports media – was able to do. The final irony: If convicted, he’ll be a convict that happens to be the all-time home-run leader in America’s game. Bonds is a black man who inherited the American dream and is now peering over a cliff at the American nightmare, bracing for the final nudge into oblivion — still the greatest to ever play the game of baseball.

Chauncey Bailey – The Carnage has No End in Sight

OAKLAND, Calif. – The murder trial of Yusef Bey IV and Antoine Mackey for the killing of my colleague, journalist Chauncey Bailey, began Monday with the prosecutor laying out a seemingly airtight case against the defendants.

The 25-year-old Bey, leader of the shuttered Your Black Muslim Bakery, is accused of masterminding the hit that left Bailey lying dead on an Oakland street from shotgun wounds.

Weeks before his cold-blooded and cowardly murder, I saw Chauncey at a forum for ethnic media to discuss an article, written by a young Asian man, entitled: “Why I Hate Black People.”

In his remarks, Chauncey pointed out, “No one hates black people more than black people.” He was referencing the 100-plus murders in Oakland that year and the fact that the overwhelming majority of victims and perpetrators were African Americans.

In the bygone days, you used to be able to muster up righteous anger at allegations of police brutality as a black man in America. Now all you would be doing is ignoring stone-cold reality. There were six police-involved shootings that resulted in four deaths in 2010 in Oakland. The city had more than 90 murders last year. So who should I be more worried about, the police or people who look just like me?

I’m still not over the shock and outrage I felt at Chauncey’s murder. I am humbly sobered by his prophetic testimony.

Bey IV was facing multiple felony charges in various Bay Area counties before he allegedly talked Devaughndre Broussard, the confessed triggerman, into gunning down Chauncey Bailey. If he and Mackey, the alleged get-away driver, are convicted of Chauncey’s murder, Oakland will still be left with questions even though the case will be closed.

The biggest question in my mind among the many left on the table is this: When will a critical mass of African-American people – especially young men – learn to value life enough that they won’t be so quick to take one?

Bey IV — if he is the killer, the Oakland Police Department, the Alameda County District Attorney and the media think he is – personifies the lost mob boss mentality of the 20- something generation of black men in impoverished neighborhoods across the country. The gang and drug turf-fueled predator image that emerged during the crack years, from the early ’80s to the mid ’90s, has given way to personal violence, the senseless kind of fratricidal carnage that has driven a quarter of black people out of this one-time chocolate city by the Bay in the last 10 years. And there is no end in sight.

Lovelle Mixon — Rebellion Without a Cause

OAKLAND, Calif. — This week will mark the second anniversary of Lovelle Mixon’s one-man rebellion that resulted in the death of four Oakland police officers.

“Mixon’s Rebellion” was ominously timed just a few months after the world witnessed the unlawful killing of Oscar Grant, Jr. on an East Oakland BART platform by the ex-transit cop Johannes Mehserle. There is a cosmic link in my mind between the two incidents.

According to news reports, Mixon was a parolee and a suspect in multiple felonies, including rape, when he was pulled over by two Oakland police officers on motorcycles for a traffic violation. Mixon allegedly shot those two men to death, ran to a nearby apartment complex where his family members resided and during a raid by the Oakland Police Department on the apartment where Mixon was holed up, two other officers got laid down in a hail of AK-47 fire from a cornered Mixon. Mixon was later killed.

This story is like a ’60s era black exploitation movie-inspired grim fantasy. I imagine Richard Roundtree in a black leather quarter-length trench coat, his afro forming a halo around his hard dark brown face. Forearms flexing as he points a hand cannon, single handedly fighting it out with The Man for the liberation of the people.

But Mixon was no Shaft. By most accounts, he was a desperate thug with little or no politics, with access to high-powered firearms and nothing to lose.

The tendency then, after the romantic notion of a modern Black Superman gets blown up by the facts, would be to make this case a cut and dried instance of grand karma – unaccountable and brutal police get what’s coming to them through street justice served by a target of their own choosing, months after one of them shot one of us in the back on video tape.

No one knows if the Grant killing was in Mixon’s mind when he decided not to go down without a fight. Mixon was more than likely thinking about himself as he blasted those four lives away.

