Leroy Williams Jr.

Wistful (At Times) for the Newsroom

2008-02-01T10:07:00.000-05:00

Again, I apologize for waiting more than a whole month between blog posts. Since November, I've been working on a temporary basis with a D.C.-area company that does social services consulting. Unbeknownst to me prior to my landing here, states outsource stuff like Medicaid enrollment, child support enforcement and workforce services to companies like this one.

Of course, in order to win these contracts, the company needs to submit formal written proposals. I was hired to support the proposal preparation process. It's been good thus far.

On another topic, I check out the world of journalism online through a number of sites. In addition, I was surprised when a former colleague of mine at Denver's Rocky Mountain News, Gary Massaro, emailed me a few days ago. He said he and another colleague Googled my name and found my photography website.

Which got me to thinking, it's been more than 14 years since I left the Rocky and 10 since I left daily journalism. The funny thing is that some days I miss the newsroom and other days I don't.

Among the reasons I miss the work are the comraderie of my colleagues, reporting and writing stories on deadline and seeing the result under one's byline in the next day's paper.

Other days, I don't miss it due to the layoffs and buyouts, the productivity edicts (being forced to churn out dozens of mediocre stories per month as opposed to a doing a couple of solid investigative pieces). I also sometimes wonder if my reasons for even getting into the field were pure. You know, journalists are supposed to "affict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted." But heck, I wanted to be comfortable, too. Did that mean I had to affict myself?

Speaking of the Rocky, it hurts to hear that the paper has had to cut its staff through buyouts and of rumors that the paper might even be shut down. While I by no means was the world's greatest hack, the Rocky afforded me the chance to do some decent work, including that transportation column I worked on between 1989 and 1992.

Also, I came across a blog by another former Rocky colleage, Jon Talton, who outlines his view of what ails newspapers.

Would I want to get back into newspapers? It depends on the job and, of course, the salary. The more relevant question, however, is will newspapers have me back? I doubt it, after being away for so long. They'd probably see me as too old and too expensive.

So for now, I'll continue to use my writing skills to win contracts in corporate America. After all those years in newsrooms, who'da thunk I would be toiling in a marketing subspecialty for a non-media company? I certainly did not. But at least the hourly rates are better.

Sorry for the Absence/Merry Christmas

2007-12-25T12:18:00.000-05:00

Hello,

First off, I want to apologize for the long absence. I've relcoated to the Washington, D.C. area in search of the proposal-related work I've done for the past six years. As you can imagine, that type of work is more plentiful in our nation's capital, what with all the government contractors located there.

While I've moved, the family hasn't, which has been a little tough. I'm renting a room in a townhome owned by a nice semi-retired teacher, which helps immensely.

That's it for now. And again, I wish that the peace of God be with you on this holiday observing the birth of Jesus Christ. Take care.

Phils' Recent Third Base History

2007-10-12T01:23:00.000-04:00

I know it's taken a few days, but I'm finally getting over the sting of watching the Philadelphia Phillies tank last Saturday in the first round of the National League playoffs against the upstart Colorado Rockies.

Most Phils news in the aftermath of this debacle was dominated by the signing of manager Charlie Manuel for another two years. Now the Phils must address some needs, mainly relief pitching and third base.

I understand that Major League baseball teams will always need pitching. But it's the situation at third base that really sticks in my craw. In 2007, the Phils platooned Wes Helms (yet another in a long line of free agent busts), Abraham Nunez (all field and no hit; Phils will not exercise its option on Nunez) and Greg Dobbs (a serviceable utility man) at third with OK but not great results.

The Phils' Wes Helms, Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins look on during their 2-1 loss to the Colorado Rockies Oct. 6, which eliminated the Phils in the National League Division Series.

You see, the Phils back in 2002 had a really good third baseman named Scott Rolen. But he so disliked Philadephia (and specifically then-manager Larry Bowa) and so wanted to go home to the Midwest that he left a reported $140 million on the table.

So the Phillies traded Rolen to the St. Louis Cardinals straight up for third baseman Placido Polanco.

OK, Polanco doesn't have Rolen's power but if he were good enough to play third for St. Louis, he was good enough to play third for the Phils. Polanco hits for average and rarely strikes out.

But what do the Phils do? Instead of showing Polanco some love and signing him to a long-term deal for say, $35-40 million, about a quarter of what they were going to pay Rolen, they instead bring in free agent David Bell (another bust) to play third. Polanco ends up platooning at second base with the then-emerging star Chase Utley. In 2006, the Phils traded Bell to Milwaukee last year, and we've since heard hide nor hair of him.

In 2005, the Phils decided Utley was their second baseman and traded Polanco to the Detroit Tigers for among other players, veteran closer Ugueth Urbina, who now sits in a Venezuela prison. He was convicted of attempted murder, accused of attacking five farm workers on his property and trying to injure them both with a machete and by attempting to pour gasoline on them.

That Urbina went off like he did is not that surprising, when you consider that his mother was kidnapped late in 2004 and held for ransom for five months before being rescued. Urbina was a ballplayer with money -- and a target. So the guy had to be mentally walking on eggshells.

Back to the Phils. There is talk that the Phils should sign free agent Mike Lowell to play third.

We can only hope Lowell isn't a bust if that happens. And we also can hope they build on what they've achieved this year, by winning a pennant and even a World Series, but they've got to get pitching.

Meanwhile, it's Arizona vs. Colorado for the National League pennant. Yecch.

The Phillies -- Going Down With Little Phight

2007-10-06T10:02:00.000-04:00

What goes around, as they say, comes around.

Nearly a week after the National League East champion Philadelphia Phillies found themselves beneficiaries of the momentous collapse of the New York Mets, the Phillies now find themselves staring baseball death in the face.

This is because the Colorado Rockies, themselves winners of a one-game playoff over the San Diego Padres for the NL's wild card berth, have smoked the Phillies like a smelly blunt in Games 1 and 2 of the Division Series at Philly's Citizens Bank Park. The Philles face a 0-2 deficit as the series shifts this weekend to Denver's Coors Field.

To stave off elimination, the Phillies need to win three games in a row in this best-of-five series to advance to the playoff's next round.

One more loss, and the Phillies are out, leaving baseball purists shuddering over the now-strong possibility that the 2007 National League Championship Series could feature the Rockies against the Arizona Diamondbacks, who lead the Chicago Cubs two games to nothing in the other division series.

Now, I don't need to tell you that the TV executives showing the NLCS would much rather see a Cubs-Phillies series, a compelling matchup of two historically sad-sack franchises that also coincidentally play in the country's Number 2 and Number 5 TV markets, respectively. Few will watch an NLCS involving Arizona and Colorado, two smaller-market 1990s expansion teams with lame nicknames most of the nation cares little about.

At least the Phillies can take heart. They've learned the same lesson as the Mets. Baseball is like life -- it's a game that will humble you fast.

Those Phabulous Phillies

2007-09-30T17:28:00.000-04:00

I stand corrected. Philadelphia Phillies' shortstop Jimmy Rollins is a bona fide superstar.

I sit here now basking in the glow of having watched my Phillies win their first National League East division championship since 1993 on the final day of the 2007 season Sunday. Final score: Phils 6, Washington Nationals 1.

Two years ago in a post on the Phillies' racial history, I posited that Rollins was good, but not great. Well, this guy from the Bay Area has since proven me wrong and that he is worth every bit of that $40 million contact extension he signed in 2005.

During Sunday's win, he knocked in a critical fifth run in the sixth inning with his 20th triple of the year. That triple made Rollins only the fourth player in major league history with at least 20 stolen bases, 20 homers, 20 triples and 20 doubles. For perspective, consider that the great Willie Mays was among the other three players who achieved that feat.

The Phillies couldn't have won the division without help from the rival New York Mets, who on Sunday completed a collapse of historic proportions. The Mets on Sept. 12 led the division by seven games with 17 to play, but went into a major tailspin. No Major League team has ever owned a lead of seven games or more with 17 left to play and failed to finish in first place.

The Phils started the Mets on their slide by sweeping New York in a three-game series from Sept. 14-16. The Mets, suffering inadequate starting pitching and a tired bullpen, never recovered. By contrast, the Phils surged, matching only the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals and the 1938 Chicago Cubs in overcoming a seven-game deficit.

The Phils and the Mets entered Sunday tied for the division lead, but it was obvious the Mets were the ones gasping for air.

The Florida Marlins disconnected the Mets' life support on Sunday with an 8-1 win at Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows, a game that featured Florida scoring seven runs in the first inning, knocking out the great Mets starter Tom Glavine. Glavine threw 37 pitches but got only one out.

What makes Rollins' achievements that much sweeter was his preseason proclamation that the Phils were the "team to beat." Of course, Mets fans took exception to those comments, booing Rollins every chance they got. Rollins is in line for Most Valuable Player honors.

Congratulations to the Phillies. The playoffs start this Wednesday against a yet-to-be determined opponent as of this writing.

Nearing the End of the Retraining Road

2007-09-13T03:01:00.000-04:00

After a few days and some long hours, I've finally got a redesigned website up and running. It showcases some of the photos I took at the Aug. 25 Giants-Jets preseason game. The few people who've reviewed it have provided positive feedback.

Kyash Images is a work in progress. I'm going to get with my web development advisor next week to go over improvements. I used Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Dreamweaver to construct the site.

