In the age of participation trophies and 9th place ribbons, it only seems appropriate that every state be the best at something.
Policymic.com found one metric that each state “excelled” in, with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
So how does your state fare? And how does this compare with your own experience?
Kazzy
One man. Two boys. Twelve kids.
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My state (NY) has the longest average commute time, coming in at just over 30 minutes. I am well below this, with a 17 minute door-to-door commute on the best of days. This might be stretched to 20 minutes if I hit all four of the lights between home and work.Report
Honestly, compared to most other states we come across as paradise on earth if the worst thing about NY is the commuting time.Report
I didn’t click through the source, but I’m surprised that the highest average commute time is “just” 30 minutes. I wonder if that factors in people who work from home (which is probably legitimate) and/or people who do not “work” (which might skew the numbers in some unintended ways).Report
Kazzy and Lee,
30 minutes average means that half has more. For both of you, there is someone coming in from Connecticut or Dutchess County.Report
@newdealer
I thought it would have been longer. That is why I wonder if it accounts for people with commute times of zero, which will really put that average down.Report
Kazzy,
Probably. New York is big so you have a lot of people who work at home or very close to home. You also have a lot of people who commute from the far edges of Long Island, Dutchess County, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.*
*Some of these people live in the city on Monday-Thursday and then do Friday-Sunday at home. I met a woman who owned a farm outside of Redding PA with her husband but spent Monday-Thursday in the City.Report
People who commute within the city probably bring it way down. I know a number of people that walk to work.Report
Kazzy, a lot of the United States is so sprawled out that you really don’t have traffic jams, so even if people have to commute a distance it doesn’t really take them that long.Report
It is one of those weird things where I can get from my house in OC to the GWB in 45 minutes if I don’t hit traffic.
But people in the city struggle to get from the UWS to the UES via pubtran that quickly… especially if they (foolishly) avoid crosstown busses like so many Manhattanites do.Report
Washington State #1 in bestiality? Doesn’t surprise me. There’s a lot of sick folks up there who love the Huskies.Report
And eat yellow snow.Report
Wait… are you NOT supposed to eat yellow snow…? It’s so much more flavorful than the white stuff!Report
I’ll have you know I’ve NEVER had inappropriate relations with an animal. Any dalliances were always completely consensual (usually after a heavy night of Binge Drinking because, you know, I grew up in WI).Report
This is a suspiciously specific denial.Report
I’m pretty sure porn usage is inaccurate.
Surprised no one got the “incest” prize.
I’d make a quip about arson, but then ND would throw something at me.Report
What, Utah? I’ve been hearing that Utah’s per-capita porn-consumption is high for years.
Of course, one of the running jokes is that it’s only because the Morman Church insists they actually pay for it instead of getting it free like everyone else. 🙂Report
*nods* yeah, it’s a classic measuring problem. People are measuring videos etc.
Not the internet (not that the internet is terribly hard to measure. Take network traffic. Divide by two. voila porn usage! (/joke))Report
I can’t believe that West Virginia’s doesn’t have anything to do with teeth.Report
If any of them had any teeth left it would have.Report
No kidding. Talk about a strange rural tradition, getting healthy teeth pulled before they get infected.Report
Another state best-of map that doesn’t include Washington DC. Consider us #1 in righteous indignation and Congressional meddling.Report
#1 in complaining about being excluded.Report
Go Utah! They’re they only one whose characteristic isn’t negative. (No, wait, Iowa’s is neutral.)
North Dakota’s is just mean. Come on, you can’t measure that, it’s subjective.
And now we know the libertarians can all move to Idaho and New Mexico and be happy. 😉Report
Utah is negative considering it exposes hypocrisy.
Utah is a very socially conservative state and the Mormon church holds strong. The Mormon church which largely sermonizes against sex before marriage and porn consumption.
So it exposes the hypocrisy of religion. It would be different if it were a liberal state like California, Oregon, New York, Mass, or Hawaii.Report
Not necessarily hypocrisy. Maybe they’re preaching against it so much because it’s so prevalent.Report
Or alternately, the Mormons actually don’t consume all that much porn but rather the number is being driven up by the non-LDS community.
I have no idea if that’s true, of course. But I can speak from experience that being non-LDS in Deseret is a… different experience. By not being a member of The Brethren, you are almost automatically in league with The Sinners. So Born Again Christians end up hanging out with atheists, because they’re both excluded from the primary social engine of the region.Report
I meant my comment mostly tongue in cheek, especially because my other inclination is to claim that a chip’s been knocked off my shoulder and it’s time for me to take offense.
