Sum up your reactions to state corruption with a haiku

A deep investigation into the integrity of state governments yielded some surprising results. New Jersey ranked highest for resistance to corruption. The upset seems poetic, so give us your reaction to your state’s integrity with a haiku.

A haiku, inspired by reports coming today from the State Integrity Investigation:

Anyone surprisedby corruption in the stateis far too trusting

The investigation, a collaboration of the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International, has released results for all 50 states, ranking them for the level of corruption risk in state government.

New Jersey should be excited that the state was found to have among the nation’s toughest ethics and anti-corruption laws. But to rank the best in the nation for transparency and accountability, all it needed was a B+. Pennsylvania and Delaware trail behind somewhere in the middle with a C- each.

No state could be called an overachiever, but New Jersey’s upset has us feeling poetic. 

Give us your reaction to yourstate’s integrity with a haiku below.

It’s important for citizens to pay attention to these findings, because if they don’t, their states will one day flunk (if they haven’t already — a-hem, we’re looking at you, Michigan, Georgia, both Dakotas…). As WHYY’s Dave Davies points out, state governments have enormous power over our lives, and for a number of reasons, state officials tend to be particularly susceptible to corruption.

It’s one thing to read through the results, but it’s quite another to actually make the changes necessary to clean up state governments. It’ll take more than a whack across the backside with a yardstick to make your elected officials to earn the extra credit to bring those grades up. 

Write a haiku!

NewsWorks readers are a smart lot. In the spirit of extra credit, sum up your reaction with a haiku. Seventeen syllables in three lines: five, seven and five. It’s easier than you think — and kind of fun.