I'm almost finished with the web design course, and marketing management is next. Probably the hardest module to understand was the one covering Adobe Flash.

It's one thing to be told with a series of slides in a web-based course about how an application works, but it's another thing entirely to get lots of hands-on experience. Only the HTML unit provided some hands-on work. The only way to really learn is by doing, but the challenge will be climbing a steep learning curve while a paying client is breathing down my neck.

This is why I've spent so much time not only reworking my site, but on putting together video for a Christian non-profit's web site. I'm also supposed to be building a web site for our church, but stopped (for now) after I couldn't find a background color I liked.

Once I finish the courses, my state employment counselor is to line me up with an appointment with a "job developer." It's about time, because the unemployment benefits and what savings I was able to tap are starting to dwindle. As I've said before, I'll do my best to leave this situation in God's hands.

My First Chance to Photograph an NFL Game

2007-08-27T00:50:00.000-04:00

The New York Giants and New York Jets played a National Football League preseason game on Saturday, Aug. 25. They resumed a relatively longstanding interconference and intracity rivalry.

Matter of fact, this rivalry reaches the point of being an intra-stadium competition. Both the Giants and the Jets play their home games at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. This was considered a Giants' home game, although there were a fair number of Jets fans in attendance.

It was one of those not-so-well-played preseason games, complete with second and third stringers, that won't mean a thing in the actual standings once the regular season gets under way in September. The Jets won 20-12 with one sportswriter curiously labeling the Jets' offense as "inept."

For me, however, it was meaningful. I had the chance to photograph the game from the sidelines.

How did I pull this off? Long story made short: To paraphrase the Bible, "Ask and ye shall receive." I inquired of an acquaintance working for the Giants as to the chance to photograph from the sidelines. He passed it on to someone in the communications department, and a sideline photo credential was waiting for me at the Will Call window.

I must make a confession: I suffered from a little lens envy. I brought an 80-200 mm lens, which is adequate for shooting sports at night. But I felt a tad intimidated by all that 400 to 600 mm glass pointed at the field.

I will post the game photos to my website, Kyash-Images.com, in a few days. I'd like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the Giants' Bill Squires and Avis Roper for providing me this opportunity.

Daughter's Return Home/Life is a Highway

2007-08-23T18:11:00.000-04:00

So we're passing through northern Indiana along eastbound Interstate 80 early last Saturday morning, and I switch the car radio to an FM station at 106.5 in nearby Kalamazoo, Michigan just in time to hear the song Life is a Highway by Tom Cochrane.

The significance? My son Kyle and I were driving home my daughter Ashley, who wrapped up her eight month co-op with the Kohler Co., in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where she tested materials used in manufacturing ceramics. Before we helped Ashley pack, we caught a game Aug. 15 between the Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals at Miller Park. St Louis won, 8-3.

Faithful readers of this blog will recall that the video I made of our trip to Wisconsin in January used Life is a Highway. I first heard the song back in 1996 while driving along northbound Interstate 95 through Fredericksburg, Virginia on a trip from the Hampton Roads area to New Jersey.

I thought, wow, this is a nice cut. Of course, the announcer engaged then in what I consider radio's most annoying habits -- telling us about some contest rather than the names of the just-played song and artist.

I later had to ask a record store employee what artist performed a song with the refrain, "Life is a Highway/I want to ride it all night long." He told me Tom Cochrane. Then I bought the CD, titled Mad, Mad World.

As for Ashley, she's an apple that doesn't fall far from the tree when it comes to her dad's love of traveling. Ashley, her mother and a friend went to Boston for a couple of days this week. And next week, in time for her 20th birthday, she's making a trip to Arizona to visit a sister in her engineering sorority.

Turns out my daughter wasn't all that hot about living in the real world of working in corporate America, paying for rent and utilities. I told her it was unavoidable; at some point she will have to enter that world for life.

For now, it's back to school at Rutgers University. Welcome back to the sheltered world.

Documentary: The Ghosts of Flatbush

2007-07-26T13:10:00.000-04:00

Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush is one reason, along with the network's great original series, I continue to subscribe to HBO. The documentary producers do a masterful job of capturing the social, political and economic characteristics of post-World War II urban America through the lens of a legendary baseball franchise.

The program tells the story of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the team's loving relationship with a multicultural fan base in the gritty blue-collar borough that sat in the shadow of rich, glitzy Manhattan.

The first hour comprises the history of Dodgers and Ebbets Field and of course the team's insertion into its lineup of Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball's color barrier. Recounted is the resistance Robinson faced from his teammates -- including a shot of Dodger Dixie Walker's head turned away from the camera in the 1947 team photo as a protest against integration -- as well as the racist taunts and insults from opposing players and fans Robinson endured when visiting other National League parks.

The second hour focuses on Dodger President Walter O'Malley's quest for a new ballpark in Brooklyn, a mission ultimatly thwarted by New York's urban planning kingpin, Robert Moses, the man responsible for building the highways, tunnels and bridges in and around New York.

O'Malley wanted New York to use its eminent domain powers to grab a site at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues he could buy cheaply. On that land O'Malley planned to build a state-of-the-art domed stadium to attract Dodger fans who'd moved from Brooklyn to the Long Island suburbs. Attendance at Ebbets had been flagging during the 1950s.

The program includes some amazing footage of a meeting between Mayor Robert Wagner, O'Malley and Moses in which O'Malley repeats his demand for help in securing land for a stadium. Moses is shown accusing O'Malley of threatening to "take all of his marbles" and leave the city if he doesn't get what he wants. Moses instead offered a site in Flushing Meadows in Queens.

O'Malley nixed that idea and ultimately moved the Dodgers to Los Angeles, whose officials happily gave him 350 acres on which to build a new stadium. Who was ultimately responsible for the Dodgers' departure, O'Malley or Moses, is still a matter of debate, although the documentary appears to make Moses the villain.

Woven throughout is how the Dodgers' became the class of the National League after 1947, winning several pennants, but always losing the World Series to the hated crosstown New York Yankees. Until, that is, 1955, when the Dodgers finally won it all in seven games over the Yankees.

The program caused me to recall my mother, who migrated to New York from South Carolina, talking about going to Dodger games at Ebbets Field.

Having been born in New York 1959 and spending my first six years in Queens, the documentary gave me a hint of why I didn't want to move with my folks to a house my grandmother had built in southern New Jersey. Had the Dodgers not moved, I would have become a Dodger fan. Had we stayed in Queens, I at the very least would have become a fan of the Mets, the expansion team that restored National League ball to New York after the Dodgers and the New York Giants left. Either way, I would have had good teams to cheer for.

Instead, God had other plans. He made me, by dint of geography and my childhood ignorance of history, a long-suffering Philadelphia Phillies fan. I saw in the program part of why Philadelphia this year became the first professional franchise to reach the dubious milestone of 10,000 losses -- the 1947 Phillies, led by their redneck manager Ben Chapman, rode Robinson unmercifully. That took a lot of nerve, considering the Phils were consistently a second-division franchise. For a few moments I felt embarrassed to be a Phillies fan.

It was that delusional attitude that caused the Phillies, along with the Boston Red Sox, to be the among the last teams in the Major Leagues to integrate. Both teams frankly sucked for most of the past 50 years. Ever wonder if there's a correlation? I think so. A winning team racism does not make.

Back to the Dodgers, also known as "Dem Bums," until they won it all in '55. The Ghosts of Flatbush is a great view. Check it out if you subscribe to HBO.

To My Son, the Recent Graduate -- Congratulations

2007-07-23T05:04:00.000-04:00

In keeping with the this blog's tradition of showing video, I present a tribute to my son Kyle, who graduated high school in New Jersey June 14, 2007.
(OK, so I did as others and set it to the Graduation Song [Friends Forever] by Vitamin C. I won't win any points for originality here, but this cut best fits the occasion.) Enjoy.

A Codehead in the Making

2007-07-19T02:33:00.000-04:00

HTML.

In case you’ve never heard of that acronym, it’s shorthand for Hypertext Markup Language. HTML is the underlying computer code translated by web browsers – be they Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Netscape’s Navigator or Mozilla’s Firefox – into the millions of pages of text and graphics that comprise the Internet’s World Wide Web.

I’ve spent the past two weeks learning the fundamentals of writing HTML via an online course. As a so-called “displaced worker,” – it’s now been four months since my last employer gave me the boot – the great State of New Jersey has deemed me eligible for funding for re-training. Now instead of writing news articles, I’m writing computer code, at the state’s expense. Hallelujah.

My Introduction to HTML is part of a larger online curriculum title “Web Design and Development,” offered by the Rohrer Center for Management and Entrepreneurship (CME) at Rutgers University’s Camden, New Jersey, campus. This course also includes modules – corporate-speak for units, the term we used in elementary school – on the use of such popular Web design programs as Adobe’s Dreamweaver and Flash. Also included is XHTML Programming as well as Site Design, including client- and server-side scripting. (I’ll explain all that once I’m into them.)

HTML is challenging in that it requires knowledge of elements called tags, attributes and values. The short explanation is that the code requires the use of heretofore little-used computer keys such as “<,” “>,” “=.” And then there are the “{“ and “}” brackets. All this code is used to define various styles that control fonts and background colors.

