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Results tagged ' statistics '
Mayor's Race Analytics
In recent years, sabermetrics have revolutionized the study of baseball and other sports. Many other fields have also been influenced by statistical analysis, including politics and elections, to name a couple. But somehow, one very important area has been overlooked by the emerging field of analytics: politicians racing at sporting events.
Until today, that is. With most of the 2011 season in the books, we have enough data to properly analyze the Old Brick Furniture Tri-City Mayors Race, which takes place during the sixth inning of every ValleyCats home game. These new analytical methods will provide critical new insights on the three mayors' strengths and weaknesses and may help us more accurately predict the final few races.
First, let's review the current standings:
- Brian Stratton, Schenectady, 13
- Harry Tutunjian, Troy, 10
- Jerry Jennings, Albany, 8
Former Schenectady Mayor Brian Stratton has led the standings for most of the season, and with only five races to go, he seems likely to keep it that way – one more win would clinch at least a share of the title at the season's end.
But wins and losses tell only a fraction of the whole story. So much more happens during each race before the first mayor reaches the finish line, and all of it is valuable information that we can use to further our understanding of each runner. Let's explore!
Getting started
If you've been to "The Joe" a couple times, you've likely seen at least one memorable comeback. After all, the 250-foot track can be grueling for these mayors, and anyone who gets off the blocks too quickly may fade down the home stretch. As the contestants jockey for position before the right-field gate opens, you may wonder, does the opening of the race even matter?
Indeed it does. The mayor who leads out of the gate has held on to win the race nine out of 20 times this season.* This certainly is not a prohibitive advantage – so don't despair if your favorite politician is straggling down the right-field line early on – but it is clearly better than the one-in-three rate we would expect from random chance.
*In the other 11 races, data was not recorded or the leader was too close to call.
Troy Mayor Harry Tutunjian is best at getting out in front – he has taken the early lead in half of these 20 races – but he is also the worst at capitalizing it, winning just 30% of the time that he starts in first. (Tutunjian has actually won a slightly higher percentage of the races that he has not led initially, suggesting that fighting for pole position may not be worthwhile for him.)
Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings has won three of six races with the lead, bringing us to…
Sabermetrics of Stratton
The secret to Stratton's success is not his performance off the blocks – he has taken the initial lead in only four races, the fewest of any mayor. Instead, like a shorter and slightly slower Usain Bolt, his strength is his ability to pull away from the pack. When Stratton does get an early lead, he is nearly unbeatable – he has lost only once after starting in first place. (Even that race would have been another Stratton victory had he not made the ill-fated decision to turn around and showboat near the end, allowing Tutunjian to pull off a stunning – if karmic – comeback.)
Stratton has the fastest top speed – he ran a blazing 13.92 in mid-July, the best time of any mayor this year by nearly a full second – but a deeper look reveals some very mixed results. He has gone a nearly unthinkable 6-0 in races decided by less than .3 seconds, and while defenders will argue that the pride of Schenectady "just knows how to win," his performance in close contests is an indicator of good luck. Those wins are in hand – and the biggest reason why he will almost certainly take the end-of-season crown – but he has most likely been racing above his true talent level so far.
Stratton's average race time this year is 22.05 – nearly a full second slower than Tutunjian's.
Hard-luck Harry
That will probably come as little solace to the mayor of Troy, who has often played the role of Samuel Tilden to Stratton's Rutherford Hayes – tantalizingly close but ultimately a loser. Tutunjian has lost four races by less than .1 seconds – and four others within half a second – naturally leading to the most second-place finishes.
And when Tutunjian has won, it has often been by Reagan-like margins. His average margin of victory is 1.1 seconds, nearly twice as high as any other candidate's. Not even included are five other races in which Tutunjian led by so much that the other two candidates did not even cross the finish line – Jennings and Stratton have only three such victories combined.
With an average race time of 21.10 seconds, easily the fastest of the three contestants, Tutunjian has proven his consistency. Unfortunately, a series of disappointing photo finishes has relegated him to second place – and in the words of the immortal Ricky Bobby, if you ain't first, you're last.
Losing focus
Bringing up the rear of the standings is Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings. Unlike Tutunjian, Jennings can't blame bad luck for his position. Rather, he appears to be suffering a lack of concentration.
It's natural for runners to break off a race sometimes – if you don't feel you have a chance of winning, you might as well slow up and save your energy. But Jennings has been too willing to give up on competitions. While Tutunjian and Stratton have failed to finish 13 times between them, Jennings has accumulated 12 DNF's on his own.
Though this might be excusable if it were part of a well-planned strategy, Jennings instead simply seems prone to all sorts of distractions. He has been sidetracked by a fight, a shoving match and even a lightsaber battle (on Star Wars Night, of course). Though it makes a great spectacle to entertain the fans, these incidents cost Albany's mayor valuable time and are a big factor in his poor record.
If you're looking for positive things to say about Jennings as a runner, start here: he's a 'mudder.' Jennings has won three of the four slowest races this year, and will doubtlessly try to slow things down again this week in an effort to catch Tutunjian for second place.
Dog days
After anonymous reports that an unnamed mayor had been taking illegal substances to gain an edge on his competitors late in the inaugural 2010 season, the ValleyCats instituted a tougher testing program to crack down on the mayors' excessive use of caffeine and other stimulants. If the numbers are any indication, the testing has worked.
Check out this chart of the times throughout the season:
As you can see, the contestants are slowing down significantly as the calendar turns. As the best-fit line shows, the average time has increased by .22 seconds with every race, a substantial decrease in speed over the course of a season.
This fatigue manifests itself in other ways as well. In the first four homestands, the mayors were much more likely to finish races than in the last four. This difference is not quite statistically significant (p=.12), but it tells the same story:
These data suggest that players aren't the only ones who get worn down by a long summer – and, unlike players, the mayors can't be spelled by a reserve for a day's rest.
But they've been off for eight days now, and the trio should be fresh for the home stretch. Will Tutunjian's luck change enough for him to overcome Stratton? Will Jennings turn around a rough season? Will Stratton keep winning nailbiters? Watch the final five races at "The Joe," starting tomorrow, to find out.
Kevin Whitaker
What have we learned?
The season is 30 percent complete, and the team is coming off its first official off day. So let's step back a bit and take a look at what we've learned about this year's ValleyCats so far:
The starting rotation is good. Euris Quezada has not had the best start to the season, going 0-3 with an 8.83 ERA, but the other four-fifths of the rotation has been anywhere from good to excellent. Juri Perez has the highest ERA of the four at 3.55, and this doesn't feel unsustainable – all four of these pitchers have the stuff and command to be very good at this level. If the 'Cats can get the fifth spot figured out, it wouldn't shock me in the least to see this rotation go on a run like the 2010 team did last August, when all five starters had an ERA below three for the entire month. Now that players have had a few starts under their belt, Tri-City and other teams will be more willing to let their starters go into the sixth and seventh innings, which will magnify the Cats' starting pitching advantage.
The star of the rotation so far has been Kyle Hallock, who has completed at least five innings in every start and has yet to allow more than two earned runs. Anytime you're among the league leaders in K/9 and BB/9, as Hallock is entering tonight's start at Batavia, you're doing something right. The southpaw has 25 strikeouts against two walks, the best such ratio in the league so far, and ranks fourth with a 0.78 WHIP.
If there's one candidate for regression among the Cats' top four starters, it may be Jonas Dufek. Check out these splits: with nobody on base, opponents are hitting .410/.500/.645 off Dufek. But with men on, he becomes "Jonasty," holding hitters to a .158/.200/.211 line. And with men in scoring position? .114/.184/.200. In a nutshell, Dufek has allowed lots of runners to reach base but has pitched extremely well under pressure. That's great to see from a mental standpoint, but it's not likely to be sustainable over a full season – if runners keep reaching base, hitters will eventually get lucky and have bloopers or line drives fall in critical situations, and runs will score. (Of course, leadoff batters aren't likely to keep getting on base 64 percent of the time either, so it all may even out.)
DIPS likes the pitching staff even more. The 'Cats have done well in all of the "three true outcome" categories – the team ranks fifth in strikeout rate (K/9), fourth in walk rate and fourth in home run rate allowed. Though they rank sixth in ERA, I have them third in the league in FIP (Fielding-Independent Pitching). The difference can be explained by a .323 batting average on balls in play, the third-highest in the NYPL.
Now, a major caveat here: when discussing major-league pitchers, BABIP has been shown to have very little predictive value for pitchers – that is, what happens to a ball in play is mostly due to factors that are outside the pitcher's control. This is not necessarily true for minor-league pitchers. Minor-league players – especially at a low level such as the NY-Penn League – are very different than major-league pitchers, and it would be reasonable to think that some minor-league pitchers consistently throw pitches that are more likely to go for base hits. (These pitchers would usually be weeded out before reaching the majors.)
In short: while the strong fielding-independent statistics and the high BABIP do suggest that the pitchers have been unlucky (and/or that the defense behind them has been poor), the evidence for that is not as strong as similar major-league numbers would be.
The offense needs improvement. This isn't as clear-cut as you might expect: the 'Cats actually rank eighth in the league with 4.43 runs per game, though they're closer to eleventh (Brooklyn) than seventh (Hudson Valley). What's not obvious is how exactly they're doing it. Tri-City ranks 12th in batting average (.236), 12th in slugging percentage (.326) and tied for 10th in on-base percentage (.319), a profile that doesn't usually lead to a league-average offense.
Only one team has left fewer runners on base than the 'Cats. You could make a convincing argument that the ValleyCats are one of the better baserunning teams in the league, and generally good lineup construction has helped, but it's hard to escape the feeling that some of this simply comes down to the team getting timely hits at a rate that may not be sustainable.
Plate discipline is not the problem. It feels like batters have watched a lot of third strikes go by at Joe Bruno Stadium this year, and fans of every team feel like their hitters strike out too much, but the ValleyCats' problem is not their pitch recognition. The 'Cats are striking out in a tick under 18 percent of their plate appearances, one of the best marks in the NYPL and well below the league average of 20 percent. They have drawn 83 walks against 155 strikeouts, the third-best ratio in the league.
But the 'Cats just aren't doing enough when they make contact. Despite playing in Joe Bruno Stadium, recently the league's best home run park, Tri-City ranks dead last in the league with six dingers, even after hitting three in its last two games. I'd expect a better showing than that in the final 53 games – powerful hitters like Brandon Meredith and Kellen Kiilsgaard will hopefully return to the lineup, and guys like Zach Johnson and Miles Hamblin have shown the potential to hit for more power than they have so far – but this isn't an offense that will be having too many one-swing rallies.
These outfielders can throw. Okay, we knew that from the start. Drew Muren leads the league with five outfield assists, and Justin Gominsky is tied for second with four. As a team, the 'Cats have a league-best 11 outfield assists in 23 games, which the pitching staff must love.
Guess what? The ValleyCats have been unlucky. At this time last year, the ValleyCats were 9-14, but they had scored roughly as many runs as they had allowed. I argued that they would play better for the rest of the season, and sure enough they did, greatly surpassing even my expectations.
Well, it's a year later, and the ValleyCats are 9-14. And guess what? They've only been outscored by two runs (104-102). Run differential is a better predictor of future performance than wins and losses. It certainly doesn't mean another miraculous playoff run is coming – and a slew of difficult opponents in the next two weeks won't make it easy for the 'Cats to make a charge soon – but it means we should expect them to play more like a .500 team for the rest of the season than a .400 team. (14-8 Vermont, incidentally, has outscored its opponents by only one run, meaning the Lake Monsters could come back to the pack in the Stedler Division.)
