Brad Pitt tied to Racine (and more reasons our fair city is trending)

Here's a trade secret of RacinePost. Every morning we start our reporting off by going to Google News and searching for "Racine." It's a quick way to read the JT's top headlines and news from around the world about our fair little city. For example, this morning there's this story about a Racine-native and beloved professor at Duquesnse University who died from pancreatic cancer.

(Sidenote: RacinePost actually started as a site meant only to do this. But that was way back in the halcyon news days of 2007 when the Journal-Sentinel had its Sturtevant bureau and newspapers and TV stations' around the country hadn't laid off hundreds, even thousands, of scribes. There was a lot more news being reported back then and Racine popped up a lot more often. As the cutbacks took hold, we started writing more stories to try and fill the void.)

Anyway, we've been doing our morning Google searches this week and it's suddenly gotten a lot harder to sift out local news. Two "Racine" stories are trumping the real Racine (little plug for Dave Blank's crew).

The first is a recount in the Democratic primary for governor of Vermont where Doug Racine is trailing Peter Shumlin by about 200 votes after the Aug. 24 election. Racine's name has been popping up for several months as he ran for Vermont's top seat.

Doug Racine

The second, and much bigger story, is Brad Pitt allegedly cheated on Angelina Jolie with a 22-year-old French model named, you guessed it (or probably have already heard), Racine. Nevermind that the story was reported by Star tabloid and had little to no sourcing. Like everything Brangelina, it's taken over the Twitter and brought some tawdry attention to the good name Racine.

Another common result for a "Racine" search is French dramatist Jean Racine, who apparently achieved "neo-classical perfection." And there are six other communities in the U.S. with the name Racine, which is French for "root." States with their own Racine's include: Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

If we mix all of this together, what do we have? A "Racine" Hall of Fame, of course!

The hall would include history of the seven Racine's in the U.S., the model Racine's body of work,, a tribute to the great Vermont Recall of 2010, and an annual production of "Phedre." If that's not a party, who needs parties?

I bet we could even get Brad Pitt to fly in.

Here's Racine, MN, representin' ...

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