Once I finish the web development course, the plan is for me to move into another online CME offering called Marketing Management, which lines up with what I was doing at my last company as a proposal specialist and with my reporting background.

Sure, I feel like I’m about 10 years late to the Web development party, but my perusal of job boards still shows a need for folks to do this kind of work. New Jersey stipulates that the courses it pays for must lead to an occupation that their data show is “in demand” in one’s home county – in my case, Camden County.

I’m not entirely new to rudimentary site creation. I’ve already created websites for myself and my wife, as I mentioned in an earlier post, and helped a local non-profit Christian organization redesign its website. But I did those sites with Microsoft FrontPage, which like Dreamweaver is one of those so-called What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) visual site editors.

My research shows that any serious web designer/developer needs to have knowledge of HTML, as opposed to being solely reliant on visual editors. So here I am.

My advisor at CME tells me that based on my background the Web development and marketing are a good combination that can help me to strike out in my own business. I pray he’s right. I’ll definitely be leaving this up to God. In the meantime, I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Peace.

"Ice" Is What Drives Ice Road Truckers

2007-07-01T17:15:00.000-04:00

I’ve got nothing but respect for drivers of large trucks. I know most car and SUV drivers don’t like them, viewing the rigs as highway-clogging impediments, but I’d like to think I know better. Much of the stuff we buy from the shelves of our local supermarkets, department stores and convenience outlets was likely transported there by trucks.

A minister friend has a successful small trucking firm. A young lady, a recovering addict, recently observed her first anniversary as a tractor-trailer driver for a supermarket chain. One of my first cousins has more than 20 years as an over-the-road trucker.

Trucking under the best of weather and road conditions is difficult and risky. Drivers must maneuver large heavy vehicles amidst smaller vehicles on sometimes tight roads with little margin for error. Many truck drivers will tell you the biggest hazard they face is car drivers. Truck drivers who find themselves cut off by smaller cars must brake suddenly or swerve, which can cause jackknifing accidents or rollovers. Trucks simply cannot stop on a dime like cars.

I say all this because I find what I see on the current History Channel series Ice Road Truckers so appalling (I’ll tell you why in a moment). Featured are a group of guys who for two months a year drive loads of upwards of 40 tons along a 300-plus-mile “road” in the coldest reaches of Canada’s Northwest Territories.

Risky? You bet. But forget the temperatures that reach minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Forget the frequent breakdowns, usually caused by moisture freezing in air-driven brake and transmission lines.

The biggest risk is the road itself, composed in some stretches of 28-inch-thick sheets of frozen lake. Yes, they drive heavy trucks on ice. Engineers build the ice road and monitor its strength; still, many drivers over the years have gone down though ice that cracked under the weights of their rigs into the frigid water below with no hope of being saved.

Trained divers stand by, waiting to spring into action in the event of such a catastrophe. They recover drivers’ bodies relatively quickly. Recovering the rigs, on the other hand, can take weeks.

In exchange for taking on this frighteningly dangerous job, drivers can make $50,000 to $70,000 during the two months that the lakes are frozen over. Now, I can understand taking such risks to support the harvesting of some important natural resource that could become an energy source, food or life-saving drug.

What appalls me about this enterprise is that these drivers choose to continuously put their lives on the line to transport supplies that support the mining of diamonds, probably the most expensive stones marketed to appeal to human vanity. This is an industry that successfully (and insidiously, I might add) encourages men to spend inordinate amounts of money on diamonds (also known as ice) as symbols of their love for their intended spouses. (Or as a token of repentance for marital infidelity.)

There are a couple of diamond mines in that part of Canada, where it is a $1.9 billion industry. Diamond mining is well-documented as a source of misery in other parts of the world, including the continent of Africa.

No matter what I think, I also understand that the truck drivers are aware of the risks and like most of us, put the big picture out of our minds – that “ends justifies the means” mentality.

They freely admit during the interviews that ice road trucking is only about the money, or as one put it, “the dash for cash.” I guess that means the drivers will get the cash only if they can finish the dash -- before a crack in the ice finishes them.

Catching Up

2007-06-12T19:59:00.000-04:00

My, it’s been awhile since I last posted. Let’s catch up, shall we?

I was surprised and saddened to hear of the May 15 death of Yolanda King, 51, the eldest daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., only weeks after I had mentioned in this blog that I met her back in the early 1980s while on a newspaper assignment.

I recall hanging back and and observing the students she addressed at Glassboro State College take turns answering questions after a speech she gave at the New Jersey school.

When I finally introduced myself, Ms. King, believe it or not, gently chastised me for not being more aggressive in questioning her. I took it to mean I should have jumped ahead of the students. I guess spending a lifetime in the public eye prompted Ms. King to expect that kind of rudeness from other journalists, and she may have thought I was no different. I kind of shrugged my shoulders and asked my few questions, which she graciously answered.

May you also rest in peace, Ms. King.

Other stuff:

Contrary to my earlier prediction, talk show host Don Imus was canned after all for his on-air riff calling the Rutgers University womens' basketball team "nappy headed hos." Did you notice that CBS fired Imus only after some key sponsors started to bail? As they say, money talks, bovine scat walks.

On a personal note, I'm still unemployed after nearly three months, trying to find new work and maybe take some classes, perhaps website development, to upgrade my skills. I’m way overdue – like most of my bills – for a much-needed skills upgrade. Because I’m collecting unemployment insurance, I’m eligible for state-paid retraining for “displaced workers” for work that’s in demand. Might as well take advantage, right?

A Plug for Sports Photography

2007-05-03T13:02:00.000-04:00

OK, here's Shameless Plug Number 2:

I've also got a couple of sites devoted to sports photography. They are www.kyash-images.com and kyash-images.smugmug.com.

My recent experience includes shooting basketball (see the posts on the Community College of Philadelphia team) and some youth hockey, which appears on the smugmug site. Also on the smugmug site is some high school playoff basketball.

Check out the sites; hope you like the photos.

To the Land of Cheese

2007-04-23T04:04:00.000-04:00

I posted in January about our trip to Wisconsin so that my daughter Ashley, a second-year engineering student at Rutgers University, could work a co-op job with the Kohler Co. of Sheboygan.

A short video (in the post below) documents the trip. Especially priceless is Ashley learning how to pump her own gas after becoming accustomed to driving in New Jersey, which along with Oregon, outlaws self-service fuel retailing. Enjoy.

Wisconsin Video

2007-04-23T04:00:00.000-04:00


This video documents my daughter Ashley's trip to Sheboygan, Wisconson in January 2007.

My Wife, the Educational Consultant

2007-04-11T00:08:00.000-04:00

Excuse this shameless plug, but I wanted to mention that my wife, Kathy Andrews-Williams, a smart, talented woman who teaches Spanish at our local high school, has her own website advertising an educational consultancy.

In addition, Kathy is scheduled to make a presentation this week in Las Vegas at the Southwest Conference on Language Teaching. Her topic will be on teaching language to special needs students. I'll be assisting her.

A link appears on the column to the right. Thanks for your consideration.

The Real Source of Imus-Type Flaps? Management

2007-04-10T23:20:00.000-04:00

Don Imus is no total idiot. OK, he’s a clod with a microphone who from time to time offers diatribes that cross the line between mild offense and outright racism. But again, he’s no total idiot.

By now, everyone and their mothers have heard about Imus’ on-air comments referring to the Rutgers University women’s basketball team as a group of “nappy-headed hos.”

Why do I say that Imus is no total idiot? Because he does exactly what his bosses want him to do.

And that is to get ratings. Got that? R-A-T-I-N-G-S. In other words, attract as many pairs of ears (in television, the name of the game is to draw pairs of eyeballs) to your show so that your salespeople can sell those listening ears to advertisers willing to pay big bucks to sell their wares.

Prominent African Americans, including officials of the National Association of Black Journalists, have called for Imus’ firing. Turned out it was wishful thinking, as CBS, which syndicates the show to 70 stations around the country, suspended Imus for two weeks. Following suit was MSNBC, which simulcasts the program.

I won’t rehash the controversy, there are plenty of places in cyberspace reporting on it ad nauseum. A good place to start is Richard Prince’s Journal-isms column.

My thing is this: Come on, folks, how many times have we seen this? And why are we surprised?

Controversial and offensive riff, spoof or skit – usually mocking or demeaning minorities or coming across with heavy sexual overtones – hits airwaves, then firestorm of controversy ensues with calls for firing of those involved. Then management apologizes and fires some hapless producer or other behind-the-scenes staffer while the on-air personalities get a wrist slap but keep their gigs.

Think back to New York’s Hot 97’s utterly tasteless 2005 parody mocking the victims of the South Asian tsunami complete with epithets such as “screaming chinks.” A producer of the hip-hop station’s “Miss Jones in the Morning” show was fired, but the rest of the staff each ponied up one week’s pay for tsunami relief. Station management apologized.

And how about that pre-Monday Night Football stunt in 2004 that had Desperate Housewives’ Nicollette Sheridan dropping her towel in front of then-Philadelphia Eagles wideout Terrell Owens and jumping into his arms? That was unsavory enough, but add to it the unmistakable racial overtones (white blonde coming on to muscular black stud). No calls for firing this time, but ABC, the National Football League and the Eagles apologized after facing the inevitable torrent of criticism.

