Test for Success
Americans believe a good education is the most critical component to success, according to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, with hard work coming in a close second. Only a microscopic 2 percent felt that luck was success’ main ingredient. The results were consistent across every demographic category: age, gender, education, income, you name it. More than a third (36 percent) pointed to education as the most important attribute for success, while another 28 percent thought hard work was more important. “They’re pretty much intertwined,” says Cecilia Martinez a respondent in the poll. “Knowledge is power. The more you know, the better off you are—the whole nation is better.” (USA Today)

New Huckleberry Finn Loses the N-word
An Alabama publisher will release a new edition of Mark Twain’s classic book Huckleberry Finn—minus one highly offensive word. The word is the N-word, a word more commonly used in Twain’s day but now considered one of the most inflammatory racial epithets one can utter. The new edition also expunges the word Injun for “Indian.” The idea for the new sanitized edition came from Alan Gribben, an English professor at Auburn University. He says he was uncomfortable reading sections of Finn aloud to his students because of the pervasive N-word and figured lots of high school and college teachers felt the same. He worried the classic might wind up slipping off required reading lists and youth might find themselves deprived of Twain’s superlative work. The proposed Huckleberry Finn is controversial for many, but Gribben stands firm. “I’m by no means sanitizing Mark Twain,” Gribben said. “The sharp social critiques are in there. The humor is intact. I just had the idea to get us away from obsessing about this one word, and just let the stories stand alone.” (New York Times)

Texting and Driving Is Fatal Habit
Texting was the cause of more than 16,000 traffic deaths between 2001 and 2007, according to a recent study from the University of North Texas Health Science Center. Researchers arrived at the figure by crunching data from the Fatality Accident Reporting System and texting records from the Federal Communications Commission. They estimate that nearly 2,000 people would’ve died annually on the nation’s roadways between 2001-07 had texting never been invented. In reality, though, more than 4,600 folks were killed in 2001 due to distracted driving, a figure that rose to nearly 6,000 in 2007. “The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that 6 percent of U.S. drivers are observed using a cell phone, a percentage unchanged since 2005,” the researchers said in their report. “The increase in traffic fatalities since 2005 appears to be related to a shift in how handheld devices are used.” (Los Angeles Times)

Quote
“The difference between my successes of years gone by is that I didn’t acknowledge the Lord or thank Him for anything before. This time around, I have God in my life, acknowledging Him on a daily basis. I’ve found a new sense of spirituality now.”—Ted Williams, the homeless man plucked from the streets after a reporter recorded his resonant radio voice and posted the video on YouTube. In the days since, Williams has been offered a job with the Cleveland Cavaliers and become a national celebrity. Williams made his comments on the “CBS Early Show.” (USA Today)