So although 2011 hasn't started the way the ValleyCats and their fans would have liked, we could still see some good baseball at "The Joe" over the final seven weeks of the season.
Kevin Whitaker
Three-Horse Race
Playoff Odds update, through 8/31 games: 'Cats 57%, Vermont 16%, Connecticut 27%
Well, this week didn't go quite as expected.
After the ValleyCats defeated Connecticut for the fourth time in seven days on Tuesday, it looked like a two-horse race in the Stedler Division: the 'Cats were hot, Vermont was treading water and Connecticut was fading quickly, three games out.
But everything went right for the Tigers after that. They swept a three-game set at Vermont, and the 'Cats were swept at Hudson Valley. The Tigers, who had the league's worst offense entering the series, dropped 21 runs on the Lake Monsters and won the last two games handily. Now they are right back at the top of the division, with momentum and six home games coming up, tied with Vermont and a half-game ahead of Tri-City. It is officially a three-team race.
Momentum would seem to make Connecticut the current favorite, but we just saw how quickly momentum can change. The Tigers now host the juggernaut that is the Brooklyn Cyclones – who, coincidentally enough, will then finish the season with five games against Vermont and three with Tri-City – before finishing with Aberdeen. Vermont still has to play eleven games in the final nine days (two makeups with Brooklyn, although one is the completion of the contest that was suspended in the 12th inning last week) – and, worse, all eleven will be on the road.
The ValleyCats have the easiest remaining opponent of the group when they travel to Lowell next week, but they'll have to get through three more games with the Renegades, not exactly the team they wanted to see right now. Hudson Valley has won four straight and recently passed the 'Cats for the fourth-best run differential. The Renegades match up well with the Tri-City offense: the 'Cats are a very patient bunch, but Hudson Valley has allowed the fewest walks and hit the fewest batters this season.
Ultimately, the ValleyCats still look like the slight favorite, based on the schedule and (more importantly) their play to date. Although they are in third place, they have easily the best run differential of the group (TC +24, VER -12, CT -33), which means they should be expected to play the best from here on out. But time is running out, and they'll probably need to beat Hudson Valley a couple times this weekend to remain the favorite.
Updated playoff odds:
Tri-City: 41%
Vermont: 33%
Connecticut: 26%
Kevin Whitaker
Updated Playoff Odds
I'll update this post with the current odds daily.
Through games of 9/3:
Tri-City: 27%
Vermont: 0%
Warning: If you don't like numbers, you won't find much in this post (or the next) worth reading.
This is an update to my playoff odds post from earlier this week. I've corrected a few misconceptions regarding tie-breakers and makeup games and made my model a bit more robust.
The biggest error I had was regarding makeup games for early-season rainouts. For some reason, I was under the impression that rained-out games would be replayed at the end of the season if they affected the pennant race. That is not the case. The ValleyCats' rained-out games with Jamestown from July and with Aberdeen today will not be played, nor will Connecticut's game with Staten Island today. Vermont has missed three-plus games so far, but can make up the Brooklyn and Hudson Valley games, plus yesterday's suspended extra-inning Brooklyn game, because they play those teams again this year. Its rained-out game against Batavia, however, will not be replayed.
The other place I errored was with tie-breakers. I assumed that ties would be broken with a head-to-head game, but that is not the case. Instead, the tiebreakers go as follow: winning percentage, then divisional record, then run differential. It is rare that a tie will go even that far – I predict only a 0.5% chance that run differential comes into play.
The last update is an improvement to my model: an adjustment for home-field advantage. Home teams this year are 226-191 (.542), making home-field advantage a fairly significant factor. Thus, I gave teams playing in their home park a 4% boost in each game*. Note that I said "playing in their home park" – some of the makeup games (i.e., Vermont vs Brooklyn) will not be played at the same place they were initially scheduled; therefore, Vermont will be playing as the "home" team in Brooklyn. In such a case, Brooklyn would get the home-field advantage bump – research has shown that it is playing in a familiar park, not having the last at-bat, that provides the home team with an advantage.
*VERY technical note: In an ideal world, this home-field boost would not be linear – it has a smaller effect with a more lopsided matchup. To illustrate with an extreme example, if a team had a 4% chance of winning on a neutral field, we would not expect it to have a 0% chance of winning on the road. But I couldn't figure out an easy way to make this effect non-linear, and I expect that all realistic matchups – certainly the ones that I am predicting here – are evenly-matched enough that it doesn't make much of a difference.
(If anybody is following my work closely, I gave Vermont a 35% chance of winning its suspended game against Brooklyn, down 8-7 with two on and one out in extras. I got that number from this win probability table.)
The numbers:
Tri-City: 41.6%
The ValleyCats continue to improve their playoff hopes. Keep in mind that these numbers still don't take into account momentum – June games count as much as August games do. If you think recent results should carry more weight, you should give the ValleyCats a somewhat better chance than listed here. (For what it's worth, I do think recent results should count more, given how much rosters and players change in this league, but I haven't come up with a good way to separate recent performance from schedule effects.)
Kevin Whitaker
ValleyCats Playoff Odds
Update as of Sunday afternoon: Each team split its last two games, and the playoff results predictably changed little. I have the ValleyCats at 36.13%, Vermont at 51.40% and Connecticut at 12.46%.
I put together a quick-and-dirty simulation for the rest of the season in an attempt to answer that question. I'll try not to go into too many details about how I made the simulation, because I don't expect that many of you care; leave a comment or email me if you want to know more. But a quick and fairly technical summary: I first figured each team's pythagorean record, which estimates a team's performance going forward from its current run differential. Then I plugged those records into Bill James's log5 formula to figure the odds that each team wins each game. I then used these odds to simulate the Tri-City, Vermont and Connecticut games for the rest of the season*, and played out the season 1,000,000 times. (This task is made a lot easier by the fact that the wild card will almost certainly not come out of the Stedler Division, so I only had to worry about three teams.)
*I included makeups for games that have been lost to rain this year – Tri-City vs Jamestown, Vermont vs Batavia and Staten Island – because they will be played if they affect the pennant race at the season's end. (My mistake – these games will not be made up.)
Here were the results:
|TRI wins:
|VER wins:
|CT wins:
|TRI + VER tie:
|TRI + CT tie:
|CT + VER tie:
|3-way tie:
That comes out to a 16% chance that we'll end up in some sort of tie. The same log5 process I used above can create odds that each team wins
a head-to-head play-in game (there is no play-in game; the tiebreaker is divisional record), allowing us to estimate the full odds that each team makes the playoffs (for simplicity's sake, I assumed that each team would win the three-way tie one-third of the time):
Tri-City: 37.38%
Vermont: 51.83%
Connecticut: 10.80%
I was surprised that Connecticut's odds are so low. But if you look at run differential, the Tigers just haven't been very good this season. They rank dead last in runs scored and have a worse run differential than all but two teams; their Pythagorean record pegs Connecticut as a .426 team, rather than a .500 one. The Tigers are 10-5 in one-run games, and will probably not be as lucky going forward.
The ValleyCats have a better run differential and expected record than Vermont, but the 1.5-game edge in the standings is enough for Vermont to remain the favorite. Still, I can assure you that their playoff odds are as high as they've been all season.
Two major caveats come with these results. The first is that my simulation does not currently discriminate between home and road games, treating them all equally. I will probably build in an adjustment for this in the next edition of my playoff odds. The second is less clear-cut. Right now, all of my predictions are based on full-season data, so games in June count just as much as games in August. I am not sure if this is optimal or not, particularly in a league where players get promoted relatively frequently; when I do this again, I'll consider weighting recent results more heavily. It clearly makes a difference in this race – Vermont is playing terribly of late, while the ValleyCats are hot. If you think recent results are more predictive than early-season games, you should consider Tri-City somewhat more likely to make the playoffs than these numbers, and the opposite for Vermont.
Stedler Division Race
The ValleyCats shut out Connecticut last night, 6-0, as Vermont fell 4-3 to Lowell. The ValleyCats are now just 1.5 games out of a playoff spot.
I'll say that again: The ValleyCats are just 1.5 games out of a playoff spot.
Back in July, Vermont's lead over Tri-City was flirting with double digits, and it seemed impossible that the 'Cats would have an interesting home stretch – most (especially I) thought they would settle for avoiding the basement for the first time since 2006, thanks to Lowell. Well, it now looks like this year's 'Cats might fully copy that 2006 team, which won the Stedler Division and made the playoffs.
Vermont's nosedive in the standings certainly helped. The Lake Monsters have won just eight of their last 27 games, despite playing nine games against last-place teams and only five against teams currently above .500. Vermont, which hasn't won consecutive games in four weeks, will need to right the ship as soon as possible if it wants to maintain its season-long hold on the division lead.
But it's not as if the ValleyCats have just stood around while other teams fell. Instead, they've been playing extremely well over the past three weeks. Since losing a 13-inning thriller at Connecticut in Cooperstown, the 'Cats have gone 15-8, including sweeps of Vermont and four of six in their most recent homestand. Only Jamestown has a better record than the 'Cats this month.
And it's not as if this is a fluky streak. The ValleyCats are near the middle of the pack in the NYPL record-wise, but after their recent hot stretch, they have the fourth-best run differential in the NYPL. Run differential is a better indicator of true talent, and a better predictor of future performance, than record. So, though it may be hard to believe, the ValleyCats have played like a playoff team in 2010. They have had an average offense but have allowed only 239 runs, fourth-best in the league despite playing in a hitters' park.
Based on their runs scored and allowed, we would expect the ValleyCats to have a .553 record this season. But they're still a game below .500 and 1.5 out in the division race, thanks to some poor luck in one-run games: Tri-City is 5-10 in such contests, worst in the league. (The 'Cats also are further below .500 in extra innings than anyone else at 2-6.)
So the 'Cats still have some ground to make up in the division. Fortunately, neither of the teams they are chasing is playing very well. Vermont has been outscored by 16 runs this month, bringing its season run differential down near zero despite an amazing start, and certainly looks headed in the wrong direction. And Connecticut is on the opposite end of the spectrum from the Tri-City: it has a run differential of -34, better than only two other teams in the league, with a record bolstered by a 14-8 performance in one-run games. The main culprit for the Tigers has been a futile offense, which ranks last in runs scored.
A total of six head-to-head games remain within these teams: the 'Cats have three left with Connecticut (two away), while the Tigers play three at Vermont. The Lake Monsters and Tri-City each have three remaining with Lowell, while Connecticut is done with the Spinners.
But for the most part, it looks like the McNamara Division will help settle this race. Vermont is least fortunate schedule-wise, with six games remaining against Brooklyn, but the others also have three games against the league's top team. Tri-City has to play in Brooklyn, where the Cyclones have been much better this season (22-6 home, 16-14 road), but they also are the last three games of the season, so Brooklyn could rest some players and have less motivation, as it all but wrapped up a playoff spot a long time ago.
Of their other nine games against McNamara teams, the ValleyCats play six against Hudson Valley, which looks like the next-best in the division. But six of the nine (including three with Aberdeen) are at home. Connecticut is a little bit more fortunate, with six against Aberdeen and three home with Staten Island, while Vermont also plays three-game sets with Aberdeen and Staten Island but travels for both.
All things considered, the ValleyCats and Connecticut face a remarkably similar strength of schedule, while Vermont's is noticeably more difficult (including nine straight on the road to finish the season). Given that the ValleyCats now look like the most talented team in the division, this should be a very interesting race. (See my playoff odds for more.)