What I think of these apologies? They’re bullcrap. In the above instances, those involved in putting them together knew exactly what they were doing and I believe, especially in the case of Hot 97, had management’s tacit approval. Anyone with a smidgen of intellectual honesty who really cared could have raised a red flag and said, “Uh, do you think this might be offensive?” Either that didn’t happen, or that person who raised the concern was ignored.

After all, controversy creates ratings – it creates buzz, it gets people to listen in to see what the fuss is about. Then the Neilsen or Arbitron ratings climb, and the network or station can command higher ad rates.

Imus’ type of radio is cut from the same cloth – management’s message to him is “you’ve got carte blanche to say what you want. Come as close to the line as you can without going over. If you do, we’ll apologize to the howling masses and suspend you for a couple of weeks.”

If Imus’ bosses had granted NABJ’s wish and fired him, how long do you think it would be before another competing outlet snapped Imus up, thus bringing along his all-important audience, along with the dollars it represents?

Dr. King's Letter from Birmingham Jail

2007-04-04T02:24:00.000-04:00

As many of you know, today marks the 39th anniversary of the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. as he stood on the balcony of a Memphis, Tennessee, motel. I was eight years old the day he died. I recall a neighbor rushing into our New Jersey home the evening of April 4, 1968, exclaiming, "King got killed!"

To which I replied, "Whose king got killed?" My parents then switched on a portable device that was part radio, part record turntable and heard the announcer deliver the tragic news -- Martin Luther King Jr., age 39, had been shot to death.

Until that fateful day, I had no idea who the man was. Growing up in the tumultuous 1960s, it seemed that the daily background noise of my life pretty much consisted of hearing the words "President Johnson," "Vietnam" and "Good night, Chet. Good night, David. And good night for NBC News." (The foreground consisted primarily of attending elementary school, playing hide and seek and watching made-for-television cartoons produced by the late animation team of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.)

Remarkably, I cannot recall hearing anything about Dr. King or the black struggle for civil rights.

Of course, I learned much more about Dr. King as I grew older. As a reporter for a New Jersey newspaper in the early 1980s, I even had the privilege of meeting his eldest daughter, Yolanda, when she spoke at Glassboro State College (now Rowan University).

I'm using this occasion to make a somewhat embarrassing revelation -- it wasn't until age 47 that I read in its entirety Dr. King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Better late then never, I suppose.

"Letter from Birmingham Jail" should be required reading for all students of American history, regardless of racial or ethnic background. Written in April 1963, this treatise has been described as his passionate statement in a crusade for justice, a strongly worded answer to white Southern clergy who publicly challenged Dr. King's strategy of staging marches to protest the Southern system of racial segregation known as "Jim Crow."

Every year on Dr. King's January birthday, now a national holiday, the media trot out his "I Have a Dream" speech delivered in August 1963 during the March on Washington. Nothing wrong with that.

But make no mistake -- if "I Have a Dream" was feathery, uplifting oratory, then "Letter from Birmingham Jail" was a printed sledgehammer. Because sitting in a jail cell for protesting afforded him plenty of time to think and write, Dr. King was able to scratch out a letter that pulled no punches, eloquently making the case that it was high time for the United States of America to put up or shut up, to extend to African slave-descended people their "Constitutional and God-given rights."

This link will take you to a web page that carries the letter in its entirety. Here's my favorite passage:

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you no forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

May you continue to rest in peace, Dr. King.

Check Out Video of the Patrick-Duncan Family Reunion

2007-03-25T01:34:00.000-04:00

In the December post reviving this weblog, I mentioned that I created a video of the reunion in August 2006 of my mother’s extended family.

Today I’m pleased to report that the one-hour, nine-minute mini-documentary of the Patrick-Duncan Family Reunion, which took place in South Carolina, has been posted to Google Video. You can either watch the video embedded in the post below, or click on the “Google Video” link in the lower right corner to view it in a larger web browser page.

The family gave thanks to God and Jesus Christ for the ability to come together at least one more time. Still strong among most of us is the memory of the family patriarch, a sharecropper’s son named Bowman Patrick Sr., my maternal grandfather, who passed away at age 97 in July 2001. He is pictured with my grandmother Leola Duncan Patrick, who passed away in November 1963.

We made many trips down to the family’s nearly 100-acre farm in Bamberg County, S.C., about an hour south of Columbia, the state capital. Granddad grew watermelons and cantaloupes, among other crops, to sell to market and we would help with the harvest. Bowman Patrick, a man of unwavering faith in Jesus, was an entrepreneur among entrepreneurs.

As a six-year-old, I also remember Granddad feeding, or “slopping,” hogs at a trough. I asked my grandfather why the animals would constantly change positions as they lapped up the messy-looking stuff. He replied with a quick wit, “You know that cigarette commercial where the man says he’d rather fight than switch? Well, these pigs would rather switch than fight.”

Then there was the time Granddad, his health failing, stepped outdoors for a bit. Calling behind him was a daughter, my Aunt Mae, who said, “Daddy, aren’t you going to take your oxygen with you?”

Granddad’s answer: “There’s plenty of oxygen out here!”

This video was my first attempt at trying to create a story of our family’s reunion, and I made a lot of technical mistakes involving mostly lighting and sound. (Experienced videographers and photographers know that lots of light is required to capture great images of black folk.) I shot the video with a JVC GR-D395 digital camcorder and edited it using Sony Vegas Movie Studio.

The quality of the posted video isn’t the greatest (a little too pixilated for my taste), but it allows for easier access for family to view. Of course, I’d be happy to continue creating individual DVDs or provide full versions of the edited clips. Enjoy.

Patrick_Family_Reunion_2006.wmv

2007-03-25T01:28:00.003-04:00

At Least a Layoff is Gentler Than a Shanking

2007-03-15T23:12:00.000-04:00

"Beware the Ides of March," said the soothsayer Titus Vestricius Spurrina to the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. several days earlier. Caesar, the story goes, disregarded the warning and March 15 called a meeting of Senators for the purpose of reading a petition the Senators wrote asking him to hand power back to the Senate. The Senators showed their appreciation by attacking and stabbing Caesar to death, saying they were saving Rome from a would-be tyrant.

Thursday, The Ides of March, 2007, A.D., was the day the large engineering and construction firm for which I worked chose to lay off a bunch of us, myself included. We all worked for the company's Environmental & Infrastructure division, which was struggling financially. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but word in the corridors was that 10 percent of the division's approximately 6,000 employees across the board were to get the proverbial pink slips.

And we didn't need a Titus to warn us, many of us knew cutbacks were coming. But hey, we still had to come to work. My supervisor informed me of my separation at about 2:30 p.m. I had worked for the company for six and a half years.

Those of you who read my blog posts about my 1996 layoff in Virginia probably know how I'm taking this latest loss of a job, at an office near Trenton, N. J. : I'm OK with it. I kind of knew it was coming. In my role as a proposal specialist, I'm usually supporting the development of two or three bids and proposals simultaneously to help the company win contracts. But my work started drying up around early January as internal clients cut back on their bid and proposal budgets.

I will miss the people I worked with not only in Trenton, but in offices around the country. I will nonetheless relish this newfound free time. I plan over the next couple of months to post to this blog more often, work on photography and unclutter our house before mounting another job search, be it for full time or contract work.

I like to think of this layoff as God ending one assignment and preparing me for another. Stay tuned.

Colonials Complete Road to Championship

2007-02-20T22:12:00.000-05:00

What's up? I promised in my last post I would let you know how the Community College of Philadelphia Colonials basketball team did in its championship game after winning the Eastern Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference championship by beating Manor College the previous weekend.

They won, defeating the Community College of Beaver County Titans of Monaca, Pennsylvania, 93-77, on Sunday, Feb. 18. Beaver County, in suburban Pittsburgh, was the champion of the Western Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference. This means the Colonials are the state's junior college state champions, taking the title on the Titans' home floor.

Following are a few more images this blogger captured of the Colonials, coached by Robert "Dondi" DeShields and assistants Ed Geiger and Dave Scheiner, on their road to a championship. Ollie Johnson, a former NBA player, is the CCP athletic director.

From the Feb. 11 EPCC championship game against Manor College, Chris Thomas elevates for reverse layup.

Theodore Petty guards against a Manor inbounds pass.

Theodore Petty is fouled as he goes to the basket.

Coach DeShields addresses his team during light Saturday shoot-around after arriving in Beaver County.

Prayer following shoot-around the day before championship game.

Colonials guard Jason Blake intently guards a Beaver County Titans ball handler.

Forward Tarik Hanton, surrounded by Beaver County defenders, looks for some help.

Colonials guard Chris Thomas launches a jumper from the left wing in first half action.

Robert Bouknight guards a Titans ball handler.

Colonials' Tyrone Blassingame goes to the basket amidst a pair of Beaver County defenders.

Another view of Robert Bouknight on defense.

Colonials players celebrate their win over Beaver County.

A jubilant Colonials team holds up the championship trophy -- and their index fingers.

Meet the Colonials

2007-02-11T22:18:00.000-05:00

This blogger over the past weekend has met the acquaintance of the best Philadelphia-area college basketball team the Philadelphia area has probably never heard of.

In turn, I’ll introduce them to you regardless of where you live in hopes that you’re also hoops fans. Meet the Community College of Philadelphia Colonials, a 29-win, three-loss squad crowned champions of the Eastern Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference tournament.

