"Second-Chance Café," by Alexa Schirtzinger, July 16
Damn Good Joes
Thanks for writing this great story on a great organization. Cannon Flowers and Serena Connelly are two of the reasons I love Dallas. Anytime I hear generalizations about our city, I think of these two. What a great concept and very well-executed. This is a delightful place. I've had business meetings there and could not be more pleased with the food, service and atmosphere. The fact that they are using the marketplace to provide jobs for really courageous overcomers just makes it even better.
Bill Holston from Dallas, via dallasobserver.com
So glad you highlighted this great organization and business. The people behind the counter are wonderful individuals—so hard-working and spirited.
Marls from Dallas, via dallasobserver.com
I love this place! Their staff is fantastic, and they can actually heat your food selections. I have seen the baked products delivered fresh from the vendor, and the overall atmosphere is just very cool. Every time I go in, they call me by name and remember what I drank on my last visit. Thanks for giving this great shop the attention it deserves.
Glad2bgone from Dallas, via dallasobserver.com
This is a very moving article. This makes me want to return to Dallas and go to work at It's a Grind. Do you hire retired guys?
Gary, via dallasobserver.com
I so appreciated the major article you wrote about the good work at the Demeter Project and It's a Grind. Such an awesome employment opportunity that helps us all participate in being a great community and taking care of one another. The life stories were so real. Thanks again!
Candace Cain, Dallas
"Same Old Song and Dance," by Jim Schutze, July 9
Mule-headed
I get the racial set-asides for contractors, influence- and vote-selling detailed in the Dallas City Hall corruption trial. That's just business and politics.
How can there be such dissemblance from the black community that they will sit back and allow others to hurt their prospects for the "good of the black community"? Here's the quandary: A bunch of suits that either don't know or remember what it's like to live economically depressed are passing on the very thing needed because they want what basically amounts to kickback money.
Well now I know what happened to the "20 acres and a mule" at the end of the Civil War. Some blacks from the North threw up their arms and cried, "Yes, we will take that 20 acres and a mule, but only if you pay us to do it first."
Michal Murphy, McKinney
The insanity continues, locally through bloodsuckers like John Wiley Price and nationally through his mentors, the reverends (oxymoron if I've ever seen one) Jessie Jackson and his buddy Al Sharpton. When will black America realize that Price, Jackson and Sharpton are nothing but bloodsucking parasites that don't want the black populace to succeed? Their ongoing claims of racism are false and self-serving. They want blacks to believe that they are discriminated against and they deserve getting something for nothing. Reason? Well, what in the world are the black three stooges going to do if their people don't believe they're discriminated against? They won't have anyone else to exploit anymore!
As a first generation Italian-American, my late father lived in the Depression, in which they lost their home, stood in bread lines and would do anything in the world possible to get a job. Entitlement was not part of his language, and I was taught the only things you deserved were things that you earned from the sweat of your own efforts...
I'm disgusted and get nauseated anytime I see the fraud perpetrated by the likes of JWP, JJ and AS. The fact that it's against their own people that (for some reason) hold them in high regard and trust them makes it even more nauseating....And no, I'm not a racist..
Tom Baglio, Irving
