Famous Writers Arrested: Nelson Algren (with bonus Frank Sinatra!)

Here we'll occasionally dive into mugshots of the criminally-inclined writers who found themselves in the big house. Crime doesn't pay, although literature does sometimes.

Today:  Nelson Algren

Someone had a tough night.

The name might not be as famous as Ernest Hemingway or Virginia Woolf, but Nelson Algren's literary star burned brightly for a while. His most famous work was his 1949 novel The Man with the Golden Arm, about a man spiraling into morphine addiction, which won the 1950 National Book Award and was later made into a 1955 movie starring Frank Sinatra.

If the image of Frank Sinatra as a junkie is throwing you off, so might the idea of a writer getting caught up with the police. But Nelson Algren went to the slammer...twice. Because if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

The first dalliance with crime occurred when Algren was a wannabe drifter after college in the 1930s. Struggling for a career as a writer, he moved to Texas, where he held a series of odd jobs, including pumping gas and a salesman. From there, the facts of the story are vague, but in either 1933 or '34, Algren stole a typewriter and was promptly arrested. Listen, those National Book Awards aren't going to just write themselves.

Being Texas in the 1930s, Algren either spent four months behind bars awaiting trial or was sentenced to five months in jail. No one seemingly quite knows the facts, but, regardless, Texas told Algren never to come back.

In 1967, Algren went to the cooler again. This time it was for marijuana possession. Shockingly, people in the late 1960s smoked a bit of the devil's lettuce. Ever the criminal mastermind, Algren somehow was caught. This time, charges were dropped quickly and all we have left of the incident is Algren's mugshot, which channels all the mystique of someone outside of a 7-11 convenience store at 3am.

Oh, by the way, while we're on the topic. Frank Sinatra? He was once arrested, too. His crime? Seduction.

That's the face of seduction, baby!

Yes, that's actually the crime, which was once illegal. In 1938, a 23-year old Frank Sinatra was arrested in Bergen County, NJ, for seduction of a single woman. The 1930s were a heady time of hedonism, and Old Blue Eyes apparently wooed someone he shouldn't have. The crime of seduction involved sexual intercourse with a single woman with the promise of marriage and then reneging on the deal.

Sinatra was quickly released after police determined the woman was actually married. Small mistake! Yet, that led to Sinatra being arrested again, this time after the first charges were revised and he was charged with adultery. No one ever said New Jersey made sense.

Like Algren, charges were eventually dropped against Sinatra.

Thus, this ends the lamest crime log you'll ever read.

Low-income students told by Princeton University to attend $52,000-a-year prep school.

Listen up, poor kids: This is as close as you'll get to Princeton probably.

Always having their fingers on the pulse of how the other half lives, Princeton University counselors have advised students--including those of low-income and financially strapped backgrounds--to attend Lawrenceville Prep, The Peddie School of New Jersey, and other prep schools to learn the "academic rigors" of the Ivy League staple before applying again (with no guarantee of admittance!). The guess is that Princeton assumes these students can also learn the economic rigors of being homeless soon, too.

Lawrenceville charges a $52,000-a-year tuition, all with little financial aid. BUT Lawrenceville boasts a nine hole golf course and a $380 million endowment, so that seems fair.

Princeton spokesperson Daniel Day told The Tab, "We recognize that some students might benefit from a post-graduate year of study after their high school graduation to help them strengthen their academic foundation." And that foundation of knowledge is seemingly built on wondering how you'll feed yourself while broke.

"Ultimately it is up to the student whether or not to complete a post-graduate year at any school," he added.

Ultimately the average and lower income family recognize that some schools, like Princeton, might benefit from learning that not everyone lives in a bubble of Xanadu-like wealth.

Two hundred movie theaters showed '1984' last week as a protest to the government.

According to the website United State of Cinema, two hundred art house cinemas showed the dystopian movie 1984 last week, which is based on George Orwell's novel of the same name.

Over 184 cities and 44 states had a showing, while locations outside the country--five in Canada, and one each in England, Sweden, Holland, New Zealand, and Croatia--also joined in.

The collected group of theaters decided the week of April 4th was timely, as the protagonist in the book and movie begins his diary on that day.

The theaters' goal?


