Allegheny Independent Media

Hello. My Name is Paul Ricci, MS MA. I have been a statistician/blogger for 20 years who has written on a variety of topics in and around the Allegheny Mountain Region of Pennsylvania. This project is an expansion of these efforts to further study issues facing the area without fluff. Below is a video introduction to the site. I have imported 20 posts from my old blog, CSI without Dead Bodies, to show examples of my work. This project is funded by a grant from the Leveler Foundation with the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies serving as a fiduciary. This project and website is a work in progress. The last 12 years of this blog have been great. Allegheny Independent Media is an expansion of these activities.  You're all welcome to join in. An announcement on the launch date is to come.

Johnstown Juneteenth Celebrations 2022

Next week, the Johnstown NAACP and the Unity Coalition of the Southern Alleghenies will be holding their annual Juneteenth celebration from June 11-19 in Central Park in Johnstown. It commemorates the emancipation of the slaves after the civil war. The full schedule of events can be seen in the image above.

I will be there on June 14 and 16th selling my book. These two days are healthcare themed days. On the 16th at 3pm, I will be there presenting on racial health disparities in Cambria County. I hope you all can come.

**Related Posts**

A look at new Racial Disparity Numbers in Cambria County

I Will Be Presenting my Book at Classic Elements and the Writers Association of Northern Appalachia Conference

Order my Book "Wuthering Depths in Johnstown: By the Numbers"

The Appalachian Studies Association Conference and Other Upcoming Events

The Appalachian Studies Association will be having its 45th annual conference in Morgantown, WV this week from March 17-20.  The theme is Making, Creating, and Encoding: Crafting Possibilities in Appalachia.  I will be presenting Using County Health Rankings to See what Ails Your Area at on Saturday the 19th with a panel discussion from 10am to 11:15am.  I will also be selling my book there.

Certainly the Appalachian Mountains and the people living there have been the target of stereotyping for decades such as in the movie Deliverance.  The mountain chain extends all the way from Mississippi all the way into Maine.  This conference is a good meeting of the minds to discuss how to move forward.

Speaking of County Health Rankings, the new rankings for each county in the U.S.  It should include statistics on the coronavirus pandemic which just reached its second anniversary on the 11th.  Cambria County will reach the second anniversary of its first case on March 23.

Also on the horizon are the new annual hate group numbers from the Southern Poverty Law Center.  These numbers are expressed by state and ideology.  I will also look at the numbers for the state of PA and the U.S.

**Related Posts**

Manchin's Political Decisions Have Real Impacts on Real People

Hate Groups do not Predict Trump % in 2020. It did in 2016

McElwee and McDaniel Validate my Analysis on Hate Groups and Trump

100 Books Sold and Rosie's Bookapalooza on October 22-24

After a successful book signing at IUP's homecoming two weeks ago, I reached 100 sales of my book Wuthering Depths in Johnstown: By the Numbers.  This weekend coming up I will be selling my book at Rosie's Bookapalooza this weekend at the Community Arts Center of Cambria County.  It will run from Friday Oct. 22 from 10am-5pm to Sat, Oct 23 and Sun, Oct 24 from 10am-3pm.  Five other local authors will be there.

**Related Posts**

My Presentation at the Writers Association of Northern Appalachia and the Upcoming Festival of Books in the Alleghenies

Order my Book "Wuthering Depths in Johnstown: By the Numbers"

My interview on Laurel Highlands Now, Trump Visits to Johnstown, and Changes in COVID-19 cases

My Presentation at the Writers Association of Northern Appalachia and the Upcoming Festival of Books in the Alleghenies

 

Hi all, I know that I have been away. I had my presentation at the virtual Writers Association of Northern Appalachia last Saturday.  You can see it above.  Also, this Saturday, Sept.18, I will be at the Festival of Books in the Alleghenies in Ebensburg, PA with 40 other local authors from many genres.  There will be something for everyone.  Come on down!!

**Related Posts** 

Press Release for Festival of Books in the Alleghenies

Order my Book "Wuthering Depths in Johnstown: By the Numbers"

Press Release for Festival of Books in the Alleghenies

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

 

Local Author Selected For Regional Festival

(Ebensburg, PA) This year, Ebensburg will be host to The Festival of Books in the Alleghenies which will be held on Saturday, September 18, 2021 from 9AM until 4PM in Historic Ebensburg. This 4th annual regional festival is free to attend and will feature about 50 authors, local music, a children's area, writing workshops and storytellers. Proceeds from the festival will benefit county literacy initiatives. The Festival is a fund under the Community Foundation of the Alleghenies.