The Colonials defeated Manor Junior College of nearby Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, 111-74, on Sunday, Feb. 11. After being down by double-digits in the first half, the Colonials roared back in the second to completely blow out Manor.

CCP got to the game by beating Lehigh Carbon Community College of Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, 99-91, in a semifinal matchup on Saturday, Feb. 10. The previous Wednesday, Feb. 7, the Colonials beat Harrisburg Area Community College 102-64 to reach the semis.

OK, you might be thinking, “Leroy, this are teams that play for two-year schools. This isn’t exactly big-time college ball. Why are you telling us about this?”

Glad you asked. Remember, this blog is partly about my views on faith and sports. This post touches both.

You see, I for the past seven years have fellowshipped with a group of men in southern New Jersey on Saturday mornings. We get together to praise God, through whom we reach through Jesus Christ. We pray, conduct Bible study and sometimes engage in spirited discussion, on, well, spiritual matters.

I love this fellowship because we meet at a different home each week to worship, just like the early Christians after Jesus died on the cross.

Now my point: The Colonials are coached by two of these guys, my brothers Robert “Dondi” DeShields and Ed Geiger.

Dondi’s the head coach and Ed is one of the assistants. Their mission is more than just winning basketball games; it’s about winning souls for Christ. Ed fervently believes that God is doing His thing through this basketball team, which he also believes one day will spawn at least one pastor.

A team member leads prayer before and after each game.

Let’s not get things twisted, however. Dondi and Ed would still use basketball to spread the Gospel among these young guys and their fans regardless of the team’s won-loss record. But, hey, a winning record and a championship can serve as some evidence the team carries God’s favor, right?

Ed said that now it is incumbent upon he and Dondi to further instill in the players the elements of Christian character most befitting of champions. The players include guys like guard Jason Blake (5) (pictured above in separate images fighting a Lehigh Carbon player for the ball and completing a dunk) and guard Chris Thomas (23), shown below trying to beat a double-team. Colonials Tyrone Blassingame (21) and Tarik Hanton (22) are shown at the top of this post pushing the ball amid several Lehigh Carbon defenders.

In an earlier post, I talked about catching a bug for shooting and editing digital video. Count still photography, which I loved as a kid, among those activities. Dondi invited me to shoot the images you're seeing.

By the way, the team is to travel to Pittsburgh to meet the champion of the EPCC’s western Pennsylvania counterpart. I’ll let you know how the Colonials fare. May God bless you.

Former Colleague Comes Long Way in 10 Years

2007-02-11T21:07:00.000-05:00

OK, so I decided to Google my name once again late last week. This time, a link to my Jan. 4 post on my 1996 layoff from a Virginia newspaper appeared in the number three position on the page.

I’m not quite sure how that happened, but my best guess is that a guy by the name of Richard Prince linked to the post from his Jan. 22 Journal-isms column. Prince writes his popular online column about minorities in the news media for the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.

That link has helped to increase this blog’s readership. Yo, Richard, thanks!

Speaking of that layoff, there was one other African American male newsroom employee, a photo editor, whose job also was eliminated, but I could not for the life of me remember his name. So last Friday afternoon, Feb. 9, I finally called a former colleague at the Daily Press – courts reporter Beverly Williams – and asked who the dude was. Beverly, ever so gracious, replied while on deadline, “Victor Vaughan.”

Eureka! I had intended to contact Victor, hoping to discuss with him for this blog how he professionally overcame that fateful day. Well, a scant two hours later, Beverly e-mailed me an announcement that our man Victor was named National Photo Editor of the Associated Press. Victor has earned this prestigious position after stops in Columbus, Ohio; Detroit and Phoenix, where he works for the Arizona Daily Star.

Talk about timing! So I e-mailed the news to Richard, who put an item in his most recent column.

Richard apparently caught up to Victor, who spoke about the 1996 job loss.

The mid-'90s layoff was "a very tough chapter in my career," he told Journal-isms. "It really tested my faith but through perseverance, patience and support I was able to rebound. I did not wallow in the past" or in things over which he had no control, he said; he reveled in "the possibilities for a brighter future."

Sounds like what happened to Kathy and me. After the layoff, we moved into a condo owned by Kathy’s Navy lawyer sister (she was once stationed at the nearby Norfolk base), which helped us immensely in terms of lowering our expenses. Kathy, who also lost her teaching job about the same time, landed a few substitute teaching gigs. I got some freelance writing work.

But Kathy and I, as I wrote earlier, eventually returned to the Philadelphia area – after about a year of trying to secure gainful employment – and renewed our network of contacts, which led to our getting full time jobs up here.

(Folks, it cannot be stated enough – when it comes to getting that all important full-time employment, tapping your networks of ex-colleagues, friends, relatives, friends and even acquaintances for leads are key.)

Throughout, it all, however, Kathy and I kept mindful of the fact that God was in control of it all.

Turns out Victor and I now have a little more in common than being a couple of layoff victims. He’s currently a member of the National Association of Black Journalists Board of Directors, representing a group of western states. I served on that same board from 1987-1989, representing a region that then comprised the Rocky Mountain States.

Victor, if you’re reading this, please accept my wholehearted congratulations on your AP appointment.

A couple of questions

2007-01-25T23:11:00.000-05:00

The campaign for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination has raised some interesting questions for two high-profile candidates:

Does Barack Obama want to be the “Black” presidential candidate or does he want to win the White House?

How hard will Hillary Clinton have to work to shore up and maintain the black support she already has?

The new much-ballyhooed political website, The Politico, is reporting former First Lady-turned-New York Senator’s overtime efforts to woo black voters in the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign.

Hillary is going all out despite the fact that Democrats can always count on African Americans as a loyal voting bloc. And black folk love the Clintons so much you’d think the former First Couple are related to funkmeister George Clinton of Parliament-Funkadelic.

Consider: Toni Morrison infamously tagged Hillary’s husband Bill as “America’s First Black President.” A black man, Vernon Jordan, was one of Bill’s closest confidants and golf buddies. During the Monica mess, the Rev. Jesse Jackson provided Bill with spiritual guidance. And even now, Hillary rates high in polls among African Americans.

Still, Hillary has to be concerned that African Americans will line up in droves to support this new guy, Obama, out of a sense of wanting to see one of their own occupy the White House during their lifetimes.

No doubt millions would view the election of a black person as President of the United States as the ultimate triumph over the centuries of slavery, oppression, terrorism and racism that has constituted a major portion of the history of African-descended people in this nation.

Contained within the article is what this blogger expects will be a recurring theme that the Hillary camp will push as long as Obama, the fresh-faced Democratic Senator from Illinois, stays in the race: Is he “black enough” to warrant the support of the old guard civil rights community, and, by extension, Black America?

For Obama’s part, he doesn’t appear to be “black enough.” First off, he’s young and doesn’t have strong ties to the black political establishment. Second, he’s for all intents and purposes, considered a rookie on the national political scene. Third, a majority of his campaign staff is white. Fourth, his lineage is not that of a slave-descended, native born black American.

One congressional aide is quoted as saying, “the tension between ethnic pride and mass appeal is the line he (Obama) has to walk.” Let’s face it. Obama cannot win the White House by being the “black candidate.”

I realize that most of black folk don’t want to hear this, but I really believe for a black candidate of any stripe to have any chance of winning the White House in America today, he or she must downplay race.

Why? Because there are still too many white people in America who either aren’t interested or annoyed with the topic, meaning that touting a black agenda can cost votes. This nation is only less than 50 years removed from the Civil Rights movement and the dismantling of policies like Jim Crow. Racist attitudes still persist.

Obama won statewide office in a conservative Midwestern state by appealing to a mostly white voter base. He conceivably could do the same on a national stage.

My thinking is that Obama needs to meet with the black political leadership through back channels. He needs to say to those folks, “Look, I’m fully in support of your agenda. But you’ve got to let me do my thing and convince the Democrats to nominate me. Then I have to persuade the entire country to elect me. Once I’m in the White House, it’s then that I’ll be in a much better position to help you.”

That’s what scares the daylights out of a Hillary campaign.

These Ladies' Pages Worth Checking Out

2007-01-21T02:10:00.000-05:00

This blogger has posted links to the works of two talented women over to the right of this page. I think they're worth your notice.

As you might know, this former news reporter-turned-part-time blogger has been keeping an eye on the situation at The Philadelphia Inquirer, which has laid off nearly 70 editorial employees. (Please refer to the Jan. 4 blog entry.)

Most recently arisen in this whole mess is a controversy involving the staff cutbacks' hit to the newspaper's efforts to racially and ethnically diversify its staff. A protest letter signed by 27 minority staffers was presented last week to Inquirer publisher Brian Tierney, a prominient Philly public relations executive who in his prior professional life has butted heads with Inquirer reporters in his apparent zeal to best represent his clients. The letter says the layoffs disproportionately affected minority staff.

One of those layoff survivors signing the letter was a good friend of mine, Inquirer feature writer Annette John-Hall, a 12-year veteran. Annette was working as an NBA writer at the Rocky Mountain News back when I landed there in the mid-1980s. Annette was probably only African American female covering an NBA beat, the Denver Nuggets. I posted a permanent link to her newspaper blog "Free Flow," about her now-favorite topic, pop culture. Enjoy!