"The endeavor encourages theaters to take a stand for our most basic values: freedom of speech, respect for our fellow human beings, and the simple truth that there are no such things as 'alternative facts.'"


Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming--all states with their fingers on the pulse of the excitement--were the six states that didn't have a single cinema in their entire state show the film. By comparison, California had 28 locations. Even Alaska and Alabama had a single location feature the film.

Delaware has a history of never involving itself in anything. It's like the agoraphobic of American states, the geographic and political equivalent of a pasty man with no calf muscle definition who enjoys white rice, low sodium saltines, and the smooth, smooth taste of filtered water.

What I'm trying to say is that it's a bad sign when even Alabama outdoes you.

New Jersey library gets back a book that was 50 years overdue.

The Phillipsburg Free Public Library in Phillipsburg, N.J. loaned out the Jules Verne book Dropped from the Clouds sometime in late December 1966, with a due date of January 5, 1967.

Apparently, Jules Verne was a hotter read than you thought, because it was only returned anonymously to the library last week, after being overdue more than fifty years.

The library charges a late fee of 10 cents a day. The multiple decades late fee results in a total of $1,800, which the library says they'll cap at $3 if the person who dropped off the book comes forward with their story.

Library director Deb Messling told Lehigh Valley Live that the book was in rough shape, though. "It looks like someone loved it for a long time," she said. "Hopefully it did some good out in the world."

If you're scratching your head as to how you've never heard of this book, you're not alone. Apparently 99.9% of the American population hasn't either, as it has only one review on Amazon.

It costs $7.95 on Amazon, though. But I hear you can borrow it from The Phillipsburg Free Public Library for fifty years and only pay $3.

Savings, people.

Everything old is new again: George Orwell and John Steinbeck are hot commodities.

In the past few weeks, George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 has been steadily climbing the bestseller lists, most notably at Amazon, where as of January 26, 2016, it's the bestselling book overall. Not James Patterson, Jodi Piccoult, Stephen King, an Oprah book club selection, Harry Potter novella, or a Twilight spinoff.

No.

George Orwell.

Largely, this is due to a new political climate that is--how shall we say this in a nuanced fashion?--surreal compared to the previous 240-years of American history.

As The Atlantic points out, though, Orwell isn't the only one finding a revival. Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here has risen to #26 on Amazon, while John Steinbeck's 1961 tome The Winter of Our Discontent has seen an abnormal uptick as well.

Then there's political theorist Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, which was published in 1951. While not usually nearly as well known as 1984 or The Winter of Our Discontent, Arendt's book examines the rise of fascist governments in Europe over the previous two centuries. Clearly, if there's anything Americans love doing, it's kicking back with a expansive examinations of political philosophies.

In the end, the misery of the past two years of political campaigning--the yelling, the finger-pointing, the glad-handing, the falsehoods--has had one bright spot: Americans are reading, and they're rediscovering what was once forgotten--in many ways.

Locals want Princeton University to pony up more of its fair share.

Don't turn the last shuttle ride into this, folks.

"They're not being a benefactor -- they're being like the billionaire class," says 72-year old Princeton, NJ, resident Jim Firestone to Bloomberg Media about his famous Ivy League neighbor. "They want to impress you with a gift, and you say, 'Ooh, boy, that sounds big!' In reality, why is Princeton being so parsimonious?"

Emotions are starting to run hot in New Jersey's Ivy League enclave as dozens of local citizens have joined a lawsuit to see Princeton University pay millions more in taxes than it already does. Currently the school pays roughly $8 million in taxes, a huge discount it earns through exemptions. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit believe the school should be hit at a higher rate, pushing the tax bill closer to a reasonable $40 million. Local home owners have seen property tax bills double in just the past five years, but seeing Princeton pay more could force those same bills lower by a third.

The university claims it offers local residents freebies--the types of gifts Firestone references. Those freebies include free admission to athletic events and concerts, free lectures, and even a shuttle bus to a nearby Trader Joe's. If the allure of organic dried mango and overpriced plantain chips can't woo the masses any longer, the battle is truly lost for Princeton.

Princeton claims it also gives an extra $3 million per year to the town as well, purely as a bonus to cover the cost of public works and emergency services. This sounds quite charitable until you take into account Princeton is sitting on an endowment of $22.7 billion, or that the school earned $527 million through licensing income between 2005-2012 over a patent it owns for a cancer drug.

