Bill Cosby

The Great Lighting Director in the Sky had been goofing off for much of Saturday with dark clouds seeping in and out of the skies over Franklin Field. At 2 p.m. sharp, however, it was perfect. Absolutely perfect. No clouds. No wind. No rain. Nothing but good warm sunlight. It made you wonder. Just how far does Bill Cosby's influence stretch? For it was at about 2 p.m. Saturday that "Cos" needed the skies and the field cleared to tape a relay race for his hugely successful NBC-TV comedy show.

Bill Cosby has canceled performances in Cincinnati next month, honoring a boycott called by black groups unhappy with the city's response to last year's riots. "I feel very uncomfortable playing the concerts at this time in this climate," Cosby said. The Coalition for a Just Cincinnati, one of 14 groups that have called for economic sanctions, asked the Philly-born comedian and other performers to boycott Cincinnati until city leaders pay more attention to police, racial and economic issues.

When Bill Cosby arrived on the Temple University campus in the early '60s, it was a time when the color of one's skin could easily divide us, tincture our choices of friends and push us to accept sweeping stereotypes. But he made us blind to color. He chipped away at our black-and-white consciousness, not with stirring rhetoric or remonstration, but simply by being who and what he was: humble, generous, self-effacing, loyal - and humorous. There was never any kitsch to Cosby. Then and now. Cosby's obvious humanity and sincerity explain why Philadelphians felt such a personal sense of loss when his son, Ennis, was murdered in Los Angeles last week.

BILL COSBY seems not to be deterred in his criticism of the black community. Just a month after citing the need for personal responsibility among blacks at a 50th anniversary commemoration of Brown vs. Board of Education, Cosby delivered another verbal tirade. Addressing the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund's annual conference, Philadelphia's native son launched a biting attack against juvenile delinquency in the black community. He defended his earlier remarks by saying that his detractors were trying to hide that community's "dirty laundry.

The son of entertainer Bill Cosby was killed early yesterday on a dark and desolate road leading from a freeway where he had pulled over to change a flat tire. Police said they suspect Ennis William Cosby, 27, was shot once in the head by a would-be robber who may have followed Cosby's disabled Mercedes sports car off the San Diego Freeway. A woman who drove past at 1:45 a.m. discovered his body and flagged down a highway patrol car. He was sprawled on the ground in a pool of blood next to the hunter green convertible.

RE JAMES Morton's Cosby letter ("Memo to Bill," July 13): Mr. Morton, unlike your, I refuse to take the blame for missed values in the black community. I am one of those who agrees wholeheartedly with Mr. Cosby because I am a man and parent who has instilled moral values in my children, as well as others. I beg to differ with your theory that black America has adopted white American values. Our values don't carry a color. People, black and white, do exactly what they want regardless of the consequences.

Achair and a microphone. That's all that Bill Cosby will need in the way of a stage set when he appears for two performances March 29 on the Camden waterfront. Because his TV show, Cosby, is shot in New York, Philadelphia's favorite son gets back to his home area only once in a while to tell his comic stories. He will perform at 7 and 9 p.m. at the Waterfront Entertainment Centre. Tickets for "An Evening With Bill Cosby" are priced at $26, $33 and $46, and are available from Ticketmaster.

Bill Cosby is the go-to celebrity at the Penn Relays - perhaps to the carnival what Jack Nicholson is to the Lakers or Spike Lee is to his Knicks. Each year, Cosby can be found on the Franklin Field infield, and 2011 was no exception. Wearing a gray Penn track suit and a canary yellow Penn Relays official's hat, Cosby posed for pictures, shook hands, and congratulated athletes Friday and Saturday. Cosby, 73, has been coming to the Relays since he was a boy growing up in Philadelphia - for probably 64 years, he said - and says he competed here during his days at Central High School.

It's as if Rocky Balboa abandoned the Art Museum's steps and ended his workouts by scaling the Jefferson Memorial Arch instead. It's as if Tastykake relocated here, and Pat's suddenly replaced cheesesteaks with toasted ravioli. Bill Cosby, as beloved a Philadelphia icon as Ben Franklin, is in league with the enemy. The North Philadelphia-born comedian, a graduate of Germantown High who attended Temple University, a fixture at Philadelphia sporting events from 76ers games to the Penn Relays, is a member of the Honorary Advisory Board of, gasp, the St. Louis Rams.

Below is a selection of reader Voicebox responses that were able to be verified, to the May 24 Commentary Page featuring a pro-and-con on Bill Cosby's criticism of the black community. At a May 17 gala at Constitution Hall in Washington, he called on African Americans to stop blaming racism for social ills and start taking personal responsibility for their lives. Reader response was the most one-sided in the history of Voicebox: Out of more than 130 calls, only four took issue with Cosby's remarks.