We love lists here at Your Weekend Reader, and Nicholas Kristof obliges this weekend with a New York Times column about a new ranking of all 50 states.

Kristof writes about an intriguing report from Tulane University that measures all 50 states on quality-of-life measures. At the top of the list, when all 31 categories were averaged: Minnesota. At the bottom: Louisiana. 

At this point, of course, you are wondering this: Where does Oregon fit on the list? Kristof doesn’t mention that in the column (a minor surprise, since he’s an Oregon resident, right?). But I tracked down the executive summary for the report, and can answer your question: It’s not in the top 10. But it’s not in the bottom 10, either. It’s 23rd, right in the middle of the pack, between Kansas and Delaware. That ranking feels about right. (Both Washington and Montana, where the Reader has a handful of readers, ranked ahead of Oregon.)

The report finds that Oregon is doing well in the citizenship and democracy category, along with environmental and social-capital measurements. But the state ranks near the bottom (49th) in mental health (no real surprise there, unfortunately), places 30th in education and 42nd in civil liberties. (I was intrigued to note that the state also ranked 42nd for freedom of the press.) 

In other press matters this week: Ignore for the moment that former “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley now is unemployed, after being fired for dressing down his new bosses in a very public matter. (Pelley, a veteran in the news business, certainly knew that his comments – made directly to his bosses during a meeting – would go public almost immediately.) Turns out that, according to The Associated Press, Pelley lived out a fantasy held by many U.S. workers: telling your bosses exactly what you think about them.

A batch of new laws passed in the short legislative session earlier this year went into effect this week. Many of the laws push back against federal government policies, including one that disconnects portions of Oregon’s tax code from federal tax cuts made in the Republican-backed tax-and-spending bill passed last summer. (That measure, Senate Bill 1507, sparked a failed effort by Oregon Republicans to refer it to the November ballot.) Shanaath Nanguneri rounds up the new laws for the Oregon Capital Chronicle. 

Just in time for the 250th anniversary of American independence, historians say it’s time to reevaluate one of the longtime villains of the Revolutionary War – England’s King George III. Was he peeved about those upstart colonies across the pond? Yes. Was he mentally ill? Nope, historians say now. 

Speaking of anniversaries, today marks the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy to turn the tide of World War II. Fewer than 1% of the Americans who served in the war are alive today. Writing in The Atlantic, Kevin Maurer finds one of them, Joe Picard, to tell the veteran’s remarkable story. 

Oregon State University has a new athletic director, Kevin Griffin, who will replace the retiring Scott Barnes. As Bill Oram explains in this column from The Oregonian/OregonLive, being the AD at OSU may be one of the toughest jobs on campus. As for Barnes, the best you can say about him was that he probably played the cards he had as well as he could as the Pac-12 Conference collapsed – but that doesn’t mean he’s not leaving behind, in Oram’s words, “a heck of a mess.”

The reconstituted Pac-12 Conference, which debuts this fall, has fallen from the ranks of the nation’s top collegiate athletic conferences – this, at a time when the split between the top conferences (insiders call them “autonomous”) and those below never has been greater. One of the commissioners in one of those less-powerful conferences, the Mid-American, had some sharp-edged things to say this past week about the state of college athletics.

Speaking of athletics, do you appear to be immune to World Cup fever? You’re not alone. Jonathan Lemire explains why in The Atlantic. 

Also in The Atlantic, columnist Alexandra Petri takes a Cabinet meeting with her son, who is just about exactly the same age as the current Trump administration. The similarities don’t end there.

A lawsuit filed by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts against jazz musician Chuck Redd has been dismissed, lawyers for Redd say. You may recall that Redd canceled a Christmas Eve concert at the center to protest the increasingly heavy-handed influence of President Donald Trump over the venue. Redd, a well-known percussionist, has a substantial connection to Oregon through his work with The Shedd Institute in Eugene. 

What I’m reading: “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” a big, sprawling novel by Kiran Desai about, well, Sonia and Sunny, two lonely natives of India who seem like they might be a good fit – and the immense array of cultural, political and familial forces that might drive them apart. 

What I’ve seen recently: It turns out that “The Sheep Detectives” is not just about a flock of sheep trying to solve the murder of their beloved shepherd. It is about that, of course, but it blends together many other themes – joyous and sorrowful –  into a film that actually succeeds in appealing to multiple generations. Bring tissues, though. 

By the way, the movie contains a scene in which three of the sheep are strolling by a church and reach this conclusion about God: “So God is a big invisible lamb beaver made of bread.” (The scene, which plays like an amusing one-off, caused a Catholic reviewer to rate the movie “morally offensive.” Tough talk for a bunch of CGI-generated sheep.)

Speaking of God, I spied this bumper sticker last week. It’s a takeoff on those “How am I driving?” bumper stickers, and you might not even look at it twice, unless you notice the lines, in smaller type, underneath the first question.

HOW AM I DRIVING?

HOW DOES AN ENGINE EVEN WORK?

HOW CAN A LOVING GOD CAUSE SUCH AGONY

I find I am not equipped to deal with spiritual crises encountered on the top level of a parking garage. CGI sheep walking by a church, sure.

It has just come to the attention of the Weekend Reader nuptials desk that two people named Taylor and Travis are planning to get married this year. To mark the occasion, the Times has put together a fun little feature that allows you to make important decisions about the wedding – location, guests, what role Taylor’s cats should play in the ceremony, etc. etc. etc. So many important details to work out! Make your choices and we can gather here next weekend to compare notes.

Or not. 

One more note this weekend, a quick correction to a previous edition: A couple of weeks ago, relying on information from the Corvallis School District, I reported that Cheldelin Middle School was named in honor of “Vernon H. Cheldelin, the founding director of the Institute of Science at Oregon State University and a longtime member of the Corvallis School Board.” Now, it could be that Vernon Cheldelin was a member of the school board. But a reliable source reports that Vernon’s wife, Irene, served on the school board for nine years. Cheldelin just has a few days left before it closes, but perhaps the record can reflect that the school was named in honor of both Vernon and Irene.