Clicking the other link will take you to an inspirational page by a lady, not in newspapers, by the way, who goes by the nickname Bren Flava. I met her in October when she became an administrative assistant for the company for which I work. After reading this blog, Bren has come to refer to me as her muse. I must say that's an honor. Bren's into graphic design and poetry. Her readers have encouraged her to write a book. Check her out, also.

Expect to see more links to other blogs and websites as this blog gains readers. If you've got any ideas, please let me know. Peace out.

Reflections on Newsroom Layoffs

2007-01-04T00:25:00.000-05:00

It's Thursday morning and I'm sitting in a motel room near Elyria, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. My wife, Kathy, and our 19-year-old daughter Ashley are sound asleep in separate beds. Kathy and I are taking Ashley to Wisconsin, where she will live for a few months while working a co-op position with an outfit called Kohler Co., which is best known for making bathroom fixtures. I'm sure many of you have seen the name "Kohler" on, ahem, some of the toilets you've used, correct?

This means Ashley will be taking a break for a semester from her material science engineering studies at Rutgers University, where she is a sophomore. No doubt we're all excited by this opportunity, and I'll provide more on this journey in a future post.

But for now, my thoughts are with folks at The Philadelphia Inquirer -- a newspaper for which I once wanted to work but never could crack -- which this week began laying off reporters, editors and other editorial employees. As of Wednesday, 68 newsroom staffers were told they were being let go, including the paper's basketball writer, who, according to the paper's blog, was told of his fate while covering the Philadelphia 76ers in Denver.

I feel their pain. This blogger was one of the heads served up on a platter in a newsroom purge more than 10 years ago. I had been a staff writer for the Daily Press in Newport News, Va., when I was among nine laid off in 1996. My reaction? Mostly relief. To be honest, the newsroom bosses weren't happy with my performance, and my enthusiasm for journalism in general and the Daily Press in particular were pretty low at that time.

My layoff came on the heels of Kathy's employer, the Hampton School District, refusing to renew her contract after one year as an itinerant high school Spanish teacher. So we found ourselves simultaneously unemployed after moving from the Philly area to Virginia 10 months earlier.

But guess what? Things were difficult, but we got through it with faith in God and help from relatives. We tried to stick it out in Virginia, but finding new employment was hard. So we moved to New Jersey a year later, in 1997, and slowly got back on our feet, buying a house by 2001.

All I can do is advise those who lost their jobs to stay optimistic. (Yes, I know these are those cynical-by-nature journalists, but they are first and foremost, human). Things may look bleak right now, but your situations will improve. I know. I've been there.

"Running On When Life Ran Out"

2006-12-31T21:56:00.000-05:00

Seeking to read something inspirational in 2007 by a relatively new author? Place an order online for the Rev. Larry Darnell Washington's Running On When Life Ran Out: A Determination to Succeed, (Xlibris, ISBN: 1-59926-990-2 [Hardback]; ISBN: 1-59926-989-9 [Trade Paperback]).

Without giving too much away, I can tell you this much about Running On: Rev. Washington discusses how he overcame growing up in a dysfunctional household, one in which he would witness his father beat his mother with alarming regularity. Oh yes, did we add that Rev. Washington's father was an ordained minister who also pastored a church? So much for the axiom of charity beginning at home.

Rev. Washington, who himself now ministers to his own flock at a Philadelphia-area church, recounts in Running On a remarkable against-all-odds story that starts with his leaving home at age 14.

At slightly less than 130 pages, it's a relatively quick, easy read. Why am I recommending this book? Rev. Washington was searching for an editor and approached me on the recommendation of one of his relatives. I agreed to become the editor of Running On. I feel like God blessed and honored me by enabling my work with Rev. Washington on such an encouraging, motivating story.

Rev. Washington told me he wrote the book to help others climb out of their lives' valleys. Go ahead; buy a copy or two -- or three -- of Running On. Trust me, you won't be disappointed.

May you all have a happy and prosperous New Year.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T04:47:00.000-05:00

May the peace of God be with you all this holiday season.

Leroy, meet Leroy

2006-12-24T13:51:00.000-05:00

Count me among the possible untold millions of computer users guilty of “ego-surfing,” or entering one’s own name in a search engine to see what it finds.

The highest ranking links resulting from my occasional searches of “Leroy Williams Jr.” in Google usually are to pages containing press releases issued by the office of Colorado Gov. Bill Owens. These releases announced the appointments of a Leroy Williams Jr. to a number of high-level posts within his administration.

One such release from 2003 announced that Gov. Owens appointed Leroy Williams Jr., then chief information officer, to the post of state Secretary of Technology. Another from 2005 trumpeted Owens’ appointment of this Leroy Williams Jr. as the executive director of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.

This Leroy Williams Jr., quite the accomplished brother (yes, I’ve seen his photo – like me, he’s an African American male), has since returned to private industry, where he worked before his stints in the upper echelons of Colorado’s government.

And, oh yes, in case you haven’t guessed, I’m not him.

I’ve never met this Leroy Williams Jr. and I’m surprised I haven’t because we both have ties to Colorado. This Leroy Williams Jr. is from Aurora, a Denver suburb. We also both have been acquainted professionally with Gov. Owens.

I moved to Colorado with my bride Kathy shortly after our 1986 wedding in Philadelphia. Kathy was pursuing a doctorate in international relations at the University of Denver. My connections as a reporter/editor in the Gannett Company led to my hiring at the Rocky Mountain News, the venerable Denver daily newspaper, as it was waging one of the last newspaper wars in the nation against its bitter rival The Denver Post. I served as a staff writer for seven years until we moved back east in 1993.

Our oldest two children were born in Denver, where we lived (albeit at four different addresses). Parenthood, by the way, meant Kathy could complete only enough coursework for a DU Master’s degree in International Relations. Interestingly enough, this Leroy Williams Jr. to which I refer has a Master’s in Business Administration from DU.

From 1989 to 1992, I was assigned the newspaper’s transportation beat and later, at the behest of newly appointed Editor Jay Ambrose, became the author of a four-day-a-week column called “Traffic Beat.”

Column topics ranged from drivers’ gripes about traffic signal timing to legislation governing Colorado’s big-picture transportation projects. Gov. Owens at that time was a state legislator from nearby Aurora, Colo., one of the many folks I interviewed and quoted in the column.

Come to think of it, I wrote about a Leroy Williams (not the above-named Owens cabinet member) who headed a crew that painted the traffic lane lines on Denver’s streets.

The Traffic Beat column generated a fair amount of notoriety for this formerly shy, geeky brother from New Jersey. I appeared several times on a local public affairs show on a PBS affiliate, did a weekly radio interview and in 1990 was the subject of a short profile for a program called Good Afternoon Colorado produced by KUSA-TV, then Denver’s ABC network affiliate. Check out this link:

As I learned about this Leroy Williams Jr. in Gov. Owens’ inner circle, I couldn’t help but wonder if Leroy was ever asked if he’d worked for the Rocky Mountain News. When he would answer “no,” I’d imagine the questioner saying “I asked because I remember a Leroy Williams who worked for the Rocky back in the ‘90s.” OK, I admit that I hope that such a conversation even took place. Everyone wants to be remembered somehow.

Here’s a message to that Leroy Williams Jr. Yo, dude, if you ever read this, give your namesake a shout so we can talk!

I'm back after too many months

2006-12-22T18:24:00.000-05:00

OK, it's been awhile since I've posted. More like a year and a half to be exact. Since I posted about African Americans and the Phillies, my man Ryan Howard has not only supplanted Jim Thome at first base, but has won Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player in the National League in consecutive years. There's hope for the Phillies yet.

I've recently caught a bug for shooting and editing digital video. I recently did sort of a mini-documentary on a family reunion in 2006, that took a good three months to edit and came in at one hour and nine minutes. Takes me back to when I was a kid and shot photos with those old 126 Kodak-style Instamatics. I also harken back to using an that Polaroid Square Shooter 2 I received as a Christmas gift from a former pastor in 1973. I recently found that thing in my parents' house. Wonder what it's worth today?

I've already got two Panasonic PV-GS180 MiniDV camcorders, which I bought after finding out I absolutely hated the JVC GR-D395 I bought in July with which I shot the family reunion. Those built-in microphones absolutely suck, and the 395 has no mike input. The GS180s are not only of the 3-chip variety, but they do have the mike inputs I coveted so much. That's it for now. Gotta run to an appointment. Peace Out; God Bless.

Robert Johnson, BET, African Americans and Business

2005-07-03T12:58:00.000-04:00

Robert Johnson, a guy I admired from afar, has just announced his retirement as chief executive officer of Black Entertainment Television, the network he founded in 1980.

Johnson has caught much flak for his business decisions in growing BET. The brickbats aimed at Johnson reminded me of the hostility faced by another successful African American, who also happened to make her mark in media:

Leanita McClain’s story was told by her husband, Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page. In his book Showing My Color: Impolite Essays on Race and Identity, he wrote of wife’s 1984 suicide. McClain, an African-American woman, was the newspaper’s first black columnist and first black member of its editorial board.

Page told readers depression played a role in his late wife taking her own life. But McClain also was torn by an inner conflict between her success in corporate America and her background as a poor child of Chicago’s South Side.

