Obama's ex-pastor sermonizes

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., said yesterday that the lesson in Obama's rise to the White House is that black people shouldn't limit themselves - or allow others to.

Wright had been Obama's longtime pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago before Obama quit the church and repudiated him after the uproar over some of Wright's videotaped sermons, in which he blamed the United States for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, among other things.

Wright, who for the last five years has delivered the sermon at Howard University on the eve of the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday, said Obama would not be the president-elect had he listened to the voices of those who doubted whether he could win the caucuses in mostly white Iowa, the Democratic presidential nomination, and the presidency.

The Lord "stepped into his story and gave him a new attitude," Wright said. "The scrawny kid with the big ears and the funny name said, 'Yes, we can.'"

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON - The men hawking Barack Obama T-shirts and trinkets on the corners of downtown Washington have some new competition in the selling frenzy building up to the president-elect's inauguration tomorrow - corporate America.

Companies ranging from global giants like soda and snacks maker PepsiCo to a local grocery chain offering cakes with Obama's face in icing are jumping on the commercial wave. Others, like home store Ikea, are hoping consumers take Obama's mantra of change to heart so much that they buy furniture. It is relatively rare for corporations leery of alienating consumers with any whiff of politics to associate themselves with a political figure, marketing specialists say.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The cellphone industry has a plea for the throngs descending on the nation's capital for the presidential inauguration: Go easy on the mobile communications. The largest cellphone carriers, fearful that a communicative citizenry will overwhelm their networks, have asked people to limit their calls and delay sending photos.

The carriers are also spending millions to upgrade their networks temporarily and substantially in Washington.

GLOBE STAFF