I know almost nothing about LDS other than what every good American history student should know, but if it’s anything like some forms of evangelical Chrsitianity I’m familiar with, it has a certain conception of sin and living the good life, and it preaches against what it believe is conducive to sin and frustrating of the good life.* It does–again, if it’s like what I’m familiar with–has a conception of human fallibility that in principle accounts for the fact that people fall short of the prescriptions for the good life. Therefore, the fact that people indulge in pornography despite believing it is bad is not ipso facto hypocritical. Of course, some people assume a public posture of being able to judge others or being holier than hee or shee, almost to the extent of clouding the fact that their creed compels them to acknowledge the weakness is universal, and those people are hypocrites.
*I guess there’s a joke here to be made about pornography, but I’m just not up to the task.Report
To be clear, the chip-on-shoulder is my responsibility, especially on this issue, and not NewDealer’s. If I take offense too easily, that’s my problem.Report
Also depending on your viewpoint: Drug use and Cocaine use can be good or value neutral.
Mobile homes can also be value neutral.Report
Yeah, I was thinking some people could use this map in their vacation or retirement planning.Report
Does this map mean that Colorado consumes the most cocaine, or the least?Report
Why do you think the song is called “Rocky Mountain High”?Report
If you were saying pot I’d agree. Cocaine’s both highly addictive and causes a lot of deaths, I don’t think high rates of use can be considered a good thing.Report
And all the liberals can move to New Hampshire and New Jersey. 🙂Report
…DAMNIT I MEANT OHIO.
ARGH.Report
Blame it on auto correct.Report
Home state: Daily Commute*
New State: Air Pollution**
*This has to include people who live in PA, NJ, and CT but commute to the NYC-Metro area. A few years ago there was an article about a woman who lived in PA and came to NYC everyday for work. She moved to Pennsylvania to buy a house. She probably could have bought a more modest house in New York’s suburbs but went for a big house in PA. I went to college two hours north of NYC and we were the last stop on one of Metro-North’s commuter lines, so people did that trip everyday.
**I blame Los Angeles and Los Angeles alone for this one.
It is interesting that Oregon has the highest homeless population. I wonder what they mean by anti-social for New Mexico. I’m not sure whether to be surprised or not that Colorado has the highest cocaine use (should we blame Aspen and Vale?)Report
Can’t comment on my state, we’re the dumbest, which should mean we cannot speak.Report
Seriously, I feel that has to be the worst one descriptor.
And that’s saying something since there is a state that’s just labeled “rape”.Report
Crap. That’s fifty future Monday Trivia questions, flushed down the drain with a single graphic.Report
I wonder how the judge some of the less statistically verfiable things. When they say Ohio is the nerdiest state, what do they mean? Same goes for North Dakota.Report
If you scroll to the bottom of the link, they source everything. I haven’t clicked through any of them because it is much more fun to just make fun of all the ugly North Dakotians than actually attempt to suss out what it all means.Report
Ohio jumped out at me, too. The stat is based on libraries. So apparently Ohioans are bookworms, which is something to brag about if you ask me.
The methodology for North Dakota is pretty opaque other than that they’re #51 in beauty pageants.Report
Like Washington is really going to beat Wyoming and Montana for beastiity. Do sheep not count?Report
They do, but only when someone’s trying to fall asleep.Report
That’s quite a swath down through the middle of the country, north to south, we get
1) ugliest residents
2) violence on females
3) rape
4) poorest health
5) female criminals
6) high school graduation
Can somebody please explain this to me?Report
Cocaine use??? Jeez louise, Colorado can’t even legalize pot right.Report
My state is about as good as you can get at being a one party machine state. I’d expect Detroit and DC are more ingrained but they are cities.Report
The definition of “Binge Drinking” is lame – if you ever get above .08, you’re binge drinking.
Now, I’m sure there aren’t many metrics of per-capita drinking that WI won’t top out in, but, still.Report
Plinko! I was just thinking about you the other day, wondering where you’ve been. Good to see you’re alive and presumably well.Report
Thanks, James. Work has been overwhelming so I’ve had to cut back on my commenting, but we’re all well and presume the same for you and yours!Report
Whole family is doing well, thank you.Report
Most-taxed state! Woo-hooo!
But hey, it was incredibly selfish of us to scuttle a tunnel project to the basement of Macy’s in part because it would have meant an increase in gasoline taxes (which is the one thing we don’t tax that heavily).Report
Now you serve as a retort for MassachusettsReport