Tri-City may also be picking up some help down the stretch: third-round draft pick Austin Wates signed on Monday and will join the ValleyCats tomorrow. College players can often struggle with the transition to pro ball – as those of us who saw Mike Kvasnicka's first month in Troy know – but Wates has the potential to help this team. He was a terrific hitter in college and had one of the best bats in the entire draft, drawing raves from scouts and evaluators. His long-term position is an open question – second base seems most likely – but for the rest of this season he'll probably be an outfielder, and he slots into left field nicely for the ValleyCats. (Update: see Evan's profile of Wates.)
Kevin Whitaker
Fielding in the NYPL
Fielding is hard to evaluate.
It is nearly impossible to judge defense without some level of subjectivity. Even the simplest defensive statistic, fielding percentage, relies on a scorer's decision regarding whether a play would have been made with reasonable effort. More advanced statistics such as UZR attempt to take subjectivity out of the equation by comparing each hit with similar balls, and seeing how many fielders made those plays – but (to my knowledge) it makes other assumptions that are not always true, such as assuming that fielders begin from the same position and assuming that the batted-ball classification data is necessarily accurate.
While analysts have made tremendous improvement over the past five years or so, measuring individual defense remains an inexact science. It is even more so at the lower levels, where we don't have nearly the data that MLB teams and fans have access to. Fans looking for information on a player's fielding are limited to their own observation and fielding percentage, which at best paints a very crude picture and basically ignores a player's range and ability to make difficult plays.
Fortunately, measuring team fielding is easier. In its simplest form, what is fielding about? It is about making plays: turning batted balls into outs.
That's overly simplistic, and doesn't account for many variables – double plays, stolen bases, preventing extra-base hits, passed balls and runners taking extra bases, to name a handful. But I think most would agree that the most important job of the fielders as a unit is to turn a batted ball into an out. And that characteristic is pretty easy to measure.
Strikeouts and walks are exclusively pitching stats – the fielders have essentially no say in whether or not those occur. (You could argue that a catcher's ability to frame pitches could occasionally make the difference in those stats, but that's a very, very weak effect at best.) Same with home runs – plays like this one aside, the fielders can usually only turn and watch as the ball goes over the fence.
But the balls hit in play? The defense has plenty of control over those. In theory, a perfect defense with lightning-fast players could turn every ball in play into an out. The worst possible defense could also never record an out on fair balls, never moving and dropping balls right at them. Actual teams, obviously, lie far from these extremes. Good-fielding teams will turn more balls into outs than poor ones, and we can measure this.
The statistic I just described is Defensive Efficiency Rating (DER), and if you're already familiar with it, you skimmed through the last few paragraphs because you knew all that already. The formula is:
DER = 1 – ((H + Reach on Error – HR) / (PA – BB – SO – HBP – HR))
One caveat: MiLB does not keep data for "reach on error". The only statistic available is total errors, which includes botched pickoff throws, throwing errors from the outfield, throwing errors on the back end of double plays and other plays that solely advance runners and don't put runners on base. I estimated the number of errors that put an opposing batter on base as two-thirds of total errors (ROE = 2/3 * E).
So, which teams are best at converting balls in play into outs?
Despite the league's fourth-best fielding percentage, the ValleyCats best only two other teams in defensive efficiency. This is what I expected when I started this – opposing hitters post good batting averages off Tri-City pitchers despite striking out often. Oscar Figueroa has great range when he plays short but neither Healey nor Orloff are anything to write home about in that respect – both are good defensively, but more for their hands than their range. Kiké has good range at second, especially to his left, but the ValleyCats have been breaking in a bunch of new players at third (Kvasnicka, Orloff, Figueroa), who don't read balls as well off the bat yet. Adamson and Infante have great speed in the outfield, but the latter didn't make good reads in center (a problem I've seen much less of since he moved back to left).
It's important to keep these ratings in mind when evaluating pitchers – a ValleyCats hurler will see one fewer ball of 20 in play turned into an out than one on Williamsport.* The CrossCutters are 31-19 atop the Pinckney Division, in no small part because of arguably the league's best defense. Williamsport comes to Troy tomorrow for a three-game series.
*Implied in that sentence was that getting outs in play is the full responsibility of the fielders. This is not a discussion I really want to fully get into here, but for those who might be unfamiliar with it: in the past decade of so, it has been generally accepted that major-league pitchers have little control over what happens to a ball in play. (An exception is that knuckleballers, submarine pitchers and other unconventional throwers usually allow fewer hits than standard pitchers.) Note that this has not been shown to be true or untrue at the minor-league level.
Kevin Whitaker
Midseason Report
Today marks the midway point in the NY-Penn League season. 38 of the 76 scheduled games are remaining, although some teams have a couple more due to weather postponments. Tri-City has played 36 games and stands at 15-21. The ValleyCats seem certain to finish out of the cellar for the first time since 2006 – they're already eight games up on 8-30 Lowell – but the record is still a bit of a disappointment to a team that has seemed inconsistent.
The pitching was scary good early in the year, while the offense was scary in a completely different sense, threatening the Mendoza line with a June batting average of .192. But both sides have gone closer to league-average levels. At the midway point, the 'Cats are batting .243 and rank eighth in the league with 170 runs scored. Their ERA is up to 4.08, and only four of the league's 14 teams have allowed more than their 179 runs.
Quite a few ValleyCats have heated up in the past week or two. Mike Kvasnicka was batting just .152 and slugging .207 ten days ago, but has been on fire for the past week. In his last eight games, Kvasnicka is batting 15-for-36 (.417) with two homers, six extra-base hits and 11 RBI.
A couple of reserves have earned more playing time with recent hot streaks. Tonight's DH Buck Afenir has gone 5-for-11 in the team's last ten games to raise his season batting average to .314. Afenir's biggest hit came at Cooperstown on Saturday, when his pinch-hit double in the ninth inning brought home Dan Adamson with the game-tying run. Shortstop Jacke Healey had only four hits on the season at the start of last week, but homered in back-to-back games against Brooklyn and Aberdeen, then had consecutive two-hit games at Vermont over the weekend.
Kiké Hernandez has been unstoppable for the entire month of July. The second baseman hit just .152 in the first month of the season but has hit safely in 20 of 21 games this month, upping his season average to .295.
Here's a look at where everybody in the NYPL stands thus far, sorted by run differential:
The last column represents the number of games Tri-City has remaining against each team. As you can see, the schedule was pretty front-loaded, and the ValleyCats will generally face easier opponents from here on out. That starts with a three-game home series against Lowell tonight – the Spinners come in having lost 13 of their last 14 contests. Only 14 of the 'Cats' 39 remaining games come against teams that currently have a positive run differential. (Note: this assumes they will not make up the rained-out game against Jamestown, which will only be played if it has playoff implications at the end of the season.)
The ValleyCats have unlucky this year – we would have expected them to win 17 games based on their run differential, when they are actually 15-21. And they've faced a tough schedule to this point, playing a lot of games against the league's better teams. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the ValleyCats to play .500 or even a bit better in the second half.
Their playoff chances, however, are still very remote. Brooklyn currently has the league's best record, at 25-13. If the ValleyCats played like the league's best team in the second half, they would finish at 41-35 or so. Five teams are currently on pace to have a better record than that, and another two aren't far behind. So even if the 'Cats play .650 ball from here on out – which only one team did in the first half – they would still probably have no better than a 50-50 shot at reaching the postseason.
But that doesn't mean the season is lost. The ValleyCats seem very likely to post their best record since 2006, and may be able to reach .500 by the end of the season. For a team that seemed incapable of scoring a run one month ago, that wouldn't be a bad ending.
Kevin Whitaker
ValleyCats: Unluckiest team in NYPL
The 'Cats got a big win tonight, thrashing Auburn 11-2 to snap a three-game skid. Tyler Burnett had a monster night, going 3-for-3 with a homer, a double and two walks; his 19 bases on balls rank second in the New York-Penn League. Ben Heath added a homer and a double, while Mike Kvasnicka notched his first extra-base hit since Opening Day. Tri-City pounded out 15 hits and didn't commit an error while turning three double plays. Carlos Quevedo posted his fifth consecutive quality start, allowing two runs in six innings for his second victory of the season.
The 11 runs marked a season high for the ValleyCats this season. They also set another milestone you may not have noticed: with the blowout victory, the 'Cats have now scored more runs on the season (112) than they have allowed (111).
That's right, Tri-City has outscored its opponents this year. You would not expect that from the standings, however: the 'Cats stand at 10-15 (.400), ahead of only two other teams in the NYPL.
It has generally been accepted in baseball (and in most other sports) that run (or point) differential is a better indicator of a team's true ability than winning percentage. This is because the binary of "win" vs "loss" tells us relatively little about how well a team played in a given game. Run differential helps us get a better picture – a team that wins by 9 runs generally had a better performance than a team that won by one run. Over a larger sample, wins and losses cumulatively give us a pretty good picture of a team's talent, but run differential will usually tell a more complete story.
Run differential and winning percentage often agree, but there are times when they don't, such as for the ValleyCats this season. Based on run differential, we would expect Tri-City to be about .500; instead, they're .400. Generally, difference between expected and actual winning percentage is chalked up to the vague term "luck".
There is one factor, unique to baseball, that often explains the difference between expected and actual winning percentage: bullpen performance. If a team's bullpen is lousy, it might lose more than its share of close games, which would hurt its winning percentage more than its run differential. However, it is easy to see that this theory does not fit the ValleyCats this year. The Tri-City bullpen has been far from weak; it has been outstanding, with a 2.68 ERA. I can't find any sortable stats for bullpens around the NYPL, but the league-average ERA is 3.92, and the best pitching staff (Vermont) is at 2.75. Even after allowing for the fact that relievers generally have a lower ERA than starters, the 'Cats have still had an excellent bullpen.
So, if anything, we would expect the ValleyCats to be overperforming their run differential, instead of playing well below it. Without any other likely explanation, I have to conclude that the 'Cats have simply suffered some bad luck, and they're more likely to play like a .500 team than a .400 team going forward.
Looking at run differential, there are a few clear-cut tiers in the NYPL:
Jamestown, Brooklyn and Vermont sure seem to have separated themselves from the pack. Vermont has already all but clinched the Stedler Division, while the other two currently lead by small margins and should be expected to pull away. But the race for the fourth-best team is a real mess; according to run differential, 15-11 Williamsport is no better than 10-15 Tri-City. There are eight teams who are a good or bad game away from a zero run differential, which is awfully rare. Then the two Valley teams are a clear cut below, with Lowell unsurprisingly bringing up the rear.
Sabermetric pioneer Bill James devised a method of predicting winning percentage from run differential called the Pythagorean Expectation. The equation, which has held up well over the two or three decades since its inception, is fairly simple:
Expected WP% = RS-squared / (RS-squared + RA-squared)
A team who has allowed as many runs as it has scored would be expected to have a winning percentage of .500, and the results are similarly intuitive for other inputs (basically, the marginal value of each extra run has less and less effect on winning percentage).
So, compared to their Pythagorean expectation, which teams have been the luckiest and unluckiest? You won't be surprised by the bottom team (positive = lucky; negative = unlucky).
According to run differential, Tri-City is basically as talented as any other team in the league, save the top three. The ValleyCats' playoff hopes look awfully slim, despite this good news – their recent bad fortune has left them 4.5 games back and behind seven other teams in the wild-card race, which is a very difficult hurdle to overcome under any circumstances. But if their run-scoring and run-allowing rates stay roughly the same, the ValleyCats seem likely to win a bit more frequently than they have thus far.
Kevin Whitaker


