Did You Know?
William G. Sumner, who coined the term ethnocentrism, is famously known as America’s first sociology professor. He taught social sciences at the Yale University.
It is wondrous, really, how this world is made up of so many different people belonging to different races or ethnicities. Color, language, culture, appearance, values― all these factors come together to group people based upon the aforementioned. There’s nothing wrong with ethnicity, to be honest. It just means a group of people practicing or following the same culture. However, what happens when ethnocentrism takes over?

What is Ethnocentrism?

Ethnocentrism is judging another culture based upon the values and standards set in one’s own culture. It is a form of bias, where we tend to immediately judge another culture as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ based upon their actions, if their values are not aligned with our own beliefs.

Psychology tells us about the concept of in-groups and out-groups, where one tends to agree with the beliefs and actions of one’s in-group (such as race, religion, or ethnicity, for example) and judge or have biased opinions about the out-groups (such as other religions or ethnicities). The term ethnocentrism was coined by William G. Sumner, after having observed people distinguish or discriminate between their in-groups, and other groups. Ethnocentrism is thus the tendency to consider one’s own culture or race to be superior over all others.

Given below are a few examples of ethnocentrism― both historical and modern-day examples that will definitely help you understand the concept better.

Example 1― Nazi Germany

✦ This is one of the worst, most extreme, and most tragic examples of ethnocentrism. Hitler believed that Jews, as well as people belonging to some other communities were all inferior to his ethnicity, and did not deserve to live.

Example 2― Imperialism

✦ Imperialism is defined as a policy or practice by which a country increases its power by gaining control over other areas of the world (Merriam-Webster). The most famous example of it would be European imperialism, where European countries believed that the other areas of the world, such as Africa, America, India, etc. needed to be controlled by them owing to their supposed underdeveloped natures.

Example 3― Terrorism and Hate Crimes

✦ This is again a negative example of ethnocentrism. Terrorism and hate crimes take place when one religion or community believes that it is superior, and better than any other religion or community. However, ethnocentrism can make individuals feel as if the other community is bad, or wrong, and can make them take action in the form of terrorist attacks or hate crimes.

Example 4― In Movies

✦ In movies and other sources of entertainment, ethnocentrism is often, but not always, portrayed in a humorous, light-hearted manner. One example of ethnocentrism portrayed in a light manner would be the movie, ‘The Big Fat Greek Wedding‘, where a Greek family believes that being Greek is the one and only acceptable way of living. However, the makers of the movie took great care to make sure that the Greek culture was never shown in a negative or pushy manner, and that the audiences took it in the way it was supposed to be taken.

Example 5― In Business

✦ Though it is easy to assume that ethnocentrism affects only the lesser-educated, less aware people in the world, it is not really true. Ethnocentrism can be seen on a large scale in business, and at the workplace. A business owner might yell at his foreign employees and call them stupid because of their different races, cultures, or values that are different from the boss’.

Example 6― In Schools

✦ Ethnocentrism can be witnessed in schools across the world. Many experts agree that focusing a curriculum, say a world history curriculum, only on the history of the major developed countries and ignoring the developing and underdeveloped countries altogether, is an example of ethnocentrism in schools.The students belonging to minority communities can feel sidelined, targeted, or ignored.

Example 7― Consumer Ethnocentrism

✦ Consumer ethnocentrism is observed in those consumers who judge others buying imported goods instead of nationally or locally― produced goods. Choosing to buy a good is actually an individual choice, and judging someone on the basis of their taste or preference is not a good idea.

Example 8― In American Society

✦ The popular belief among American ethnocentric people is that their country, culture, values, development, and everything else is superior to every other nation in the world, and that every other nation is inferior to the United States.

 

Example 9― Ethnocentrism and Culture

✦ Every culture on earth tends to impart ethnocentrism, albeit unintentionally. Various aspects of culture such as mythological tales, folktales, legends, religion, songs, proverbs, language, rituals, etc. promote the superiority of that one culture over others. Though this is an unintentional kind of promotion of ethnocentrism, it instills the belief that ‘my race/my culture’ is really better than the rest, in so many ways in most of us, especially during childhood or teenage.

✦ Like I said earlier, most of us tend to vehemently deny this. However, it is true that we’re all ethnocentric sometime or the other in our lives, without even realizing it. ✦ Another example of ethnocentric behavior would be if a tourist on a holiday judges the destination based upon his comparison with his native place. “Look how dirty this country is! They should just see MY country. No wonder this place is so underdeveloped and backward!”

 

Ethnocentrism does not necessarily have to be negative; in fact, it does have its share of advantages, such as―

• Generating pride and self-confidence among the people of a group, about the group, themselves, and each other
• Defining social standards and the behavior that a group is expected to follow, thus maintaining uniformity among the people
• There’s not much chance of causing internal conflicts.
• Immunity to external control and influence

Ethnocentrism, if kept in check, cannot harm the society. Only when it goes out of hand does it pose any risk to other members of society, especially those belonging to the out-groups.