The tragedy here – besides the loss of life – is that the black community has to rely on karma or supernatural intervention to receive the kind of justice that other Americans can take for granted. We have to be reduced to wishing that someone, something, would make police think twice before they racially profiled another driver, or used brutality as a regular piece of their job.

Before the trial that led to Mehserle’s conviction of involuntary manslaughter for killing Grant, no police officer in the history of Alameda County had ever been brought up on criminal charges for shooting an unarmed black man. It is that long legacy of impunity afforded to police that burns the souls of black folk, even in an age where we ought to be more concerned about the Lovelle Mixon’s of the world than the Oakland Police Department. Men like Mixon usually end up killing people that look like them.

Sports

The University of Chicago presents the Lionel Loueke Trio

Posted by JB On April - 8 - 2011 1 COMMENT

The University of Chicago presents the Lionel Loueke Trio Friday, April 15th. The event will be held in Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th Street, beginning at 7:30 p.m.

West African jazz guitarist Lionel Loueke is about to heat up Hyde Park! Loueke, who has been praised as a “musical painter” by his mentor Herbie Hancock, performs with his trio (Massimo Biolcati, bass; Ferenc Nemeth, drums). Originally from the small West African nation of Benin, Loueke has enjoyed a rapid ascent over the past several years. In 2008 and 2009, he was picked as top Rising Star guitarist in Down Beat magazine’s annual Critics Poll and he has recently recorded and performed with Grammy winner Esperanza Spalding. Loueke combines harmonic sophistication, soaring melody, a deep knowledge of African music, and conventional and extended guitar techniques to create a warm and evocative sound of his own.

Tickets are $25 / $10 students.

For more information:

chicagopresents.uchicago.edu or call 773.702-8068.

Entertainment

Re-writing history with Lincoln’s own pen

Posted by PMac On April - 8 - 2011 ADD COMMENTS

Presidential Library and Museum to receive golden gift April 15

Springfield, IL – The 14-karat-gold combination pen/pencil from Abraham Lincoln’s White House desk will be donated to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM) on Friday, April 15 by the descendants of the young couple to whom it was given by Mary Lincoln in 1865. It will be placed on public display that day in the Museum, along with a fascinating letter by a young Robert Lincoln from the same donor. They may be seen for the rest of the calendar year

Margaret Tillinghast Porter Davis of Boston, Massachusetts will donate the items that were given to her great-grandparents, who knew the Lincolns and helped protect young Tad Lincoln from an outbreak of scarlet fever. The three-inch gold implement features a pen on one end that can be flipped around in its holder to use as a pencil. It has been shown in public only once before, in 1957 for one day at the Joshua Speed farm near Louisville, Kentucky. It is the first gift of a solid gold item to the ALPLM’s Lincoln Collection.

“Not only is this a generous and historic donation, but it brings to light two new stories about the Lincolns that no one previously knew. We were astounded,” said the ALPLM’s Lincoln Curator James Cornelius.

In July 1865, just three months after the President’s assassination, Mary and her sons Tad and Robert Lincoln were living in a Hyde Park hotel south of Chicago when scarlet fever broke out in the house. Daniel W. Tillinghast and his wife, Louise, lived there as well. Louise offered to take Tad, as yet untouched by the disease, to her parents’ home north of the city and keep him there until the fevers had passed on the sultry South Side. There was good reason for fear – more than 800 people, most of them children, had died of scarlet fever over the three previous Chicago summers. By way of thanks, Mary gave the Tillinghasts the 14-karat-gold pen/pencil from her husband’s desk in the White House.

The Lincolns moved to the Clifton House at the southeast corner of Madison and Wabash in Chicago in the fall of 1865. The Tillinghasts stayed in Chicago as well and remained friends with the Lincoln family, as evidenced by this October 27, 1865 note from 22-year-old Robert Lincoln to Daniel Tillinghast, also part of the donation:

“You! Chauncey Brown expects you & me to come to his house & play a game of Billiards this evening. I propose to weigh anchor at 7 ½ P.M. Shall I have the honor of seeing you? Yours, R.T.L.”

Robert was reading law with the powerful firm of Scammon, McCagg & Fuller, and sent the letter to the Tillinghast store just three blocks away.

By the end of the year, Robert had moved into his own residence. His little brother, Tad, travelled to Europe with his mother and shortly after returning died in July 1871. Robert had the unenviable task of placing his increasingly erratic mother into a mental institution in 1875. Meanwhile, Daniel Tillinghast was overseeing the construction of a big new operation for his hides, leather, and fur business at the Union Stockyards in the winter of 1874 when he caught cold, which turned into pneumonia, and died.