"I don't mind biting the hand that feeds me," Janet Martin, a retired university professor, told Bloomberg.

Even if that hand supplies access to Trader Joe's, Janet? Even the loss of the Joe?



In case you're wondering, a search of Google Maps reminds us that Trader Joe's is a six minute car ride away from Princeton University. The school is going to cripple locals with such strong arm tactics!!

Hawaii needs to hire 1,600 teachers and is recruiting on the mainland for them.

Good news for SPAM fans and Don Ho enthusiasts: Hawaii needs to hire 1,600 teachers for the upcoming school year and has begun recruiting on the mainland United States for such personnel

Why? Because no one wants to teach in Hawaii.

It's true! Being a state made up of islands in the middle of an ocean limits the potential recruitment of future teachers just from a geographical sense, and paying teachers below the median national salary for the position doesn't much help matters. As a result, Hawaii often goes to the mainland United States to recruit more teachers every year.

Except that mainland recruitment often fails as well because of Hawaii's extremely high cost-of-living doesn't coincide well with being an underpaid teacher. Added into the mix of problems is that most recruits find themselves assigned to rural schools, which make up 16% of all schools on the islands.

So far Hawaii's recruiting efforts have focused on cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, and, uh, Newark. One can only assume people might be so desperate to leave Newark they'll take anything available.

Corey Rosenlee, president of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, tells Hawaii News Now it's never getting better. "[Mainland recruits] say, 'I can't live here' and they leave and we have to go back and recruit, and this cycle just continually happens."

And you thought SPAM was an acquired taste. Turns out the whole state of Hawaii is.

Morbidly obese man running for president doesn't care what kids at school eat.

Potential bribe money.

Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, current candidate running for president and roughly 350lb man, answered a question from an 11-year old boy who complained he didn't like his new school lunches ever since First Lady Michelle Obama's healthy school lunch initiative was implemented. Christie rocked elementary school cafeterias with the news today that he doesn't care what children eat at school.

Pandering to the young person vote!

"I don’t care what you’re eating for lunch every day. I really don’t," Christie said, just before slipping the kid a triple-stacked bacon cheeseburger and two packages of Ho Hos (potentially).

And with that shocking revelation, every fourth grader's vote was bought.

And then there were two: Ohio finally appoints a state poet laureate.

From the better late than never file:

Amit Majmudar has been named Ohio's first-ever state poet laureate. This leaves only two states to never have established the position in their respective histories--New Mexico and Massachusetts. (Although New Jersey and Pennsylvania abolished the position in their states during the Great Poetry Purge of 2003*. But at least they once had the position.)

No one really expects much out of New Mexico, save for some lovely vistas and turquoise jewelry. Massachusetts though? Roughly 765,000 colleges and universities crammed together, never mind countless famous writers, and not a single poet laureate to be found?

Sounds like someone's just being a contrarian.



*For reasons unknown, both states became irked by the notion of a state poet laureate in 2003. Because who needs culture, really?

CBSNews: The ten best college towns to live in...includes a place in Nebraska?

These sort of list come around every few weeks, always with completely different outcomes. Each media outlet uses different metrics, weighs those metrics in varying proportions, and typically offers some random statistic to completely skew the results toward something entirely randomized.

Which brings us to CBSNews, which decided to create their own "scientific" analysis of the best college towns today. The results (with college in parentheses):

1.)  Princeton, New Jersey  (Princeton University)
2.)  Kearney, Nebraska  (University of Nebraska--Kearney)
3.)  Boulder, Colorado  (University of Colorado--Boulder)
4.)  Bozeman, Montana  (University of Montana)
5.)  Cedar Falls, Iowa  (University of Northern Iowa)
6.)  Cambridge, Massachusetts  (Harvard, MIT, Cambridge College, Lesley University)
7.)  Ann Arbor, Michigan  (University of Michigan)
8.)  Grand Forks, North Dakota  (University of North Dakota)
9.)  Ames, Iowa  (Iowa State University)
10.)  Madison, Wisconsin  (University of Wisconsin)

Don't rub your eyes. You're seeing that correctly. Something called "Kearney, Nebraska" is considered the second best college town in America. Nothing Nebraska-related is ever good news. Even Bruce Springsteen hit a low point in his career in 1982 by naming one of his albums Nebraska. Do you know how Wikipedia describes that album?