Local author, Paul Ricci, has been selected to be one of the authors at this year’s event. Ricci is a statistician who was born and lives in Johnstown, PA. He tracks coronavirus numbers for Cambria County, loves bicycling, and teaches at Pennsylvania Highlands Community College. He also blogs on statistics and a wide variety of issues at CSI without Dead Bodies (https://www.csiwithoutdeadbodies.com/). The title is a pun on the TV Show CSI.

 

For more information visit the event webpage at https://festivalofbooks.org/

 

###

Hope to see you all on Sept. 18

I Will Be Presenting my Book at Classic Elements and the Writers Association of Northern Appalachia Conference

I will be presenting my book Wuthering Depths in Johnstown: By the Numbers at the annual writers conference of the Writers Association of Northern Appalachia. It will be in Wheeling, WV on September 10-12 at Oglebay Park.

I will also be presenting my book at Classic Elements in Johnstown on July 10th at 1PM.  It's on Main St. in downtown Johnstown.  I'm looking forward to meeting you all at both events.

**Related Posts**

"Wuthering Depths in Johnstown: By the Numbers" Is Now Out and the PPF Medicaid March.

My interview on Laurel Highlands Now, Trump Visits to Johnstown, and Changes in COVID-19 cases.

Vote for the Best Nonfiction Book of All Time

An Online discussion of Coronavirus Numbers in Cambria County

On Tuesday, January 19, In This Together: Cambria County had a beautiful candle light vigil on the river wall by the stone bridge in Johnstown.  There was one candle for each of the 340 people who died from the corona virus in Cambria County since the pandemic began as of that day.  There have been 14 deaths in the county since then as of this writing.

In This Together: Cambria was organized as a response to the skyrocketing case and death rate in the county.  They have partnered with The Tribune-Democrat, the 1889 Foundation, Conemaugh Health System, and others.  They have held online events to inform the public on COVID-19 and vaccines and a spiritual prayer service for the holidays.

The next online event that In This Together will be having will be this coming Tuesday, January 26 at 7PM.  It is titled COVID Questions: By the Numbers.  I will be presenting the data that I have collected from Johns-Hopkins online dashboard, from the Pennsylvania Department of Health, and from other sources.  Chip Minemyer, editor of the Tribune Democrat, will be Dr. Jill Henning, PhD will present on the biology of the Coronavirus.  Tulsi Shrivastava will include will be stories of victims of the pandemic to show the human side of the pandemic in the county.  The event will be livestreamed on Zoom at https://pitt.zoom.us/j/94911790258 and at the In This Together Facebook page.  You will be able to ask questions of the other panelists and I.  The taped event will be available on YouTube.  Up coming events will be:

• February 9: Mental Health
• February 23: Specialists Forum
• March 9: Local Leaders
• March 23: Economic Impact
• April 6: Education

**Related Posts**

Testing Rates are Higher in Johnstown but There Are More Cases of COVID-19 in the Rest of Cambria County

A Look at Positive COVID-19 Testing Rates in Cambria, PA, and the US

A Look at Zip Code COVID-19 Testing Rates In Johnstown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania and the U.S.

"Wuthering Depths in Johnstown: By the Numbers" Is Now Out and the PPF Medicaid March.

My book is now out in local bookstores and can be ordered at Made in Somerset County, PA.  It is now available to purchase at Classic Elements on Main Street, the Bottle Works in Cambria City, the Chameleon Bookstore next to Central Park in Johnstown, AT Merchant in the Galleria Mall, the Book Nook in Indiana, PA, and IUP's bookstore.  I am working on getting it into more book stores.  The book tells the story of Johnstown with numbers. It looks at trends in population, politics, health, education, social media, and in non-profits.

The book will not be available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble for order.  Jeff Bezos has enough money.  This blog already shows Amazon Books through their affiliate program. 

In addition to my work on the book, the group Put People First will have its annual Medicaid March in Downtown Johnstown on September 29.  The flyer is listed below.  Next week will be the tenth anniversary post for this blog.