Louise Tillinghast was the daughter of Chicago mayor Dr. Levi Boone (inaugurated in March 1855), and she briefly lived in Springfield before her marriage. Her aunt was Mrs. Jesse B. Thomas, whose husband was Illinois’s first senator. Daniel Tillinghast’s uncle was a senator from Rhode Island and a general of militia in the Civil War.

The gold pen/pencil and letter descended to their daughter, Louisa Tillinghast, who as Mrs. Thomas Edward Barry in 1933 wrote a six-page letter explaining some of the story. The items then passed to her son and daughter-in-law; and then at their deaths, to their daughter, the donor of the items, Margaret Tillinghast Porter Davis.

The gold pen/pencil joins 52,000 other items in the ALPLM’s world-renowned Abraham Lincoln Collection, from which select items are placed on display in the Presidential Museum. Paid admission is required to visit the Museum.

Visit www.presidentlincoln.org for more information about programs and exhibits at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

News

Bishop Greg Davis to host daily show on Impact Network

Posted by PMac On April - 8 - 2011 3 COMMENTS

Good News with Greg Davis Launched on April 6, 2011

Detroit, MI (BlackNews.com) — Impact Network will launch Bishop Greg Davis’ new daily show, Good News with Greg Davis, launched on Wednesday, April 6, 2011. Good News will air Monday through Saturday at 5:00 p.m. EST. The show will include a variety of news, talk, empowerment and more. Good News will be a live show and will feature taped segments from various convention and conference locations across the country. Good News will also air in a weekly format on Saturday nights from 10:00 p.m. – 12:00 a.m. and will feature the nation’s finest pastors and artists.

“I am so excited to be a part of history with the launch of the first African American Christian Network,” said host Bishop Greg Davis, Director of Community and Church Affairs and founder of Greg Davis Ministries International. “My new program airs six days a week and will be empowering and motivational. We will deal with everything from current events to inspiring testimonies. I look forward to exposing new faces to the country.” The Impact Network is available to 15 million homes on Dish Network.

“I am excited about Bishop Greg Davis joining the Impact family,” said Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, founder and President of Impact Network and the senior pastor of Great Faith Ministries in Detroit, MI. “He brings years of experience — he is known and loved throughout the Christian community. We look forward to his daily program ‘Good News with Greg Davis.’ We know that he will continue to bring quality, and be a blessing to the body of Christ.” Bishop Jackson’s wife, Dr. Beverly Jackson is also a founder of the network.

“We are so very delighted to have Bishop Greg Davis on board with Impact Network,” said Bishop I.V. Hilliard, executive co- partner (with his wife, Bridget Hilliard) of Impact Network and founder and senior pastor of New Light Christian Center Church in Houston, TX. “He has a refreshing personality and his spiritual commitment is definitely an asset.”

“We are very excited about Bishop Greg Davis becoming a part of the Impact family,” said Bishop Stanley Williams, co-partner of Impact Network and founder and senior pastor of Fire of the Word Faith Center Church in Jacksonville, Florida. “He is an inspiration to the body of Christ. He’s an extraordinary host and interviewer. I look forward to experiencing the creativity and the enthusiasm that he brings to Christian television.”

Bishop Davis was the host and executive producer of Rejoice In the Word on the Word Network for over three years. The show reached over 80 million homes in 200 countries.

For more information on Bishop Greg Davis and Greg Davis Ministries International, visit: www.gregdavisministries.org/home.php.

For more information on Good News with Greg Davis and Impact Network, please visit www.time4impact.com and www.iwantimpact.com

Religion

Bike to Work Week to present more events than ever!

Posted by PMac On April - 8 - 2011 16 COMMENTS

Includes rally, commuter challenge and movies in the park!

(From the Active Transportation Alliance)

With summer approaching and gas prices climbing, more Chicagoans are turning to bikes as their primary mode of transportation. Bike Chicago 2011 is presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and Goose Island 312.

Bike to Work Week (June 9-17) will include a variety of events to celebrate and encourage biking as a way to get around Chicago. The City of Chicago has planned a number of events during Bike to Work Week and Active Transportation Alliance will once again present the Bike Commuter Challenge. The challenge is a free program that pits workplaces up against one another to win top honors for the highest percentage of bike commuters during Bike to Work Week.