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Romance, gangsters and a raging hurricane are all coming to the Michigan Theatre's big screen at 2 p.m. Sunday in "Key Largo," the 1948 thriller starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
Tickets for the film, which is part of the theater's Famous Pairs Film Series, are $6.50 for adults and $4.50 for students and seniors. Call 783-0962 for more information.

subset: commoncrawl


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After a week of driving the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro, my head still hurts. It started hurting after the third or fourth time I smacked it on the headrest after pressing go at a green light. You'd think after snapping my head back at every other traffic light, I would've developed a lighter foot? But what would've been the point of that?
Drivers plunking down their hard-earned cash for a Camaro aren't buying it for a smooth transition from first to second; they're buying it for its raw acceleration. So, in the name of fastidious journalism, I endured a week of head-snapping drives – what a blast!
The Camaro, missing from Chevy showrooms since the 2002 model year, was reintroduced in 2009. In short order, the retro styling and powerful engines have created a winner for Chevy. On the road, drivers pull up to it, check it out, lay off the gas and drift back to get a second look at the rear end. Friends and family offered unsolicited remarks declaring the Camaro an attention-grabbing looker. Co-workers offered me cash to let them drive it around the parking lot. (Note to powers that be: I declined, of course.)
Indeed, the car's wide stance, squat greenhouse and muscular rear-wheel fender flares have captured much of what was aesthetically satisfying in the original Camaros (albeit at the price of better visibility). Its two engine choices, a 3.6-L 304-hp V6 and a blistering 6.2-L 426-hp V8, provide more power than most drivers will ever need. In fact, the standard V6 engine in the new Camaro produces the same amount of horsepower as the standard V8 available in the 2002 model (305-hp).
Of course, that's right where the comparisons should stop. Previous Camaros and the new Camaros are two very different animals – built on different platforms, with more-efficient engines and a ton more bells and whistles. Actually, a ton is an exaggeration; it's more like 300 lbs.
Whereas the last crop of Camaros weighed in around 3,400 to 3,500 pounds, the 2010 Camaros have gained about 300 pounds. There seemed to be a lot of hoopla about the added weight gain before the car made it to the street. I don't think it's worth all the fuss.
The new V6's 0-60 times are right around 6 seconds. That's nearly identical to the lighter 2002 V6. The new V8, clocked 0-60 at around 4.6 sec., about half a second better than the old 2002 SS V8.
I, for one, don't mind the weight of the car. When you turn a corner quickly, you feel the weight of the car digging in and helping to hunker down. The Camaro's acceleration, weight distribution and handling make for an adrenalin-producing drive that never feels out of control.
Just in case you turn the corner a bit fast, the beefy bolsters on the bucket seats will make sure you stay in place. The dash, with its squared-off gauges and throwback look, gives you eye-level speedometer and tachometer dials, as well as a centered digital display.
I chose to have my speed displayed on the center monitor, in big fat digital numbers, just to make sure I never broke the law. Acceleration on the Camaro is so effortless, if you're not paying attention you can easily exceed the city speed limits without even realizing it.
All the displays in the car, including the classic set of four gauges mounted on the floor console, glowed in a retro-turquoise blue with bright red needle tips. The optional four pack of gauges displays oil pressure, oil temperature, transmission temperature and battery voltage. Even the lighted accent swoosh in the door panels glowed turquoise.
It's simple retro details like these that add so much to the Camaro's cool factor. Once you sit in it, you realize the Chevy engineers working on the new Camaro were working on a labor of love.
With production catching up to demand, being able to see the new Camaro before plunking down your money is now a reality. According to Bryan Chevrolet's general sales manager Keith Treuting, customers were calling about this car one to two years before Chevy even committed itself to building it. "Today, customers can come in and test drive them, compare and contrast models, see the differences between a 1LT and 2LT for themselves," said Treuting.
The 2010 Camaro comes in three V6 trim levels, the LS, 1LT and 2LT, as well as two V8 models, the 1SS and 2SS. Starting price on the V6 is $22,680. It's $30,945 for the V8 1SS. Of course, retro is nice; but so are heated seats, satellite radio, Bluetooth compatibility, USB ports, power seats, auto headlights and wipers. So once you've decided on a V6 or V8, picking a Camaro becomes a process of choosing amenities.
Just a couple of nitpicks – the door handles are so far forward and down, they almost force the long doors to swing wide open when you pull the handle. Plus, the trunk lip comes up to taillight height, making you lift anything to be placed in the trunk waist high.
Weighing it all together, how did I like it? Let me just say, this was the first test car I ever considered washing and waxing.
2010 Chevrolet Camaro
Trim Levels: LS, 1LT, 2LT, 1SS, 2SS
Starting price: $22,680
Engines: 3.6-liter V6, 6.2-liter V8
Horsepower/Torque: 304-hp/273-lb.ft. on the V6, 426-hp/420-lb.ft. on the V8
Transmission: 6-speed manual or 6-speed automatic
EPA est. MPG (City/Hwy.): 17/24 on the V6, 16/24 on the V8
Key Optional Features: Sunroof, leather, Bluetooth, remote start, heated seats, universal home remote, premium Boston Acoustics sound system, and a variety of striping packages.