**Related Posts**

Johnstown (PA) Books

Vote for the Best Nonfiction Book of All Time

Amazon, The Washington Post, and New Media

My Book is at the Printing Press

 

After a year and a half of writing my book, Wuthering Depths in Johnstown: By the Numbers, has now gone to press and a release date will be set soon.  The book is being self published through the Somerset Daily American (Jeff Bezos has enough money).  Details to come.

It is a profile of the city of Johnstown as told by the numbers that are publicly available.  Some of it began with posts from this blog that relate to the city of Johnstown (some of which are in the related posts below).  The rest of it came from my sources such as the census bureau and other government sources and from other research projects.  Its release should come close to the tenth anniversary of this blog which is next month.  Further details to come.

Thanks to Eric Luden for the cover and back cover art, to The Johnstown Area Heritage Association, and to Nicholas Brisini, Michael Giazzoni, Jessica Maniccia Smith, and Lloyd Stires for their advice on editing.

 **Related Posts**

Johnstown (PA) Books

Johnstown, PA has Been Crawling with Documentary Filmmakers

Hillary Clinton Won Johnstown, PA -- By 83 Votes

Why do African Americans live to be 64.8 years in Cambria County?

Top Ten Posts of 2019

As 2019 comes to a close I thought I would imitate other media news outlets and look at the top 10 posts on this site in terms of the number of page views.  The majority of the posts came in the early part of this year and in the later part.  Posts made before 2019 are included in this list.

1. Differences between Johnstown, Westmont, and Richland School Districts in Special Education

This post was on changes in enrollment and in those needing special education services in the Greater Johnstown, Westmont, and Richland School Districts.  It was posted in November.  Enrollment has decreased in all three districts while African-American enrollment has increased in Johnstown.

2. Vote for the Best Nonfiction Books of All Time

This post was made in November 2018 to introduce the poll for the greatest nonfiction book of all time.  So far the Origin of Species is leading.

3. A Documentary on African Americans in Johnstown

This post from May of this year presents a documentary on the migratin of African Americans to Johnstown.

4. Con Man Carnicella

This post from October looks at the propaganda campaign against the local candidate for Cambria County Commissioner, Jerry Carnicella.  He lost.

5.  The Civil War in a Larger International Historical Context

This post is from May 2011 the oldest post on this list.  It talks about how the conflict in the US is reflected in similar conflicts in Italy, Germany and Japan.

6.  A look at the Number of PA Abuser Priests Identified by the Grand Jury

I took a look at the numbers of abuser priests identified by Pennsylvania grand juries and adjusting them for the size of the populations that they serve in each of their respective Dioceses.  Cambria County had by far the most adjusting for population.

7.  Holiday Poverty Estimates from the Census Bureau: Johnstown SD Ranks 84th Nationally

 

This post from a few weeks ago showed how endemic the problem of poverty has become in the Greater Johnstown School District (GJSD) compared to the neighboring districts of Westmont, Richland, and Ferndale.  Nationally it ranks 84th out of 13,207 school districts.

8.  The 1st Anniversary of My Online Nonfiction Poll

This post is a follow up to the second ranked post on this list.  It is from November and gives the results up to Nov 24 of this year.

9.  Does playing in the NFL help a head coach? Not in the Playoffs

This is the first post of 2019.  It compared elite coaches in the NFL who played in the NFL (ie. Chuck Noll, Don Shula, and Tom Landry) to ones who did not (Vince Lombardi, Bill Belichick, and Jimmy Johnson).  It found that they were equal in the regular season but the one who did not play had better records in the playoffs and won more championships.

10.  Holiday Poverty Estimates for Johnstown and Cambria County

This is the next to last post of the year.  It was a follow up post to the seventh most popular post on this list.  It looked at trends in the city, county, state, and US in poverty and median income.  The gap between the county and the city and the state and the US is growing.





For this list, two of the posts were made before 2019 and six of them were on the City of Johnstown and the surrounding area.  Of the eight posts made this year, three were made in the first half of the year.  This blog almost completely covers the 2010s.  In September I will have the tenth anniversary post looking at it's all time most popular posts.

