If the frequency of negative words in tweets is indicative, Louisiana is the saddest state in these United States. Using the Mechanical Turk Language Assessment, researchers at the University of Vermont studied more than 10 million tweets from 2011, looking for the frequency of 10,000 words listed on a 1-10 scale for their happiness rating — a word like “love” gets a 10 while “hate,” obviously, is a 1 — and assigned a numeric value to each state’s happiness quotient. Louisiana did not do well, earning a bottom-feeding 5.88, just one 100th of a point behind ... wait for it ... Mississippi. As usual, the Bayou and Magnolia states remain miserable, mediocre neighbors.
Hawaii, according to the study, is the happiest state, followed by Maine, Nevada, Utah and Vermont in the top five. Louisiana and Mississippi are joined in our melancholy, in descending order, by Georgia, Delaware and Maryland. Bible Belt states tend to be unhappier than western and New England states. The study also suggests that people living in densely packed urban areas where technology has been widely adapted tend to be less happy.
The Atlantic has a nice breakdown of the analysis, including a list of the happiest and unhappiest cities. Shreveport, Monroe and Alexandria represent Louisiana among the 15 unhappiest cities.
See the full study here. Caveat: it’s pretty dry and academic.
Red states are happy. Blue states are sad. This is not a political statement.
... written by Greg Foreman , February 21, 2013 - 09:05 am
This supposed “study” is another example of pure, unmitigated “Yankee bias”. It conjures up images of “socially laden biases” substituted for “objective research”. Like a question on an elementary achievement test a number of years ago. The section of the test was aimed at “testing” the childrens “social skills” and went something like this” Coffee is drank in the A)spring, B) summer, C)fall, D) winter? E) all of the time. Of course, being from Louisiana, the children—and I mean 100% of them—all answered “E”(all the time) and 100% of the children got the answer wrong. Wrong! Why? Because the test was designed/developed by a company filled with Ivy League graduates(in particular Dartmouth) and, as such, the correct answer was “C”(winter). It also calls to mind a quote a quantitative business statistics professor made in one of my first courses: “the greatest liars in the world are statistics and statisticians, and that's a fact”! Anytime I read an article were “statistics” are quoted, a loud warning goes off in my head, “warning Will Robinson/warning Will Robinson” at which point I proceed with “extreme” caution and “deliberate” due diligence.
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MAY 22 This post was written the day after the second line shooting in NOLA, by Brentin Mock. Mock is a friend of Deb "Big Red" Cotton, a blogger who was shot in the back and was seriously injured. It is a raw, emotional piece of writing, something the writer obviously felt he needed to get off his chest. But it raises questions that can't be easily dismissed, and might give some insight into where the source of these events truly is.
MAY 22 In this Baton Rouge Business Report post, Rolfe McCollister considers the privatization of bus service in Baton Rouge. After decades of under-funding, it is a mess, and although a tax (partially) passed last year, improvement hasn't happened yet. McCollister apparently feels it is time to let private business get in on the transit business.
MAY 22 This post on Bayou Buzz by Jeff Crouere urges the defeat of a bill that would grant modest pay increases over the next several years to the state's judges and clerks of court. The state is in no position to fund pay hikes, Crouere argues, with the pay increases costing a total of $9 million over several years. It sends the wrong message to the (proverbial) hard-working people of Louisiana, he says.
MAY 22 The Advocate reports here that State Treasurer John Kennedy is complaining about a meeting of the corporation that oversees the state's tobacco settlement. The Governor wanted it restructured, and he has some support, but not a lot. The corporation agreed with his plan, but Kennedy didn't, and it appears that the meeting was noticed in a manner completely different than that of all previous meetings. Kennedy's given to hyperbole, but in this case the fish don't smell too fresh.
MAY 22 In this Advocate story, Carencro Police Chief Carlos Stout says the recent federal indictment of a strip club owner is all wrong. The indictment alleges that drugs and prostitution went on with impunity because club staff made arrangements with "local" police. Stout says it never happened, and while his cops do work security in the parking lot, they're not allowed inside.
MAY 22 This amusing post in DIG Baton Rouge recounts an ad that ran on Craig's List recently; the advertiser was seeking tenants for a Beauregard Town house. He knew his market, and wrote an ad that the most ironical hipster couldn't resist. Apparently, he really did know his market, because the ad worked like a charm.
MAY 22 In this post in The Lens, Mark Moseley comments on the rhetoric Gov. Jindal employed in trying to save his tax "reform" package. One interesting point concerns Jindal's use of his brother, Nikesh, in a little story. Nikesh left Louisiana because of his inability to get a decent job, the story goes, but the story won't hold water: Nikesh lives in DC, which has an income tax level comparable to Louisiana, Moseley says. If income taxes caused the dismal situation, it should exist in DC too. Right?
MAY 22 This post by columnist John Maginnis traces the trajectory of the bill that would fund construction at community and technical colleges -- and bypass the Board of Regents and traditional higher ed funding mechanisms. Sure, it will bust the legislature's self-imposed debt limit, but some leges feel that there's more need (because there is more growth) in the community and technical college area than in the university area, he says.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
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Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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