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The Spartans (27-14) built a 3-0 lead with a run in the first, sixth and the seventh. Joel Pickens hit an RBI double in the sixth and Cam Gibson notched an RBI with a bases-loaded single in the seventh.
Western Michigan (15-22) got on the board with a run in the bottom of the seventh. Duncan singled with two outs and scored from first on a double down the left field line by Cable. Cable went 2-for-2 for the afternoon, also recording a base hit in the fifth. Duncan extended his hitting streak to 10 games.
Michigan State stretched its lead to 5-1 with two runs in the top of the ninth, charged to freshman reliever Gabe Berman.
The Broncos put together a rally in the bottom of the ninth but fell a run short. Piccirilli hit a leadoff single, Jared Kujawa roped a one-out single and Duncan loaded the bases with a two-out single. Hoekstra cleared the bags with a double under the glove of Gibson in left field. The comeback was put to rest however in the next at bat with a pop out behind the plate.
WMU right-handed starter Will Nimke worked deep into the sixth and was relieved by Casey Hall with a runner on third and two outs. Hall ended the frame with a fly out to center field. Nimke allowed just two runs and four hits, struck out one and walked two. Despite the quality effort, he took the loss, dropping his record to 2-5 on the year.
Hall gave up the run in the seventh and was replaced on the mound by David Brennan with two away and the bags full. Brennan stepped in to strikeout Pickens swinging to get WMU out of the inning.
The afternoon also had its share of exciting defensive plays in the field. Michigan State center fielder Anthony Cheky robbed Kujawa of a pair of hits and made the play of the day in the first, saving a run with a diving catch in the gap in right center. He took another one away from Kujawa in the fourth, tracking down a ball with an over-the-shoulder grab at the warning track in left center.
Kujawa did his best to return the favor, making a highlight catch in the corner of right field against Gibson in the sixth.
MSU starter Mike Theodore (1-1) earned the win for Michigan State, tossing six scoreless innings and holding Western Michigan to three hits. WMU had nine hits in the contest overall.
Tuesday was the beginning of an eight-game homestand to close out the regular season for Western Michigan. The Broncos host Kent State this weekend and Central Michigan May 16-18 in three-game Mid-American Conference series. Notre Dame visits next Tuesday, May 14 for midweek, non-conference matchup.


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This is Halloween (Video)
Table of contents for Halloween Videos
- Bewitched – Halloween Special, 1967
- Garfield's Halloween Adventure
- Halloween With the Addams Family
- Scrappy's Ghost Story, Columbia Cartoons – 1935
- Popeye's Halloween, 1954
- The Skeleton Dance – Disney 1929
- Lonesome Ghosts – Walt Disney, 1937
- Betty Boop's Halloween Party, 1933
- The Mad Doctor, Disney 1933
- Donald Duck Trick or Treat, 1952
- It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!
- Casper The Friendly Ghost (Vintage)
- This is Halloween (Video)
- Scary Skeleton Dance, 1929 (Video)
"Halloween Town" is a dream world filled with citizens such as deformed monsters, ghosts, ghouls, goblins, vampires, werewolfs and witches. Jack Skellington, "king of the pumpkin patch", is a respected entertainer amongst the citizens and grows tired of the repetitive yearly celebration of Halloween. He wanders in the wilderness, where he accidentally opens a portal to "Christmas Town". Impressed by the feeling and style of Christmas, Jack presents the culture to the citizens of Halloween Town of his slightly inaccurate impressions. While Jack may slightly understand Christmas, the townspeople fail to do so and compare everything Jack says to their ideas of Halloween. Nonetheless the townspeople agree to celebrate Christmas and take over the holiday.
Jack's obsession with Christmas leads him to usurp the role of Santa Claus. Every resident is assigned a task, while Sally, a rag doll-type resident, begins a romantic attraction towards Jack. However, she alone fears that his plans will become disastrous. Jack then assigns Lock, Shock, and Barrel, a trio of mischievous children to transport Santa Claus to Halloween Town. Against Jack's wishes and largely for their amusement, the trio deliver Santa to the lair of Oogie Boogie, a gambling-addict bogeyman who plots to play a game with Santa's life as the stake.
Christmas Eve arrives and Sally attempts to stop Jack, but he embarks into the sky on a coffin-like sled pulled by skeletal reindeer, hoping to deliver presents to children around the world. As Jack begins delivering gifts, children are horrified by their monstrous, which include shrunken heads, man-eating wreaths, vampiric teddy bears, 30-foot snakes, and pull-string ducks dotted with bloody bullet holes. Their parents believe Jack to be an imposter attempting to imitate Santa, and the military is commissioned to shoot Jack out of the sky. He is presumed dead by the Halloween citizens, but eventually is shown to be alive. Although he is initially depressed by the destruction he had caused, he realizes he is still the ruler of Halloween Town and can bring joy to the world in his own way.
Sally attempts to free Santa, only to be captured by Oogie Boogie. With the climax ensuing, Jack rescues Sally and Santa and defeats Oogie Boogie. Santa reprimands Jack before setting off to save Jack's Christmas mistakes. Santa flies over Halloween Town and gives it snow as a gift to the town, signifying that there be no hard feelings between him and Jack. The townspeople are confused at first, but start to play in the snow. The film ends with Jack and Sally sharing a kiss on a spiral hill over the cemetery.
One Response
The Halloween videos are great! I especially got a kick out of the Scary Skeletons Dance! It's hard to believe it was made in 1929, as the music-and some of the dancing-seems alot more contemporary. And ofcourse one of my all-time favorites is the Nightmare Before Christmas. I am 55 now, and my 2 daughters are grown and have kids of their own, but they grew up watching that movie,and now my little grandkids are learning the words to the songs!


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I wanted to share my November Creative Writing today, because November is almost here! I cannot believe how quickly October flew by, and I'm sure it will only speed up through November and December.
These November creative writing prompts are sure to be a hit with your students! All of the prompts are written to encourage divergent and critical thinking. These booklets can be bound, stapled together as mini books, or you can even give students the prompts one day at a time.


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FLINT, Michigan — The sixth annual Huckleberry Hustle five-kilometer road race will be held at 7 p.m.. Thursday at Crossroads Village.
The course is relatively flat, consisting of dirt roads and varied terrain through Crossroads Village and its surrounding trails.
The entry fee is $22 with a shirt and $19 without. Race-day registration will begin at 5.
There is a children's race at 6:30 which costs $14 and includes a shirt.


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Bill H.1175 187th (2011 - 2012)
An Act providing for linguistically appropriate mental health services
By Ms. Balser of Newton, a petition (accompanied by bill, House, No. 1175) of Ruth B. Balser, James J. O'Day and Ellen Story relative to mental health services provided by certain insurance policies. Financial Services.
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The information contained in this website is for general information purposes only. The General Court provides this information as a public service and while we endeavor to keep the data accurate and current to the best of our ability, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.
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Increased drunk driving enforcement efforts on the night before Thanksgiving led to several arrests in Chester County.
State police conducted roving DUI patrols throughout the county on Wednesday and stopped 89 motorists, seven of whom were arrested for driving under the influence, police said.
Troopers also issued 12 citations and 10 warnings to drivers for various summary traffic violations.
Police warned drivers in advance of their stepped up efforts to crack down on drunk drivers on Thanksgiving Eve, which they have labeled "Black Wednesday" because of it being the busiest bar night of the year.


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Michigan's biggest viral video of 2012 is no longer online.
Officially, that is.
The Pure Michigan Statewide Singalong, which debuted during a Detroit Lions game in September, generated more than 1 million views in its first week on YouTube before it was pulled due to an unresolved copyright issue.
The video, a collaboration between the state's tourism brand and Status Creative, featured hundreds of Michiganders in 50 Michigan cities singing along to a modified version of the song "Good Time" by Owl City.
While the official singalong may never return to YouTube, a bootleg copy has been on the video site for several months. Search, and ye shall find.
Below, you'll find 12 other Michigan-related viral videos from 2012 that remain online (legally, we think), presented in no apparent order.
Former Gov. Granholm on Dating Game: Before she was Michigan's 47th governor, Jennifer Granholm was a "cute and curvaceous" contestant on The Dating Show. Video of the 1978 appearance finally hit the Internet this year following Granholm's head-turing speech at the Democratic National Convention, video of which also appears on this list.
Kristen Bell's Sloth Meltdown on Ellen: Metro Detroit native Kristen Bell really loves sloths. And when she finally got the chance to meet one, she had a "full-fledged panic attack," as she hilariously recounted on Ellen.
Puppy trapped in underground pipe: The Michigan Humane Society helped rescue "Piper," a 4-week-old puppy trapped in an underground pipe on Detroit's west side for more than 12 hours in February.
I'm Pregnant and I Know It: A Kentwood couple found its 15 minutes in fame with a pregancy-based parody of "Sexy and I Know It" by LMFAO. The video picked up more than 1.75 million views on YouTube and a tip of the cap from aToday Show blog.
Brad and Emily get engaged! (a lip dub proposal): Boy likes girl. Boy wants to marry girl. Boy enlists 90 friends and family members of girl for lip dub wedding proposal filmed at Tunnel Park on Lake Michigan. Just like the fairy tales.
Tulip Time Flash Mob: What do you get when you mix a traditional Dutch dance and a Ray Charles remix? A viral video, apparently.
Jennifer Granholm at the DNC: Some called it a star turn, others called it a meltdown of Howard Dean proportions. Everybody called it something, though, making it one of the most-discussed speeches at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
Milton Hall shooting: Footage originally published by CNN showed Saginaw police shooting a troubled homeless man with a knife more than 40 times. The county prosecutor later decided not press criminal charges against the officers, who he said were acting with their lives on the line.
Fox News contributor punched during right-to-work protest: Comedian Steven Crowder, best known in these parts for his viral video bashing Detroit, was hit in the face during this month's right-to-work protest on the state lawn. Crowder claimed the punch was unprovoked, but an alternative edit of the video showed his assailant getting up from the ground before swinging.
Brandon Dillon on right-to-work: Several Michigan Democrats delivered fiery speeches against right-to-work bills fast-tracked by their Republican colleagues. But state Rep. Brandon Dillon hit a nerve when he ridiculed the process that did not include committee hearings, public input or debate on amendments. "This is where democracy goes to die today," he said.
Zorro kills thief in U-M lecture prank: I'm still trying to figure out what I just saw. I know it involved organic chemistry, a mariachi band, a purse thief and Zorro. I also know that it went viral and generated nearly 3 million YouTube views.
'Frick-en Awesome' graduation prank: Kelsie Elise Frick pulled off a "frick-en-awesome" graduation prank at Grand Valley State University, altering the phonetic spelling of her name before walking the stage.
Jonathan Oosting is a reporter for MLive Media Group's statewide news team. Email him at firstname.lastname@example.com or follow at twitter.com/jonathanoosting.