**Related Posts**

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CSI senza cadaveri

I Figli della Madre Terra (The Children of Mother Earth)

Buon Natale a tutti.  My cousin from Italy, Lorenzo Serpente (pictured below in the Clayfox  and Spider man shirt) has written a book called I Figli della Madre Terra or The Children of Mother Earth.  It is a science fiction/fantasy/coming of age story of a boy growing up in a prehistoric tribe.  In January there will be an English version of the story available on Amazon.  I have met several authors who have published books.  A few are listed below with links to their amazon pages.

Lorenzo ora (Lorenzo Now)

Merry Christmas to all.  Il Mio cugino d'Italia, Lorenzo Serpente (nella camicia "Clayfox" sotto) ha scritto un Libro I Figli della Madre Terra) una storia di un ragazzo alla prima della storia in un tribu`.  Si puo` comprare il Libro al Amazon.  Conosco molti auroti chi fanno libri.  Tre di quelle altri autori sono sotto in questo posto con un link al Amazon.

Lorenzo quando ho incontrato lui

**Related Posts**

Real Genealogy

Italian Americans and Todays Immigrants

The Civil War in a Larger International Historical Context 

CSI senza cadaveri

Christmas Update

The past few weeks have been rough.  I battled the flu, worked.  I have been writing for other online publications.  I have two posts on The Hill Talk, one is on new hate crime data from FBI while the other is on new data from the Census Bureau on poverty in every county in the US.  I also published on the website datadrivenjournalism.net  on how logistic regression can be used by data journalists to investigate relationships between a categorical outcome and more than one predictor variables.

I should have more time to elaborate on these posts later this holiday.  I'll leave you with this video I took at the Midnight Mass at the Cathedral in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2015.

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Season's Shootings

The Month of December is Now Upon Us

Clairton HS vs. Bishop Guilfoyle HS: A Contrast in Poverty

Seven Years of CSIwoDB

Usually for my anniversary posts I look at the web traffic statistics for the site.  This year I thought I would take stock of where the blog is and where it will go.

Seven years ago I began the blog by conducting data driven journalism before I had even heard of the term.  This year I have been outsourcing my writing skills to the websites Data Driven Journalism, Kolabtree, and The Hill Talk.  These opportunities are nice.  However it takes a long time to put together data driven posts.  Opinion pieces like this one are a lot less time consuming to write.  

This blog was created to fulfill three purposes.  

• To educate people on how statistics can help people to see patterns that aren't easy to see with the naked eye.
• To keep my statistical skills sharp.
• To showcase my skills when I am not working.

After seven years I have had some success on these fronts.  My all time most read post was linked to on the BBC webpage for the program The Joy of Stats and still gets views on the web.  I already spoke on the outside columns that I am making.  There is more and more competition for eyeballs on the web however but at the same time there are more and more eyeballs too.  Sometimes it seems like I'm a voice crying out in the wilderness but it's still necessary to cry out.

On the second point I feel that it has kept my skills sharp for the skills I learned in school. There have been methods that have come out since then that I have not learned such as natural language processing.  Regardless of the new methods that come out it is still important to stress the basics.

I have had more work this year (though most of it unpaid) and I have less time to post so I will have less time to post here at least until my city council campaign ends on November 7. II did get the above note placed under my windshield wiper recently that I had to share with you all.

**Related Posts**

CSI senza cadaveri

The 5th Anniversary of CSI wo DB: Top 25 All Time Posts

Organizing a chapter of Healthcare 4 All PA for Cambria and Surrounding Counties

One way of keeping the Momentum from the primary going is to advocate for the causes that we care about. One of our Single payer healthcare which covers everyone while controlling costs and is used in almost every industrialized country except our own.

Healthcare 4 All PA is an organization advocating for a Single Payer here in Pennsylvania. On Tuesday, May 24 at 7pm there will be an organizing meeting at the PRESS Bistro where we will learn about the organization and brainstorm about activities. Anyone in the area is welcome.  For more information on the state organization see http://www.healthcare4allpa.org/ 

**Related Posts**

WIUP FM Podcast on Single Payer Heathcare (Cross Post with HC4AllPA)

Personal and Medical Bankruptcies: A Follow Up 

Let’s Consider the Health Care Marketplace….Arno Vosk M.D.

Bankruptcy Rates as an Indication of the Rate of Underinsured

Will Ferrell and Larry the Cable Guy’s take on the Affordable Care Act and Single Payer