The Active Transportation Alliance provides resources and encouragement for participants of the Bike Commuter Challenge during the week of June 13-17. Workplace team leaders receive a free T-shirt for getting their co-workers to commute by bike. In 2010, nearly 500 organizations and almost 5,000 employees competed in the Bike Commuter Challenge. Registration for the challenge begins April 12. Get your workplace involved by visiting www.activetrans.org/bikecommuterchallenge.

Get ready for Bike Week by learning how life on two wheels can be stylish and fun at Bike “Chic”: Commuter Fashion Hits the Runway on Thursday, June 9 at noon on Daley Plaza. Biking to work doesn’t mean you’re covered in spandex!

Meet other cyclists for “happy hour” at Biking the Boulevards on Monday, June 13 at the Goose Island Brewpub at 1800 N. Clybourn Ave. Goose Island and Bike Chicago will present a bicycle happy hour and screening of BIKING THE BOULEVARDS with WTTW’s host, Geoffrey Baer. Baer bikes across Chicago using the city’s network of boulevards to tell our city’s story from the perspective of a cyclist in this 2010 documentary.

Take a lunch break on Tuesday, June 14 with Greg Borzo, author of Where to Bike Chicago for Bike it Everywhere, Chicago: Tales from the Trails. For this event, Borzo will share stories from his rides and discusses the history of biking in Chicago at the Chicago Cultural Center, Claudia Cassidy Theater beginning at noon.

Ride along for a Loop Bike Tour, on Wednesday, June 15. Join Chicago Neighborhood Bike Tours for a two-hour mini-tour of Chicago’s Loop. Pre-registration is required and the ride is limited to 150 participants. Visit website for details. The ride starts at 6:30 p.m. For details, visit bikechicago.us.

Hop on your bike and head to Grant Park for Bike Chicago Movies in the Park on Thursday, June 16. Enjoy an evening in the park featuring the award-winning 1979 classic, BREAKING AWAY, a coming of age film set in Bloomington, Indiana. The Goose Island 312 beer garden will be on site; the film starts at dusk at the northwest corner of Columbus and Balbo.

The week’s grand finale is the Bike to Work Rally on Friday, June 17 on Daley Plaza. The City of Chicago and Goose Island 312 present the rally to celebrate Chicago’s commitment to being the best big city for bicycling with more than 110 miles of bike lanes, 50 miles of bike paths and 12,000 bike racks. Join more than a thousand fellow cyclists on Daley Plaza for a free t-shirt, breakfast, bike valet and much more. To promote cycling camaraderie, there will be select locations around the city to join group rides to the rally that morning; locations will be identified closer to the date.

Bike Chicago 2011 is presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and Goose Island 312 in partnership with 93XRT, Pepsi, Hinckley Springs, Active Transportation Alliance, the Chicago Department of Transportation, Chicago Park District, Chicago Police Department and the Messenger Service Association of Illinois.

Bike Chicago is a celebration of Chicago’s commitment to becoming more bicycle friendly and environmentally conscious. As presenting sponsor, Goose Island 312 is passionate about the City, beer and cycling and feels privileged to be a part of the community that made Chicago one of “America’s Best Bike Cities.” To find out where you can enjoy 312 this summer at Chicagoland cycling events, visit 312chi.com.

The Active Transportation Alliance is a non-profit, member-based advocacy organization that works to make bicycling, walking and public transit so safe, convenient and fun that we will achieve a significant shift from environmentally harmful, sedentary travel to clean, active travel. The organization builds a movement around active transportation, encourages physical activity, increases safety and builds a world-class transportation network. Formerly the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, the Active Transportation Alliance is North America’s largest transportation advocacy organization, supported by more than 6,000 members, 1,000 volunteers and 35 full-time staff. For more information on the Active Transportation Alliance, visit www.activetrans.org or call 312.427.3325.

For more information and details on Bike Chicago 2011, please call (312) 744-3315, (312) 744-3370 (hotline) or visit www.bikechicago.us. Follow Bike Chicago on Facebook (Bike Chicago) or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/marylmay. To see updates on Twitter about Bike to Work Week events search for #B2WW.

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