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NESHANIC STATION — The Somerset County Park Commission will be celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the opening of Neshanic Valley Golf Course on Thursday, Sept. 4, with an 18-hole outing including lunch and dinner.
Fee for the event is just $49, the cost of play with a cart in 2004 when the facility first opened to the public. Golfers will tee off at 12:00 Noon in a Shotgun start. Dinner will follow with prizes awarded for gross and net scores using the Callaway scoring system for net.
Golfers are encouraged to register early as the field will be limited. Reservation forms are available at the Neshanic Valley Pro Shop. Payment by cash or check (payable to SCPC) should be made in person or by mail.
Neshanic Valley is the flagship course in the Park Commission 5-championship golf course system. Located at 2301 South Branch Road in Neshanic Station, NJ, the complete golfing facility provides an all-inclusive golfing experience with the 27-hole Championship Course, the 9-hole Academy Course, the Learning Center, and the Callaway Golf Performance Center.
The state-of-the-art Learning Center includes a double-ended driving range with grass and mat hitting areas, a 12,000 square foot putting green, a practice facility including bunkers and three chipping greens, and two practice holes. The Callaway Performance Center offers a state-of-the-art computerized golf club fitting and swing analysis system, operated by Callaway-trained professionals.
Neshanic Valley hosted the 2012 U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links Championship, one of 13 USGA Championships held nationwide each year. The course has been recognized as the #2 public golf course in the state by both Golf.com and NJ Monthly; the 30th best municipal course in the nation by Golfweek; and among the Best Public Golf Courses in New Jersey by Sports Illustrated and CNN.com. The facility has also been recognized as one of the most envirionmentally friendly facilities by the New Jersey Water Supply Authority, the Aububon Society, and the Groundwater Foundation.
Information on Neshanic Valley, the four other championship county golf courses, and additional Somerset County Park Commission activities may be found on the Internet at www.somersetcountyparks.org.
Neshanic Valley Golf Course to mark 10th anniversary
NESHANIC STATION — The Somerset County Park Commission will be celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the opening of Neshanic Valley Golf Course on Thursday, Sept. 4, with an 18-hole outing including lunch and dinner.


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LaRue County Restaurants
Have a tasty treat at one of our many locally owned eateries. MORE >>
Bardstown – Nelson County Restaurants
Bardstown boasts more than 50 restaurants to suit just about every mood, from a burger to go to an old-time drug store soda fountain to local, family-owned restaurants to fine dining in historic surroundings. MORE >>
Springfield-Washington County Restaurants
Unique, family-oriented restaurants abound in Springfield, KY. From fine dining to fast food, one of Springfield's many restaurants can accommodate most everyone's desires. MORE >>
Danville – Boyle County Restaurants
Danville/Boyle County has numerous dining establishments through out our community. Whether you want to eat like a local or want a taste of traditional Kentucky cuisine, we've got a little of everything… MORE >>


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The Mainichi Daily News reports the new Olympus Corp. management is considering trimming the company's digital camera offering as part of restructuring. President–nominee Hiroyuki Sasa, who will succeed President Shuichi Takayama after an extraordinary shareholders meeting on April 20, said he aims to unveil a restructuring plan before a regular shareholders meeting in June.
In an interview with Kyodo News, Sasa said while several firms have made proposals for tie–ups with Olympus to reconstruct its financial base weakened by the loss coverup scandal, Olympus has not ruled out moving forward on its own.
According to published reports, Fujifilm Holdings Corp. and Sony Corp. have come forward to offer financial support.
On the company's imaging business consisting mainly of digital camera operations, which is expected to post an operating loss for the second year in a row for the past business year to March 31, Sasa touched on the need to reform its product portfolio.
"We would like to narrow down our portfolio," he said, suggesting the possibility of withdrawing some types of inexpensive compact digital cameras facing intense price competition. By reforming its product lineup, "we can make the business fully profitable," Sasa said.


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EUGENE, Oregon -- Islander Terry Ballou, competing for the Central Park/New Balance team, placed fifth in a special masters exhibition 400-meter race at the rainy U.S. Olympic Trials at Hayward Field Saturday.
Competing out of the tough lane one in an eight-woman invitational field, the 44-year-old was timed in 1 minute, 1.05 seconds. Her teammate, Lisa Daley, was the winner in 59.25.
Ballou got off slowly, and was last at 200 meters, but passed three runners on the final straightaway.
"It was a fun race," said Ballou. "I'm happy to beat a few people. I had a good time out there."
Ballou was hoping to break 60 seconds, but said, "The experience here is everything. The time is not what I wanted, but being a part of this is an honor."
Ballou made the trip out with her entire family, and parents. "This made it kind of special," she said.
She added, "I knew I was strong, and I knew that the others went out crazy fast. I didn't panic, ran my race, and pushed through."


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I am told that it snowed last week. I didn't see it, but I refuse to believe it.
I am also told that all three of the Copper Country's football playoff teams lost in the first round last weekend. I didn't see it, as all three were on the road, but I'm willing to believe the word of the reporters who covered the games.
The high school football season isn't really all that long - nine weeks in Michigan, but it feels longer simply because of the drastic change.
High school basketball goes more than three months, but up here, it starts and ends with snow on the ground, and the odds of poor roads on the way home are roughly the same for Game 1 as they are for Game 20.
High school football starts in, essentially, the summer. I make a point of covering at least one game a year in shorts. However, this is the first year I've lived in Houghton in which snow (or its close relative, graupel) did not fall during a game I covered.
It wasn't a star-studded season in this part of the U.P., but I was pleasantly surprised with how the voting went for the All-U.P. football teams announced Saturday.
Fact Box
Red Line Picks
Minnesota State at
Michigan Tech
Good times in Houghton: The snow isn't sticking yet and the Huskies are 5-2-1. No snow is in the forecast for the next few days and there's a sunny outlook on the ice, too. Minnesota State had last week off, which is just more time to think about a 10-2 loss at Denver in its last game. The Mavericks played without seven injured players against Denver and lost an eighth in the 10-2 game. The Mavs will be healthier in Houghton, but better? That's not so sure. Even before the injury, they were picked to finish last in the WCHA. This is a series that Tech should sweep.
The Verdict: Tech sweep 4-2, 5-2
North Dakota at Minnesota
The Gophers remained perfect in the WCHA with a pair of wins at Alaska-Anchorage, while North Dakota got shutout by a freshman goaltender at home against St. Cloud before coming back to earn the series split. Kent Patterson is red-hot in the Gopher net, posting all four of his career shutouts in the first eight games of this season. The Sioux goaltending has been remarkably cold, as Brad Eidsness and Aaron Dell currently have a combined .854 save percentage. The last line of defense is my last line of proof that the Gophers will sweep.
The Verdict: UMn sweep 5-3, 2-1
Wisconsin at St. Cloud State
Wisconsin has crept up into the top half of the WCHA standings again with a respectable home split against Nebraska-Omaha, while St. Cloud still has several games in hand (only two of their first eight have been league contests). The Badgers visit the Other Huskies this weekend. Ryan Faragher was the star of the weekend for SCSU, stopping 44 shots in a shutout of North Dakota Friday night. A late add in place of injured starter Mike Lee, Faragher earned WCHA Rookie of the Week honors for his work. However, against a Badger team averaging 3.5 goals per game thus far, the loss of Lee may catch up with SCSU.
The Verdict: UW sweep 6-4, 5-4
Colorado College at
Nebraska Omaha
CC, still perfect on the season at 4-0, faces its biggest test thus far this weekend against a tough UNO squad. The Mavs aren't off to quite as fast of a start, but Terry Broadhurst will be a factor this weekend. The junior forward scored three times in two games last weekend against the Badgers and already has seven goals and four assists on the season. He and UNO will knock the Tigers from the ranks of unbeatens, but not take all the points.
The Verdict: UNO 5-4 Friday, CC 4-2 Saturday
Minnesota-Duluth at Denver
Marquee series of the weekend, as the Pioneers try to bounce back from their disappointing weekend in Houghton by facing the defending champs. UMD didn't stutter last weekend, sweeping Bemidji State 6-2 and 1-0. Definitely a tough call, so I'll pick the Pioneers to get back on track Friday only to lose the plot again on Saturday night.
The Verdict: DU 3-2 Friday, UMD 5-3 Saturday
Bemidji State at
Lake Superior St.
While they're in town the Beavers ought to look up hotel reservations in the Sault for two years down the road. This will be a league series some day, but until then, BSU and its 1-5 road record will have to face a LSSU team playing its best hockey in years. The Lakers are No. 11 in the nation after sweeping Miami in Oxford last weekend. The good times roll in U.P. hockey at the expense of Bemidji.
The Verdict: LSSU sweeps 4-2, 6-4
Last week: 8-3-1
For the season: 20-19-4 (51.1 percent)
As you noticed, nine local players received the honor of being named among the peninsula's best, with Ben Storm and Ben Bjorn of Calumet and Tyler Roberts of Ontonagon being selected for the 25 top players in the U.P., the all-class Dream Team.
Some folks have asked me about how things work, and though I can't reveal all of our secrets, I can explain a little how the process works.
Before our meeting, I solicit names and stats of players our local coaches think are worthy selections for the team (we are specifically instructed not to submit someone to be nominated just to receive honorable mention). I can also personally nominate a player who I believe is worthy (or withdraw the nomination of one who I think isn't), but one thing that readers may not know is that a player who has been suspended for a violation of training rules (such as a minor-in-possession) or who has missed more than half of his team's games, is ineligible.
We meet in Escanaba and vote position-by-position, first for the Dream Team, then the large-school first team, then the small-school first team. The U.P. Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association adjusted the categories this year so that, instead of Class ABC and Class D, the U.P.'s football-playing schools were divided in half by enrollment.
In the first year of the 8-man format, we decided that 8- and 11-man football were not similar enough to make an apples-to-apples comparison in voting, but as the system grows throughout the region, the accomplishments of 8-man players have proven tough to ignore. When you think about it, there are already weights attached to raw numbers anyway. A thousand rushing yards can be colored by things like competition, number of games, the offensive system a team runs. It never was cut-and-dried, so expanding the pool wasn't as difficult as it might seem.
Then comes the special awards. Many of them are actually fairly easy picks - for example, all-everything quarterback Austin Young of Escanaba for large-school offensive player of the year.
Of course, there are still three U.P. Team of the Year trophies and there's a bit of a sticking point. Up until this year, the trophies for the Team of the Year went to the best teams in Class A and B, Class C and Class D.
St. Ignace, which won the Mattson Trophy previously given to the Class D Team of the Year, is not, by definition, a Class D school (by about 10 students). However, in a 'spirit of the law' situation, the Saints, who are a Division 8 team, won the vote for the trophy, and a good argument can be made. After all, the trophy was intended to recognize the best team in the smallest classification, which the Saints were judged to be.
It's confusing, but once the current system catches on it'll make more sense.
The meeting is always a long day, and not just because Escanaba is a three-hour drive from the Copper Country. After dinner with the folks in Gwinn and leg two of the drive home, I worked on some pages for Friday's paper and collapsed at home.
Friday, I had to put together two articles, type out the list, dig up the photos and dress up the pages properly - and then go cover a game. It's a rough workload, and I let something fall through the cracks.
You got to read of the accomplishments of all our area's All-U.P. picks, but one.
Lake Linden-Hubbell defensive lineman Shane Testini was pictured with the article and included in the list for the small-school first team, but I realized after the fact that I omitted him from the article by mistake.
Testini, a two-year, two-way starter on the Lakes' line, posted 50 tackles and three sacks this season.
Hopefully the Lakes and their fans will accept my apology and congratulations on making this year's annual mea culpa column in December.
He and all the other selections will be receiving their awards soon, if they haven't already, and within a few weeks, the high school football season will be a memory, as will the fall.
However, the seasons will change, and surely as snow turns to sun turns to changing leaves, it'll be time to tee it up again soon enough.
Brandon Veale can be reached at email@example.com.