In recounting his wife’s tragedy, Page made this cutting statement: “One of the most difficult acts for African-Americans is to give themselves permission to make money. I don’t mean chump change. I mean serious money. White people’s money. Instead of honoring those whose enterprise has taken them within shouting distance of white people’s money, we belittle them for even daring to think they can improve their condition, as if the imperatives of black solidarity precluded any of us from making an honest buck.”

Indeed, Page wrote, McClain had complained bitterly in a Newsweek essay, telling readers she was “a member of the black middle class who has had it with being patted on the head by white hands and slapped in the face by black hands for my success.”

Had she lived, McClain would years later have found a kindred spirit in Johnson, who got little love from the some outspoken quarters of the black community, especially after he sold BET to media giant and CBS owner Viacom for $3 billion in 2001.

Johnson is a multimillionaire who’s elevated himself well above middle class and is light years past shouting distance of making white people’s money. I don’t know if Viacom’s white hands patted Johnson on the head, but the black hands slapped him across the face for his success for years.

Johnson’s transgressions, at least in the eyes of some African-Americans, however, were not like McClain’s, of being an employee who’s climbed to the higher rungs of the corporate ladder. His sins were much more manifold: founding a business, operating it profitably and selling it to a larger white-owned concern, thus enriching himself and several other African-Americans with whom he works.

More specifically, Johnson has angered African-Americans by using his cable network to air mostly infomercials and a computer-animated, sassy black female veejay who served up lecherous music videos in lieu of more serious, higher-quality content. Sure, there was Ed Gordon doing interviews now-canceled BET Tonight and the series Journeys in Black, but wasn’t enough. And BET’s ham-handed dismissal in 2001 of former BET Tonight host Tavis Smiley did little to help the network’s image.

BET executives reacted to the criticism with frustration and defensiveness, pointing to growing ratings. They maintain they were only continuing an entertainment formula that made it attractive to Viacom. “We have a profit objective,” one BET higher-up is quoted as saying, “and we have to deliver. It’s as simple as that.”

Simple, maybe, but certainly not acceptable to certain African Americans who believe that a network called Black Entertainment Television has an obligation to emphasize the Black over the Entertainment. Critics seem unwilling to acknowledge that somebody out there is watching those videos.

To compensate for its heavy music video-based reliance, BET tried using reruns of the highbrow series Frank’s Place, a critically acclaimed 1980s CBS castoff starring Tim Reid as a college professor turned New Orleans restaurateur. No one watched.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, the noted black sociologist, was once quoted as saying that BET has abdicated its responsibility to black viewers. “BET has never felt that it’s had to be acceptable to African Americans in terms of carrying the torch for political and social issues,” he says.

To me, Hutchinson’s comments belie a relative lack of appreciation by some African Americans of how business works, particularly when the enterprise is the television end of the entertainment business, which is all about delivering an audience to advertisers willing to buy time to sell their wares.

I generally don’t watch a lot of television, much less BET, although I was a fan of the now-canceled talk show Lead Story, on which Page was a regular panelist. But I’m not about to criticize the network for doing its thing. If anything, we should celebrate the fact that an African American male such as Johnson has struggled and has overcome the odds to reach multimillionaire status. He’s since parlayed his wealth into purchases of the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats and the Charlotte Sting of the WNBA, making him among the first African American owners in pro sports.

Criticism of BET is all part of a bigger issue among African American attitudes toward matters involving the private sector whether as business owner or employee. I believe our recent history of fighting for civil rights has had the unfortunate effect of creating an aversion among us to business and entrepreneurship.

This is ironic since black entrepreneurship thrived in the post-Reconstruction years and through to the Jim Crow period of forced segregation in the South. We ran businesses mainly out of necessity, despite the roadblocks to capital and Jim Crow’s restrictions on where black businesses could locate and whom they could grab as customers.

But once the civil rights movement came along, the emphasis among African Americans seemed to shift toward gaining political clout.

Nothing wrong with that, but we’ve tended to gravitate toward such “safe” areas as government, public education and non-profits to make our livings. Or we have turned to regulated utilities like the phone or electric company. In other words, we in general tend to take a dim view of the risk inherent in private-sector pursuits although the potential rewards can be greater.

Sure, private-sector capitalism has its downsides. Large corporations can be rapacious and abusive. Small firms by necessity may have to skimp on pay and benefits. Sometimes, a market can be so unforgiving an enterprise can be forced under, causing a new entrepreneur to lose his shirt.

As someone who’s worked in the high-wire act that is the private sector (as an employee), I can tell you that sometimes you can fall off, via a layoff or being encouraged to quit. Private business is not always the meritocracy we blacks believe it should be. A righteous person can work hard and bump up against that glass ceiling, while that ethically challenged person can move right on up because he or she’s bringing in the revenue – or is personally liked by his superiors.

But the rewards are still there, especially if one can get his own thing up and running.

I also believe the BET situation exposes some negative attitudes we harbor about how money can be legally made. Sure, Johnson uses racy, mostly hip-hop music videos to draw that young audience that makes advertisers salivate.

But let me clue the BET critics in on something: The network’s primary method of making money is not all that different than the business roles of aesthetically-challenged strip shopping centers, highway billboards, telemarketers who call at dinner, Internet pop-up ads, so-called junk mail or loud car commercials that rip off our favorite old songs.

Annoying and distasteful? At times, but firms engage in these practices because someone has determined that they work. Besides, what rule says that commerce has to be pretty?

Think about it – when was the last time you’ve passed by the typical junkyard? Unsightly, yes? But according to Thomas Stanley’s book The Millionaire Next Door, running an auto salvage yard is among the occupations that create millionaires. How many of us would encourage our kids to operate one? “Why yes, Praise the Lord, that is my Dante who owns the Song of Solomon Salvage. He can give you a nice deal on a Nissan Sentra muffler.”

Benilde Little, the novelist whose stories center on the lives of upscale blacks, has touched on that unease over wealth. A wealthy young woman in Little’s book The Itch likes having gobs of money but carries shame over how her father earned it – by operating 24 rib joints around Chicago. You’d think the character would be happier had Pops sold tofu instead.

There are positive signs, however. Black-owned businesses are growing at a clip that’s outpacing all U.S. firms. Still, African-Americans own three percent of the nation’s firms while comprising nearly 13 percent of the population.

So let’s cut Johnson and BET a break. Let’s laud Johnson as post-modern pioneer who is doing good business. BET is what it is and what it does, it does well.

And as for Hutchinson’s lament, I believe one day some forward-thinking individual will launch an African American-owned, PBS-style network that will offer the serious, highbrow stuff that carries the torch for our causes.

Still, I suspect even the presence of such a network won’t end the criticism. Some folks will inevitably complain when the network has to interrupt its top-rated programming for those on-air fund raising drives.

Extended Families Under One Roof?

2005-07-03T12:50:00.000-04:00

Several years ago, my sister-in-law Rita, my younger brother’s wife, put forth a suggestion during one of our occasional family holiday get-togethers.

“We’re all family, right?” she said. “Then why don’t we all live in the same house?”
And to that idea, she added, “And of course, I’ll handle all the money.”

You see, Rita, a native of suburban Atlanta, has a strong personality and voice that reminds you somewhat of the actress Jasmine Guy from A Different World. Of course, many of us family members pooh-poohed the notion, especially my younger sister, who took exception to the thought of one person holding the family purse strings.

But today, as I think back, Rita’s assessment of how families should live might not have been too far off the mark. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock since the year 2000, it would seem that open economic war has been declared on middle- and working-class folks in America. If you’re keeping score, these folks are getting bombed on a daily basis like London during the German Blitzkrieg.

The evidence is all around:

• Congress’ recent passing into law of a bill making it more difficult for people to file for protection under Chapter 7 of the federal bankruptcy code, even if their filing was prompted by a job loss or illness.

• President Bush’s attempts to transform Social Security from a pay-as-you-go program guaranteeing a pre-set benefit to a riskier scheme where people invest payroll taxes in the stock market.

• United Airlines’ parent getting the OK from a bankruptcy judge to shift its $9.8 billion in unfunded pension liabilities to the federal government, meaning many United retirees will get less than they expected. US Airways, also in bankruptcy, already has already pulled a similar move, and observers a run on this kind of thing by other players in the airline industry as well as other industries feeling weighed down by such obligations.

• A transformation in America from a manufacturing to service economy that generally has turned labor, the only thing most people can offer for money, into a cheap commodity.

• Young adults graduating college with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt due to skyrocketing higher education expenses.

The upshot of all this upheaval is that possibly, barring some kind of economic turnaround, the nuclear household of two parents and their children living under one roof in a single-family home, the norm in America since about 1945, could become less common by the year 2050. A growing number of households could well comprise three or more generations to save money.

A Google search of “three-generation households” brings up mostly articles about the risks of children whose parents live with their parents.

Further down the page, however, is a link to a site called “It’s an Age Thing,” a site that promoted a 2003 television series about the challenges of aging. One installment of the 13-episode series deals with the topic “Multiple Generations Living Together.”

It acknowledges that several generations have historically lived together for economic reasons, but the series examined families who have lived together for mutual support. But this idea could spread among the American born in future years.

And even the Census Bureau has taken note of this trend. The 2000 Census found that 3.9 million households or four percent of all U.S. households, comprised three or more generations, marking the first time it has ever counted multigenerational households.