"The songs on Nebraska both deal with ordinary, blue collar characters who face a challenge or a turning point in their lives, but also outsiders, criminals and mass murderers, who have little hope for the future - or no future at all, as in the title track, where the main character is sentenced to death in the electric chair."




Mass murderers and the death penalty! Sounds like a real toe-tapper, get down with your bad self kind of album. Even the album is in a bleak black and white. But you know why it's so depressing? Because it's Nebraska, that's why.

And then there was that murky movie a few years ago filmed in black and white as well, called--you guessed it--Nebraska. You know why it was filmed in black and white? Because seeing Nebraska in color is too much of an offense to the eyes of the rest of America.

The movie was nominated for six Academy Awards. You know how many it won? Zero. Do you know why? Because it's...

Oh, but, hey. Let's all move there.

Everything old is new again: Possibly the oldest draft of the King James Bible discovered.

The most widely read book in English literature history now has new information as to how it came to be.

Jeffrey Alan Miller, an assistant professor of English at Montclair State University in New Jersey, was in England at the University of Cambridge looking for an unknown letter of a man named Samuel Ward. Ward was known to have worked as part of a collection of men commissioned by King James that translated the Old and New Testaments into a definitive English-language bible for the Church of England--but, alas, Miller just wanted to find a letter.

Instead, while combing through the archives, Miller stumbled upon a small book belonging to Ward, wrapped up and cataloged nearly 30-years ago as "verse-by-verse biblical commentary" with "Greek word studies, and some Hebrew notes." When Miller dove into the book he realized it wasn't just any old collection of biblical notes--but an early draft of portions of the King James Bible, which was published in 1611.

Ward's draft must have been worked on between the years of 1604, when King James commissioned the work, and 1608, when drafts were required to be submitted to a committee for review. That means Ward's small, humble little book is the earliest known document of the King James Bible ever to be found.

"There was a kind of thunderstruck, leap-out-of-bathtub moment," Miller told the New York Times. "But then comes the more laborious process of making sure you are 100 percent correct."

In all likelihood, Miller is correct, say his fellow scholars, and will be verified in the coming months.

And as for the unknown letter of Ward's that Miller was looking for?

He found that, too.

Mother wants texts banned from high school, while mildly confused about plots.

"My feeling is once something is that graphic, is there not another book? Cal is not Hamlet. There are other books about oppression."

That would be Siobhan Fallon Hogan speaking, a mother of a senior at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional School District in New Jersey--and she's none too pleased about the books and plays her nearly-adult son has to read for school.

Hogan has started a petition, garnering 250 signatures, and has taken her case to the school board to have two specific texts removed from required reading lists: the aforementioned Cal, and the play Death and the Maiden. Both texts are award winners, both are read widely in high schools across the country, and both usually aren't banned.

Cal does involve some violence, and includes a sex scene. Death and the Maiden has a back story about rape and similarly involves some violence. Both are seemingly too much for Hogan or her son's tender sensibilities to handle.

But Hogan apparently hasn't read much of Shakespeare's dramas, and especially not Hamlet, if she thinks it's a feel-good story. Why? Let's count up the deaths in Hamlet--and how they died--shall we?

• Hamlet is stabbed to death by a rapier coated in poison by Laertes!
• Laertes is stabbed to death by a rapier coated in poison by Hamlet! (What timing!)
• Gertrude is accidentally poisoned by Claudius!
• Claudius is poisoned in a couple ways by Hamlet!
• Opehlia decides to commit suicide by drowning!
• Hamlet's dad is poisoned through his ear!
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are both killed by pirates!
• And I don't know why I'm using so many exclamation points, but it seems appropriate!!

This doesn't even include Horatio, who was all set to off himself as well, but Hamlet talks him out of suicide, saying that someone needs to be left to tell the story of what happened. As if that isn't the most obvious thing Shakespeare ever wrote.

No decision has come down yet from the school board as to whether the two texts will be removed from the required reading list.

One thing is for certain though. Hogan was right. Cal is no Hamlet. Cal is a lot less violent and a lot more gentle to read.