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« Do we spend too much on health care? | Main | Was there a place to hide? »
September 16, 2009
How insurance operates
Health insurance has been a topic in the debate over health care. How exactly does insurance operate? Is it different from other businesses?
Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:
"Well, first of all, it is a business and it operates very importantly on the principal of uncertainty. And what people do with insurance is we all face some unknown risk. We know than someone in that risk pool is going to face a big cost, a big loss. So we all willingly put money into an insurance pool, and then whoever does have a loss gets the money. Let me give you an example. Let's say that one person in 10 will face a loss of $1,000 in the next year, but no one knows who it's going to be. So what people are motivated to do is everyone in that group will kick in perhaps $101, so that the losing person does get $1,000. And then maybe there's $10 left over for the insurance company to compensate them for their time and money. Now, what this illustrates is that the insurance company has to operate on the principle of uncertainty, not knowing who exactly is going to face that risk. If, for example, we say that an insurance company has to pay each of those 10 people $50 for an annual checkup, what's that going to do the insurance premiums? Well, they're going to go up by $50 because the insurance company knows exactly that they're going to have to pay - $50 for each of those people. It also raises the issue of pre-existing conditions. If an insurance company knows that they're going to have to shell out a bunch of money for one person because they know that person's going to get sick, obviously that's why that person's premiums would be very high. That's an issue, of course, we could address outside, perhaps, of insurance."
Posted by Dave at September 16, 2009 08:04 AM


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DJ Dave Elliott spins the Saturday late shift -- Paragraph and The Bandulos jumpstart the night at 10 p.m. -- at Martini Red, 372 Van Duzer St., Stapleton.
It should be worth checking out: This 34-year-old spends literally thousands of hours searching for music, from dusty crates at flea markets to moldy bins in the basements of New Jersey collectors. Sometimes, he finds single pieces of vinyl that could pay a month's rent for his apartment in Great Kills, but he rarely re-sells them.
Whether he's on his laptop or searching the field, gathering music is a quest with a mission statement fit for a Buddhist proverb. "Like any other art form, music is an invocation," he says. "Sound is sound. It has no boundary, no one owns it, and there's no reason to limit or categorize -- whether you're a musician making music or a DJ out playing music, it doesn't make any sense. It is made out of necessity. That's what I try to express most with what I play."


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ST. LOUIS — Stars forward Rich Peverley remained hospitalized yesterday in Dallas, undergoing heart tests after collapsing on the bench during a game that was postponed.
His teammates? They are trying to deal with what they saw.
After an eerily quiet flight and sleepless nights all around, the Stars were back on the ice for a morning skate in St. Louis, relieved that Peverley's irregular heart condition had stabilized but clearly shaken by an event that puts their playoff push in perspective.
Even if the NHL hadn't postponed the game Monday night in Dallas with the Blue Jackets leading 1-0 early in the first period, linemate Tyler Seguin was done for the night. He'd come off the ice just ahead of Peverley and was right there when Peverley lost consciousness during what the team called a "cardiac event."
"I went in the room and took my stuff off right away," Seguin said, his voice catching a bit. "I was right beside him when it was all happening."
Forward Vernon Fiddler was with Nashville when the Red Wings' Jiri Fischer collapsed on the Detroit bench in 2005, also from a heart problem.
"You don't expect that ever to happen," Fiddler said. "I've been unfortunate to be part of both of those."
Fiddler was among four Stars players made available after the morning skate, a veteran hoping to help the kids cope.
"It's pretty emotional when you see your teammate collapse like that," Fiddler said. "We have some young guys on the team and it's a lot more difficult for them because they haven't been through things the older guys have been through. You've got to help them through that."
For one Stars teammate, Alex Chiasson, it was too much. The team said he had joined Peverley in a Dallas hospital for observation because he was so distraught.
The 31-year-old Peverley, who averaged 16 minutes of ice time in all six games of the Stanley Cup last season with Boston, was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat in training camp and underwent a procedure that sidelined him through the first regular season game. He had played in 60 consecutive games before sitting out at Columbus last week due to effects of his heart condition, but Monday's game was his third straight since then.
"He's always taken the precautions, he's a very focused, organized guy, you can say," said Seguin, who won a Stanley Cup with Peverley in Boston.
"Sometimes bad things happen to good people."
— the associated press


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ALBANY, N.Y. — Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum joined the attorneys general of nine other states to ask U.S. Senate leaders to stop legislation that would let licensed gun owners carry concealed firearms across state lines.
Letters sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., say it would restrict states' ability to control gun permits inside their borders, forcing them to recognize permits from states with weak oversight.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says 68 percent of the guns used in New York crimes last year were traced to other states.
In addition to Rosenblum and Schneiderman, the other attorneys general are from California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and Nevada, along with Pennsylvania's attorney general-elect.
The bill is supported by the National Rifle Association, which says it lets owners protect themselves in other states.
-- The Associated Press


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Region 6
Contact Information
Pacific Northwest Region
Forest Service
1220 SW 3rd Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97204
Phone: (503) 808-2468
Contact Us
Release Date: Sep 21, 2012
PORTLAND – A new website provides air quality information as smoke from wildfires fills the skies throughout central and eastern Washington.
Numerous county, state and federal health agencies are contributing information on air quality issues in Washington State.
A volunteer web group is combining their information on one website: http://wasmoke.blogspot.com/
"This website is a big step forward in providing the public with one-stop information that will help them protect their health," said Deputy Regional Forester Maureen Hyzer. "We recognize that smoke from wildfires is a big concern for the public. This site will help them get information quickly about air quality where they live."
A number of agencies are providing the information, including Washington State Department of Ecology, Washington State Department of Health, Washington tribes, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Forest Service and various Washington county health departments.
Air quality in the Wenatchee area has remained in the 'hazardous' category for over a week now, according to the Washington Department of Ecology, with each day being a little worse than the previous day. This scenario is not expected to change much over the next few days," said Ecology forecaster Ranil Dhammapala.\
Air quality in the Columbia Basin and the Palouse/Spokane region has been deteriorating very gradually over the last few days and is mostly in the "unhealthy for sensitive groups" category Friday morning, according to the Ecology Department. Air in these areas may improve slightly, but not much, Saturday evening through Sunday evening.
Tom Knappenberger 503-808-2241 Sept. 21, 2012
Forest Service Home | USDA.gov | recreation.gov | USA.gov | Whitehouse.gov
Plug-Ins | FOIA | Accessibility Statement | Privacy Policy | Important Notices | Information Quality


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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Joe Johnson made a 20-foot jumper with 1.7 seconds left in overtime to give the Atlanta Hawks a 90-88 preseason victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday night.
Cavaliers forward LeBron James had a chance to win it in regulation, but his shot in the lane fell short. He claimed he was fouled, but there was no whistle.
James led all scorers with 21 points, seven rebounds and six assists in a game played at Nationwide Arena.
Johnson finished with 17 points, including nine in the extra period, and 10 assists.
Hawks point guard Tyronn Lue added 13 points, while Zaza Pachulia added 12 and Josh Smith and Josh Childress had 10.
Drew Gooden contributed 17 points and 11 rebounds for the Cavaliers. Donyell Marshall scored 15 points and Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 12 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks.
The Hawks took a 37-28 lead at halftime. The Cavaliers started the second quarter with four consecutive turnovers, missed their first nine shots and were outscored 11-0.