The majority, 2.6 million, are made up of the head of household and their children and grandchildren. Only about 2 percent, or 78,000 households have four or more generations under the same roof.

"Multigenerational families are more likely to reside in areas of recent immigration, where new immigrants may live with their relatives," said Tavia Simmons, a demographer who co-authored the study and was quoted in the Census Bureau’s 2001 press release on the topic.

"They also are more common in areas where housing shortages or high costs may force families to double up their living arrangements or in areas with relatively high rates of out-of-wedlock childbearing, where unwed mothers live with their children in their parents' home."

Before counting multigenerational households, the Census Bureau counted the numbers of children under 18 living with grandparents. The 1970 Census found that more than 2.2 million under-18 children lived under the same roof as their grandparents. By 2003, that number had grown to 3.7 million, an increase of 70 percent.

By contrast, the total number of children under 18 in the United States has grown only 5 percent between 1970 and 2003, from nearly 69.3 million to 73 million. And about 1.4 million of those children counted in 2003 lived with their grandparents with no parent present.

As I got to thinking about Rita’s suggestion, I thought, how hard could it be to hire an architect to design a home with a central kitchen and living area with separate wings for the grandparents and for each adult child whether single or married, and then actually build it with pooled funds from each branch of the family? I suspect that such an arrangement could save everyone money as well as provide a much needed web of immediate mutual support in terms of child rearing, medical attention and other areas.

Will my family take on such a project? Unlikely, because, I admit, we’re all pretty much set in our ways like concrete. But who knows? Perhaps some other family out there might find my sis-in-law’s suggestion useful.

Jimmy Rollins, the Phillies and Race

2005-06-19T14:11:00.000-04:00

The news that Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins and his team last week agreed to a five-year $40 million contract extension got me to thinking: Given the money he’s receiving, is Rollins, a 26-year-old Bay Area Californian, the Phillies’ first black superstar since Dick Allen was run out of town in the late 1960s?

The answer, alas, is hardly. Rollins is the latest in a parade of good but not great Phillies players to be awarded big multiyear contracts, joining guys like Mike Lieberthal, Bobby Abreu, Pat Burrell and Jim Thome.

Sure, Rollins is a two-time All-Star, and looks to be a long-term fixture at shortstop, a problem position for the Phillies since Larry Bowa was traded in 1981. His defense is excellent, but his offense could be better. The guy’s a lifetime .269 hitter. And as a leadoff batter, he seems to like swinging for the fences rather than try to get on base by spraying base hits, dropping bunts or drawing walks. Rollins gets his hits, but he also flies out a lot.

But I digress. I’m glad to see the young brother finally getting paid. But as a long- suffering Phillies fan, it’s only in recent years that it dawned on me how badly the Philadelphia club in the past 50 years has stumbled on fielding high-caliber black ballplayers, be they African American or Latin.

You know the list – Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Roberto Clemente – the Phillies, had they been aggressive, could have easily have signed any one of these players, great athletes who revolutionized play in the National League with speed in the field and on the bases in the years following 1947, when Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The Phillies didn’t field their first American-born black player until 1957, when infielder John Kennedy appeared in five games.

Instead, other than Allen, the 1960s and early 1970s saw the Phillies use second-tier American-born black players like Wes Covington, John Briggs, Dave Cash, Oscar Gamble, Larry Hisle and Grant Jackson, and Latins such as Tony Taylor and Willie Montanez. Allen, the National League Rookie of the Year during the infamous collapse year of 1964 proved himself a feared slugger, but ended up fighting one of his white teammates during a pregame warm-up in 1965.

Even though Frank Thomas reportedly started it with his jawing and hit Allen with a bat, Allen suffered the wrath of the media and fans and later campaigned to get out of Philly, most notably by scrawling messages in the dirt near first base with his cleats saying “Trade me.” The Phillies obliged by sending him to St. Louis.

It was also during the 1960s that the Phillies traded a young black pitcher named Ferguson Jenkins to the Chicago Cubs, where he went on to have a stellar career.

During the Phillies’ 1970s glory years and their lone World Series-winning season of 1980, their best player of color was the fleet center fielder Garry Maddox, but he was consistently overshadowed in the media by guys like Bowa, Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski, Pete Rose and of course Hall of Fame lefthander Steve Carlton. (As mentioned elsewhere, try to imagine a Phils starting rotation with both Carlton and Jenkins, a righthander.)

The Phillies’ 1983 World Series team (they lost to Baltimore) featured a couple of decent, but aging black players – Gary Matthews and future Hall of Famer Joe Morgan. The Phillies didn’t make the World Series again until 1993, when the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Phillies on a walk-off home run by Joe Carter. That Phillies team was another that lacked black superstar players in the everyday eight, using guys like Ricky Jordan and Mariano Duncan.

The Phillies’ historically sparing use of great black players is puzzling. You might say, well, the Phillies have to appeal to a predominately white, blue collar fan base that grew increasingly suburban during the 1960s and 1970s.

OK, fair enough. Then how does that explain the behavior at one time of the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Phillies’ once cross-state divisional rivals? It’s safe to say that the Pirates also drew a similar white working-class clientele employed by the region’s key industry, Big Steel. But the Pirates of the late 1960s and early 1970s were unafraid to use a roster comprising mostly American- and Latin-born black players. And having all those dark faces in Pirate black and gold didn’t appear to hurt their gate.

The Pirates on Sept. 1, 1971 fielded what is believed to be the first all-black starting lineup in Major League history, against, of all teams, the Phillies, winning 10-7 at Three Rivers Stadium. The Pirates won the National League East that year and went on to win the World Series. The Phillies finished dead last.

It’s been said the Phillies were the National League version of the Boston Red Sox, another baseball club slow to hire a black player after Jackie Robinson’s debut. (Some sportswriter recently pointed out that the Red Sox so dragged their feet on the issue that the National Hockey League’s Boston Bruins beat them to it, by signing a black player named Willie O’Ree.)

The Phillies were also called out for their lack of black player hiring in an interesting 1996 article by a guy named Steve Sailer about how baseball became a model for using competition to combat racial discrimination when it hired Jackie Robinson in 1947, eight years before the Montgomery Bus boycott of 1955. (A note: Sailer is a white person who writes sometimes disparagingly on topics like the intelligence of blacks for right-leaning websites. Sailer has been labeled elsewhere as a racist, a tag he denies. You’d have to read his body of work, then make your own judgment.)

This is a topic the Philly sports media rarely touches, but I have to wonder how much better the Phillies could have been at least since 1947, if they had been more aggressive in going after really good players who happened to be born black. Of course, they could have gone after really good players born white too, borne out by the fact that the Phillies hold the record for most losses by a Major League team, with 9,749 from 1883 to 2003.

I don’t think we’ll ever know. These days, the percentage of Major League Baseball players who are African American has decreased to nine percent in 2005 from 27 percent in 1975, as increasing numbers of young black American kids opt to play basketball, football or stays indoors to play computer games. These days, a player of African descent is more likely to be named Martinez or Tejada than Morgan or Stargell.

And prospects for the Phillies hiring more great black players don’t look promising. I look at the Phillies and despite Latin America becoming the primary source of baseball talent today, the Phillies currently only have one Latin in their current starting lineup, right fielder Bobby Abreu.

The Phillies have an American born black power-hitting first basemen in Ryan Howard now tearing up the minor leagues after short stints late in 2004 with the big club, but his path to the Big Show is blocked by Thome. He’ll probably make it to the Major Leagues, but not with the Phillies.

I’ll always love the Phillies, for they’re my hometown team and I want to see them win. But the Phillies have been a source of disappointment in that they could have established a winning legacy since 1947 by using the best athletes available, some of whom happened to be black. And it should be noted that as of today, Phillies haven’t been to the post-season since 1993.

As for seeing a black person like myself do well for the Phils, I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with watching Rollins scoop up grounders and swing hard for the fences.

Greetings

2005-06-16T04:46:00.000-04:00

Better late than never, I suppose.

I've heard and read a fair amount for a couple of years now about this cyberspace phenomenon called blogging, and after months of thinking about it, thought I'd finally weigh in with my own.

As a former newspaper reporter who specialized in such topics as local politics, transportation and criminal justice, it seems like a good idea. In my current position as a bid and proposal coordinator (as opposed to proposal writer) for an environmental firm, I wasn't writing as much as I once did.

So here is yet another blog -- hope you enjoy it and gain new perspectives, even as it gives this guy an outlet to once again express himself. And please feel free to provide feedback.

Oh by the way, a little background on myself:

Name: Leroy Williams Jr.

Age: 45

Residence: Southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia.

Life status: Married 19 years this September, three children, ages 17, 16 and 5. (Yeah, there was a bit of a gap between the births of Child No. 2 and Child No. 3, but it's all good.)

Occupation: Proposal coordinator -- I support project managers, engineers and others in bidding and submitting of proposals to potential clients to work on various environmental projects such as environmental management system surveys, contaminated soil remediation and storage tank inspections.

Former Occupation: Held reporting positions at several daily newspapers in the United States, including publications in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Colorado.

Education: B.A., Journalism, University of South Carolina

Faith: Christian -- I believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. When I survey the sinful history of the world and see the evidence of how badly humans still behave today, I can't help but conclude that Jesus, was and still is, THE MAN!!!