Poets Reading Poetry: William Carlos Williams

Poetry is meant to be read aloud, but rarely is. As Oscar Wilde once said, "A poet can survive everything but a misprint."

So, cutting out the middle man, here is where we'll post famous poets reading their own poetry--the words off the page and in your ears, as they intended. And hopefully nothing is lost in the process.

Published in 1934, "This Is Just To Say" is a staple poem in both high schools and colleges, great for those with short attention spans, and one of William Carlos Williams' most famous works. You can hold your breath longer than it takes to read the poem.

Twenty-one collections of Williams' poetry were released during his lifetime and shortly after his death (or twenty-five collections, depending on how you want to count the books of his most famous titled work Paterson), all of which were created while he practiced medicine full-time. Working in general medicine and pediatrics, Williams became chief of pediatrics at Passaic General Hospital in Passaic, New Jersey in 1924 until his death in 1963, despite a series of heart attacks and strokes the final fifteen years of his life.

Apparently Williams was that rare individual with a brain suited both toward the sciences and the arts, as "This Is Just To Say" proves. In twenty-eight words, the poem is a classic example of modernism found poetry (poems that read like a note, just reconstructed into stanzas), and takes Williams a whopping seventeen seconds to read here.

His voice sounds nebbish and slightly nasally, reciting the stanzas seamlessly, with little pause--more like a husband annoyingly reading a note left by his wife on the kitchen table.


This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Ohio apparently has never had a state poet laureate.

Poet laureate is the kind of position every politician loves to support. It's right up there with naming an official state doughnut or declaring corn muffins the official state muffin. (Massachusetts is actually behind the corn muffin stance.) It makes the politician look like a lover of the arts, a lover of literacy, a lover of old-timey values, and they get to look like they're committed to a cause. In this case, committed to the cause of poetry.

Which brings us to Ohio. The state senate unanimously passed a resolution to create the position of state poet laureate, a position that 44 other states have long gotten around to naming. For a state that produced such famed poets as Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, it appears an oversight made right.

Under the resolution passed, the governor will select someone to the position from a list of recommendations. Once chosen, the poet laureate will remain in office for four years and be required to hold four public readings. (It's a very intense work load.)

In case you're wondering, the five remaining states without a poet laureate are not some podunk like North Dakota or Nebraska. They are Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania--the last two of whom which once had poet laureates, and then later abolished the position.

Which is why we can safely announce New Jersey and Pennsylvania hate poetry.

Mark Zuckerberg gave Newark, NJ, $100 million for its schools, and he didn't even get a lousy t-shirt.

The New Yorker has come out with a damning report that details how state and local officials in Newark and New Jersey, respectively, largely wasted a $100 million donation from Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, to improve the city's schools.

In 2010, Zuckerberg announced on Oprah's television show about his generous offer, and demanded few stipulations for the donation, except that Newark's then-mayor, Cory Booker, find other donors to raise another $100 million (thus, Zuckerberg's money being matched dollar-for-dollar), and that the superintendent of schools be replaced by a "transformational leader."

The governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, signed off on the deal, and joined Booker in trying this new approach to funding a struggling school district.

What occurred, says the The New Yorker, is rampant waste, to the tune of $20 million alone being spent on consulting firms, with some individual consultants making upwards of $1,000 a day. Likewise, Zuckerberg's stipulation of a new superintendent went unfulfilled for months, until Booker eventually hired Cami Anderson.

Cami Anderson, according to the report, implemented ideas for programs--but never fleshed those programs out. Basic issues like transportation weren't even finalized, never mind academic matters.

Newark citizens haven't heard from Zuckerberg, Booker, or Christie how much money the district has left, or how poor the situation really is, says the magazine, "despite millions spent on community engagement."

To recap this mess:
1. A billionaire donates $100 million to improve a destitute school district.
2. Politicians promise to improve the schools as a result of that money.
3. Money goes to consultants instead of improving schools.
(...stop me if you're surprised at any point...)
4. "Community engagement" involves neither the community or engagement.
5. No one responsible wants to talk.

In other words, it's just Tuesday in New Jersey.




photo: dailytech.com

Rutgers professor suspended after admitting to students he doesn't know what he's teaching.