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Welcome to Verizon Forums - the unofficial Verizon community! Have a question about Verizon? Click HERE to get started.
Expecting Cell Phone Forums? We recently moved Verizon specific content to VerizonForums.com. If you previously had an account on CPF, it has been transferred!
Is there native coverage in Los Algodones, Mexico?
Discussion in 'alt.cellular.verizon' started by George, Sep 15, 2008.


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Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
Teaching a Second Language through Art by Doris Vazquez
Guide Entry to 81.04.12:
The purpose of this unit is to provide an additional and complementary source of instruction for those students and teachers involved in the process of teaching and learning a second language. It has been developed for the elementary learners of a second language, which does not necessarily mean young children. I suggest that the unit be used with middle and high school students. A second purpose is to acquaint the students with a different mode of artistic expression, as in Modern Art. To use art in a language classroom does not mean to teach art, but to teach language through art. The student is not to be held responsible for the names of artists or paintings but will be held responsible for those concepts (skills) taught through the painting. Students will learn the names of the colors, will count to ninety-nine, and will learn the names of several geometric forms in the first lesson. The second lesson is composed of the names of the parts of the face and body, the members of the family, and clothing. The third lesson is dedicated in building a working verbal vocabulary. To carry out these lessons, I have selected a group of slides from modern art paintings found at the Yale University Art Gallery. These can be borrowed through the Education Office at the Gallery. The slides are labeled and in a separate box, ready for those teachers who wish to see them. The lessons are outlined in this unit with comments as to what can be done with them in addition to the regular textbook.
(Recommended for Levels A and B ESOL.)
Key Words
Modern Art Foreign Language Instruction
To Curriculum Unit
Contents of 1981 Volume IV
Directory of Volumes
Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
© 2016 by the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
Terms of Use
Contact YNHTI


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Bill from Mandeville emailed Sunday to ask when I was planning to write about the black teenagers in Detroit who, police say, viciously beat a white motorist who stopped to check on a black child he accidentally struck. I often get letters like Bill's. In fact, you're probably not a columnist if you don't regularly receive the how-come-you-haven't-written-about letter, email, tweet or phone call. And you, for sure, aren't a black opinion writer, if a white person hasn't implored you to explain why you haven't written about some white person being hurt or killed by a black person.
I'm just like every other black columnist in that regard. Bill wasn't writing exclusively to me. I was on a list that included Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post, Leonard Pitts at the Miami Herald, Clarence Page at the Chicago Tribune and syndicated columnist Cynthia Tucker. And for good measure, I guess, Bill also included syndicated columnist Froma Harrop.
Here's what he said: "I'm sure there will be an editorial concerning the black cowards who beat the white man in Detroit...........and the 'Reverends' will travel there..........wait........I must have gone brain dead.............the press will be mum on this as usual."
I'd really appreciate if white readers would let me know: Would you have written the same email Bill wrote? Have you written the same email Bill wrote? Are his frustrations similar to yours, or is he by himself with his ideas on opinion writers, black activists and the press?
I ask largely because I'm fascinated by a 3-year-old study conducted by researchers at Harvard and Tufts that finds that there is a "mindset gaining traction among Whites in contemporary America: the notion that Whites have replaced Blacks as the primary victims of discrimination." And according to a 2013 Rasmussen poll, 37 percent of American adults think most black people are racist and 15 percent of them think most white people are.
The authors of the 2011 report say that in many of the white people they questioned they observed what they call a zero-sum view of racism. "White respondents were more likely to see decreases in bias against Blacks as related to increases in bias against Whites - consistent with a zero-sum view of racism among whites - whereas Blacks were less likely to see the two as linked."
Again, that fascinates me. Why would anybody believe that treating a historically oppressed group better means that a historically advantaged group gets treated worse? Beyond that, why would anybody believe that being white no longer carries an advantage? The study's authors point out that "by nearly any metric - from employment to police treatment, loan rates to education - statistics continue to indicate drastically poorer outcomes for Black than White Americans."
I told Bill that the suspects that he called cowards have been arrested for attacking the white motorist. (Well, at least some of them have.) And I suspect that those arrested will be convicted. Their quick arrests makes the case different from, say, George Zimmerman who killed Trayvon Martin and went a month and a half without being arrested. If the young men who attacked the motorist are convicted as I predict, their case will be different from that of Michael Dunn. He killed teenager Jordan Davis after complaining that Davis and his buddies were playing their music loud. He was not convicted.
None of the columns that I have written about infamous crimes and court cases have been written to say, "Look, y'all, here's an example of some white people hurting black people!" People hurt people. And the ability to cause hurt or to be hurt has nothing to do with our racial classifications. I have written the columns that I have written because it doesn't seem to me that black victimization is respected. I've written the columns I've written because some people thought it find that Zimmerman had killed Martin and hadn't been arrested. I've written because some people found it acceptable that Dunn's jury didn't convict him of murdering Davis. If Martin's killer had been quickly arrested and indicted; if Dunn's killer had been convicted, I doubt I'd have written about them at all.
I explained that to Bill, but I thought it was more important that you be allowed into the conversation. Let's talk Tuesday at noon about Bill's email, what grabs the attention of opinion writers and how our criminal justice system and juries usually function operate.
I think there's little tolerance in our country for black people who hurt or kill white people. I think those convicted of, even suspected of, such crimes can expect to immediately be made aware of the seriousness of such a crime.
Tell me if you think I'm wrong.
Jarvis DeBerry can be reached at email@example.com. Follow him at twitter.com/jarvisdeberry.
About this feature: What is and isn't racism seems to be a continuous fight. "That's not racism" is meant to be a safe but lively space to have that conversation.


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Is President Obama up for a Senate confirmation fight over Elizabeth Warren? Maybe not right now. But that's just the sort of rhetorical rumble Barney Frank would like to see.
Tales from the Trail
Washington Extra -Soothing business, suing business
President Barack Obama had some soothing words for business leaders at the White House today, telling them that, despite some impressions to the contrary, he was really on their side after all. Financial regulatory reform was necessary, but "it is important now that there is a period of healing and consolidation and implementation that is less disruptive."
Elizabeth Warren's rap video
Consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren is among a handful of candidates President Barack Obama is considering to become the first chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Some ardent supporters clearly think the Harvard law professor (and chief of a panel monitoring the government's $700 billion bailout of the financial system) is up for the task of heading the independent agency created under the financial reform bill signed into law last month.
Snowe says "yes" to Wall St. bill
The decision is in….
Senator Olympia Snowe has ended the suspense, announcing that she will support the financial regulatory reform bill.
Will she or won't she?
The suspense continues…
All eyes are on Senator Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican from Maine, who has not yet decided on how she will vote on financial regulatory reform.
Obama tries to make political mountain out of ant hill
President Barack Obama and fellow Democrats are trying to make political hay out of a comment by House Republican leader John Boehner that managed to mention ants and nuclear weapons in the same sentence.
Driving Mr. Summers on financial regulation reform, G20
Larry Summers, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, is a realist when he says "people are imperfect and we have not seen the last misjudgment."
Latest Washington technique? Bipartisanship by sniping?
If bipartisanship is what they're after … they've got a funny way of showing it.
The First Draft: should Obama embrace new structural reforms?
Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs are two guys who think President Barack Obama better embrace new structural reforms if he wants a growing economy that isn't hard-wired to go bust.
The First Draft: After the crash, pushing for financial reform
President Barack Obama tries to revive his push for financial reform on Monday.The president heads to Wall Street on the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers to try to make his case for stricter regulatory oversight of U.S. markets.He'll also be discussing how he plans to wind up government involvement in the financial sector.The federal government took large stakes in banks and other firms over the past year as it tried to stabilize the economy in the midst of recession and financial collapse.Obama's financial reform effort has hit resistance in Congress, as has his bid for an overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system.A new poll in The Washington Post on Monday showed public opposition to Obama's healthcare reform is high but could ease a little if the president dropped his bid for a government-run public health plan to compete with private insurers.Obama argues a public plan is needed to ensure private insurers face enough competition to force them to control costs.The late Senator Edward Kennedy's memoir "True Compass" is out on Monday and his sons, Representative Patrick Kennedy and Ted Kennedy Jr., spoke with the morning shows about their father and his book.Patrick Kennedy recalled the first time he became aware of the constant threats his father faced."On the campaign trail in 1980, I remember one time I was with my dad and someone took one of the (campaign) buttons … They took the pin out and they jammed his hand when he came by," Kennedy said."I remember the Secret Service after the event were wondering whether he'd gotten poisoned because they didn't know it was a button he'd gotten stuck with. It was the first time that I remember ever feeling that this was something that was a daily part of his life that he had to worry about."Patrick Kennedy said the book, completed over the past year as his father struggled with the cancer that killed him, was a revelation to him."Everybody knows my dad wasn't the most sentimental, emotive guy," he said. "For us this was an enormous revelation, in a sense, because this book really was one where he talked about his feelings and emotions at various points in his life."For more Reuters political news, click here.Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Obama meets with economic team in March); Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (People line up to sign condolence book at Kennedy's Senate office after his death in August)