Rhode Island's Ryan Westmoreland # 32 on ESPN's Keith Law's Top 100 Prospects List

Via Keith Law of ESPN:

Westmoreland was one of the top prep players available in the 2008 Rule 4 draft, but was widely considered unsignable due to his strong commitment to Vanderbilt. (Imagine how much more stacked Vanderbilt's 2011 draft class -- which still features potential first-rounders Sonny Gray, Jack Armstrong and Jason Esposito -- would be with Westmoreland in it.) The Red Sox signed Westmoreland for $2 million, but he had hurt the labrum in his throwing shoulder and ended up having offseason surgery between 2008 and 2009, limiting him to DH duty for most of last summer. He was still recovering from the original injury, playing left field rather than center when he picked up a glove again, only to break his collarbone slamming into the outfield wall while catching a fly ball, further holding back his development. Westmoreland is a top-10 talent with his combination of athleticism, power potential and feel for hitting, and he showed very advanced plate discipline in his limited season in Lowell last year while going a remarkable 19-for-19 in stolen base attempts. The combination of catastrophic injuries does raise the specter of Chris Snelling Disease, in which a prospect is so prone to injury that he can't develop properly as a hitter. But with a full season in 2010, Westmoreland could largely put those concerns to rest.

Statik Selektah 100 Proof Album Release Party January 31st at Jerky's in Providence

Jon Hope along with others will be performing at Jerky's in Providence on January 31st for Statik Selektah's 100 Proof album release party.

Keep It Real - Cause feat Jon Hope

New Joint featuring Jon Hope off of Cause's album, I Am Us.

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Addicted To Rhythm - Statik Selektah feat Jon Hope & Novel

Download: Addicted To Rhythm - Statik Selektah feat Jon Hope & Novel

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Better - Jon Hope feat Taktix (Video)

Audio: Better - Jon Hope feat Taktix

Prov City - Mista Mista (Video)

Nicely done video by Mista Mista showing some nice shots of the city. Just wish it was a longer vid.

Real Talk Pt. 2 - Jon Hope

New Joint from Prov City's on Jon Hope.

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Heartbeat - Mista Mista (Video)

Mista Mista - Heartbeat (prod. by LJC) Directed by Josue 'SWAY' Mendez from MISTA MISTA on Vimeo.

Adjust My Tie (Remix) - Mista Mista feat Jon Hope

New Joint from the homies Mista Mista & Jon Hope.

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Goodwill Hunting (Rza 94) - Theo Martins

New Joint from Theo.

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Forbes Ranks Providence in Top 5 of America's Most Stressful Cities

More good news for my home city of Providence. Not only are we the hardest city to get by in, but Forbes.com has also ranked us in the Top 5 of America's Most Stressful Cities, ahead of even Detroit. Pretty sad when I saw this article that I just KNEW Providence would be pretty high up on the list.

Might explain why I listen to so much M.O.P. to release my stress, especially this joint....

4. Providence, R.I.

Providence, tied for fourth place with Cleveland, Ohio, ranks as the fifth worst city for employment, with the unemployment rate up to 12.1% in June. It ranks tenth for cost of living and thirteenth for population density at 975 people per square mile.

Here's the full story:

Sinking property values, high unemployment and prices, and poor environments add to the pressure felt by residents in these metros.

Few enjoy their commute. Just ask Stephen Dinwiddie, M.D., a psychiatrist at the University of Chicago.

"I think anybody who, like I do, commutes on the Kennedy on a daily basis knows exactly what stress is," he says, of his daily home-to-work commute on Chicago's expressway that extends from the Chicago Loop to O'Hare International Airport. "It takes anywhere from 30 minutes to several centuries--at least subjectively."

But more pressing factors make Chicago for the second year in a row the country's most stressful city. Crowding, poor air quality, a high 11% unemployment rate and free-falling home values have created a cocktail of constant worry affecting many in the Windy City.

Los Angeles, Calif., ranks second, followed by New York, N.Y., Cleveland, Ohio, and Providence, R.I.

Behind the Numbers

To find the country's most stressful cities, we examined quality of life factors in the country's 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas, or metros--geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics. We looked at June 2009 unemployment figures provided by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics and cost of living figures from the Council for Community and Economic Research. We examined median home-price drops from Q1 2008 to Q1 2009 that were provided by the National Association of Realtors. Population density based on 2008 data from the U.S. Census Bureau and ESRI also factored. Last, we examined the number of sunny and partly sunny days per year, based on 2007 data from the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, as well as air-quality figures, based on 2007 data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The economic climate is clearly kicking up stress levels. In March, the National Sleep Foundation reported that more than a quarter of 1,000 survey participants were sleeping less because of the economy.

The recession has also forced Americans to skimp on health care. In a February telephone poll of 1,200 adults conducted by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, 53% of respondents said they cut back on health care costs by avoiding doctor's visits, skipping dental checkups and not filling prescriptions, among other strategies.

Year-over-year housing-price drops may also be behind Americans' anxiety.

"A forty-three percent drop is something that could easily be classified as a housing-market cataclysm," says Andres Carbacho-Burgos, economist at Moody's Economy.com, of the Q1 2008 to Q1 2009 median home-price plunge in San Francisco. That's compared with the national median home-price dip of 14.7% during that same time. "Over that long a period of time a drop that significant for San Francisco, or for the Bay Area as a whole, indicates just that the economy has turned sour and that credit is very, very tight and has been over the past year."

What's more, the drastic decline is not representative of the housing market as a whole--rather of the composition of homes being sold, says Walter Molony, spokesman for the National Association of Realtors. Almost 50% of homes sold nationwide in the first quarter of 2009 were distressed homes. One-third of those were short sales, and two-thirds were foreclosures, Molony says.

Though there are signs of a bottoming in some markets, falling home prices can immediately impact residents in two ways: first by affecting employment in the housing-related or real estate fields, and second by reducing consumer spending in metro areas with relatively large home-equity declines. Consumer spending in July was flat, erasing hopes of a kick-started economy.

And few are going to start spending when jobs are scarce. Perhaps no one knows that better than residents of Detroit. There, unemployment is 17.1%, thanks to the collapse in the auto industry. Employee cutbacks in General Motors plants and other makers of car parts led to the drastic 14.8% unemployment rate increase from May to June 2009, says Steve Cochrane of Moody's Economy.com.

Other cities have different reasons for stress: Pittsburgh comes in second for the least amount of sunny days, and ninth for low air quality. While for years we’ve been told to avoid certain skin cancers by staying out of the sun, new research showed a link between low vitamin D levels and increased propensity to the common cold. It’s also believed that vitamin D receptors in cells and tissue may help regulate the immune system. Irritants in the atmosphere can cause increased incidences of asthma, chest tightness or cough.

But there are ways to stay sane in cities while the state of the economy stays stressful. Dinwiddie says it's important to identify what's causing stress to be able to tackle it, and to find a good balance between work and home. He also points out that one of the good things about big cities is that they offer a variety of things that can rapidly change an individual's environment. "It's easy, for example, to go to the beach or catch a Cubs game," he says. "Although I suppose some people wouldn't consider that to relieve stress."

Jay-Z To Perform In Providence At Dunkin' Donuts Center on October 24

Looks like Jay-Z's tour will be coming to Providence...I swear the last time he was here was 1998 with Red & Meth, DMX, Mya and some other people...

When: Saturday, October 24, 2009 8:00 PM

Doors: 7:00 PM

Where: Dunkin’ Donuts Center Providence, RI

Opening Acts: N.E.R.D., Wale, J. Cole