The Hispanic Democratic Organization is officially dead. The group that became known, feared and loathed by its initials -- HDO -- filed its Final Report this week with the Illinois State Board of Elections, legally terminating its activities as a political committee.
If the late R. Eugene Pincham had written his own obituary, you can bet the former judge would have prominently included a passage about the program he created in his courtroom that enabled defendants to study for their GED to keep from going to jail.
In the course of many years in this line of work, I've often had occasion for somebody to inquire of me, "That must be illegal. What does the law say?"
The lawyer who defended city patronage chief Robert Sorich on federal fraud charges says he faults Mayor Daley and the corporation counsel's office for the hiring procedures that sent his client to prison, which isn't to suggest he thinks they did anything wrong.
Mark Brown: People who pay their bills have a low tolerance for those who don't. I can be a little like that myself, so I can relate. When I hear about all these home foreclosures, I tend to wonder how many of those folks who got in trouble by refinancing have their own flat-screen televisions, while I'm still hoping to buy my first some day, and how many of them frequent the riverboats.
Mark Brown: Without borrowing or lending so much as a nickel, seven families living in an Albany Park apartment building have become the unwitting victims of the mortgage foreclosure crisis -- and possible fraud by their landlord. And their story may be the tip of yet another treacherous iceberg in these turbulent economic waters.
The e-mail system has been out of commission at the Sun-Times since Friday.
Mark Brown: We hear about the mortgage foreclosure crisis, and what we forget is that it's not just one big massive problem but rather thousands upon thousands of personal crises -- behind most a family or individual trying to hold it together. I was reminded of that last week when I decided to look through a stack of foreclosure suits filed Thursday in Cook County.
What can Brown do for you -- that Big Brown couldn't? For one thing, maybe I can persuade the nice folks at Brookfield Zoo to take this stolen stroller problem more seriously.
Mark Brown: Finally, there's a reason not to feel guilty about refusing to put one of those "My Child is an Honor Student" bumper stickers on your car. That is, finally there's a reason if general tackiness wasn't already enough to satisfy your conscience.
For three months now, Raymond Figueroa has been running his own private turn-in-your-guns reward program from his Division Street storefront law office.
Mark Brown: This is Father's Day, a time for reflecting on bear hugs, piggyback rides, baseballs tossed and bedtime stories read and heard. Or dads can take Chicago divorce lawyer James Quigley's advice and use the occasion to look across the dinner table and seriously ask themselves: Is that really my kid?
It was never about the children. That may be the only point on which I am reasonably sure when it comes to the Chicago Children's Museum move from Navy Pier to Grant Park, a topic on which I have been particularly conflicted.
The guys who boarded up Linda Johnson's garage in south suburban Riverdale were serious about the job.
It was to be Liam Hickey's first trip to Brookfield Zoo, and in preparation for the august occasion, his parents stopped on the drive there to buy a new lightweight portable stroller.
Mark Brown: A local radio station was carrying a network news story Friday morning about organizers for the Beijing Olympics trying to instruct the Chinese people on how to cheer properly during the upcoming Summer Games, including what to chant and how to clap.