After being assigned by Rutgers University to teach a class called "Human Aggression," a subject matter out of his realm of expertise, anthropology professor Robert Trivers admitted his lack of confidence in the subject matter to his students. For being so honest, the university suspended Trivers with pay.

In an interview with The Daily Targum, Trivers rebuked Rutger's behavior. "You would think the University would show a little respect for my teaching abilities on subjects that I know about and not force me to teach a course on a subject that I do not at all master,” he said.

In the meantime, Rutgers has assigned a different professor to teach the class, one which administrators emailed students saying he "regularly teaches [the class] and did so during the fall 2013 semester, so he is ready to step in without missing a beat."

This is a systemic way of teaching human aggression for a class called "Human Aggression." Academics getting catty, passive-aggressive emails, backstabbing. It's grad level stuff.

Simon & Schuster wants its employees to WIG out.

Publisher Simon & Schuster has adopted the WIG mentality for its employees: Wildly Important Goals.

WIGs were decreed by CEO Carolyn Reidy (channeling an inner Office Space moment where soon she'll be asking about those TPS reports), who has been won over by self-help gurus where the WIG idea originated.

How does a WIG apply to Simon & Schuster employees?

Every department must institute a WIG for itself. Better yet, every employee--every employee--must create a WIG for themselves, too. This isn't a stick-it-on-a-Post-It-Note-on-your-cubicle-wall type thing. Employees must enter their goal into a database to chart their WIG. If they've made progress, the database shows a green icon. No progress is emblazoned with a red circle.

But it gets really precious beyond that. As MHPBooks notes,

[I]n fact, employees still have mandatory weekly department meetings at the S&S Rockefeller Center offices to discuss “lead measures” and “lag measures” — indicators of how their performance has progressed. As part of the training for the program, participants were informed that if someone came to the meeting and reported an inability to meet a task from the previous week, he or she would be “frozen,” which means that no one could speak to that person for the duration of the meeting.

So, you're ignored. Shunned. Treated like a three year old who scribbled on the wall with magic markers because you didn't eat your Cheerios.

I know, I know--you're wondering where you can apply for a job at Simon & Schuster so you, too, can be shunned like someone with tuberculosis just because you missed a goal.

Go WIG out here.

Admittedly, George Orwell probably hoped to write a story more like Finding Nemo.

Nothing went better with a juice box and some Teddy Grahams in kindergarten than reading a dystopian novel with a socio-political angle.

Now, all those years of my childhood wondering when someone would get around to turning hellscape novels into family funfare are not for nothing.

Andy Serkis, the actor who portrayed Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, recently bought the rights to Animal Farm and, as he told The Hollywood Reporter, plans to create a stop-motion film aimed at "a family audience." Stalinism has never been more approachable!

It's only a matter of time before we get a Disney musical adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Book Review: Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart

This is part of the continuing series of random book reviews that'll be nothing like a New York Times book review. Gone is the ten thousand word analysis. Instead, here is a book review like you'd tell your friends.



The book: Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story.

[30 pages in]: Okay, a little funny. Fast paced, a bit unique. Lenny is whiny, but I can live with it.

[75 pages in]: Eunice is...unpleasant.

[110 pages in]: "Funny" is now on the side of a milk carton.

[145 pages in]: The last funny guy named Lenny was Lenny Bruce. And he's dead.

[210 pages in]: Is this supposed to be the blending of Fahrenheit 451 and 1984, or just the bastard of a blog entry and a Tiny Tim song?

[265 pages in]: I think Shteyngart is repeating paragraphs.

[266-300 pages in]: Yup, he's repeating paragraphs.

[352 pages in]: Alrighty. Time to place this in one of those book recycling bins.

Which state uses racist language the most?

According to a study that researched racist words searched on Google, the state that searches for racist language most is West Virginia.

The Top Ten:
1. West Virginia
2. Louisiana
3. Pennsylvania
4. Mississippi
5. Kentucky
6. Michigan
7. Ohio
8. South Carolina
9. Alabama
10. New Jersey*

The only surprise here is Pennsylvania. But, really, go fifteen miles outside Philadelphia and the banjos and overalls crowd pretty much dominates.



*Don't even act surprised about New Jersey in the top ten. All the racist New Yorkers move there. It's one pitchfork away from a John Grisham novel.