____________________________________________________________________

 

Ethnocentrism is now popping up in modern culture and in business and education where first, second and third generation immigrants to this country favor members of their own ethnic group over all other people. Hiring, promotions, job benefits and work environments are affected. Clustering of clans and fraction groups are threatening the cohesive fabric of society. Ethnocentric thinking is pushing American ideals of ‘inclusion’ into the negative nether regions and promoting angry backlash.

 

“Big 6” Pesticide and GMO Corporations

This article is part of the Food Rights Network, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy. Find out more here.

The “Big 6” pesticide and GMO corporations are BASF, Bayer, Dupont, Dow Chemical Company, Monsanto, and Syngenta. They are so called because they dominate the agricultural input market — that is, they own the world’s seed, pesticide and biotechnologyindustries.^[1][2]

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), corporate concentration of the agricultural input market “has far-reaching implications for global food security, as the privatization and patenting of agricultural innovation (gene traits, transformation technologies and seed germplasm) has been supplanting traditional agricultural understandings of seed, farmers’ rights, and breeders’ rights.”^[3]

For more information, see the Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA) resource here.

Related PRWatch Article

• Rebekah Wilce, Direct Democracy: Results of Ballot Propositions Across the Country, PRWatch, November 7, 2012.
• Rebekah Wilce, California GMO Labeling Supporters Confront $41 Million Opposition and 13-Point Poll Slide, PRWatch, October 25, 2012.
• Jill Richardson, Approval of New Chemical-Resistant GMOs Likely to Prompt Pesticide Escalation, PRWatch, August 28, 2012.
• Rebekah Wilce, Looking for Kids’ Books? Avoid This Propaganda, PRWatch, August 22, 2012.
• Rebekah Wilce, Three California Democrats Team Up with Monsanto, PRWatch, August 2, 2012.
• Jill Richardson, Monsanto’s Quiet Coup: Will Congress Limit Scope and Time for GMO Reviews?, PRWatch, August 1, 2012.
• Michele Simon, Fighting GMO Labeling in California is Food Lobby’s “Highest Priority”, PRWatch, August 1, 2012.

External Resources

• Pesticide Action Network of North America, Chemical Cartel, organizational website.
• Philip Mattera, Corporate Research Project, Monsanto: Corporate Rap Sheet, last modified August 18, 2013.
• Philip Mattera, Corporate Research Project, Dow Chemical: Corporate Rap Sheet, last modified December 19, 2013.
• Philip Mattera, Corporate Research Project, Dupont: Corporate Rap Sheet, last modified October 27, 2013.
• Geke Econ Meme, Is the U.S. a Wholly-Owned Subsidiary of Monsanto? Monsanto Venn, infographic, accessed February 2014.

External Articles and Press Releases

• Nicholas Tomasi, Monsanto On Verge of $40 Million GMO Bailout in Europe: Report, Natural Independent, November 25, 2012.
• California Right to Know, Monsanto, Pesticide Companies Contribute Another $5.5 Million to Kill GMO Labeling Initiative, campaign press release, September 17, 2012.
• Stacy Malkan, California Right to Know, Monsanto Gives $4.2 Million to Kill California GMO Labeling, campaign press release, August 15, 2012.
• Tom Philpott, Biotech Giants Are Bankrolling a GMO Free-for-All, Mother Jones, August 6, 2012.
• Kathryn Gilje, Pesticide Action Network of North America, Guilty as Charged: “The verdict was handed down to the six largest pesticide corporations — Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, BASF, Dow and Dupont — collectively known as the “Big 6,” for their human rights violations, including internationally recognized rights to life, livelihood and health,” organizational blog post, December 7, 2011.

References

1. Jump up↑Pesticide Action Network of North America, Chemical Cartel, organizational website, accessed July 2012
2. Jump up↑ETC Group, Who Owns Nature? Corporate Power and the Final Frontier in the Commodification of Life, international civil society organizational report, November 2008, accessed July 2012
3. Jump up↑Olivier Matringe and Irene Musselli Moretti, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Tracking the Trend Towards Market Concentration: The Case of the Agricultural Input Industry, study prepared by the UNCTAD secretariat, April 20, 2006

 

Nutr Res Pract. 2011 Jun; 5(3): 253–259.

Published online 2011 Jun 21. doi:  10.4162/nrp.2011.5.3.253

PMCID: PMC3133759

PMID: 21779530

Survey of American food trends and the growing obesity epidemic

Qin Shao¹ and Khew-Voon Chin²

Go to:

Abstract We further speculate that the bacterial antigen derived from the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) entomocidal crystalline protein protoxin [30], which is genetically engineered into corn to confer resistance to insect pests, may be the underlying culprit that causes anomalous adipose tissue dysregulation and obesity development.

 

The rapid rise in the incidence of obesity has emerged as one of the most pressing global public health issues in recent years. The underlying etiological causes of obesity, whether behavioral, environmental, genetic, or a combination of several of them, have not been completely elucidated. The obesity epidemic has been attributed to the ready availability, abundance, and overconsumption of high-energy content food. We determined here by Pearson’s correlation the relationship between food type consumption and rising obesity using the loss-adjusted food availability data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Services (ERS) as well as the obesity prevalence data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Our analysis showed that total calorie intake and consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) did not correlate with rising obesity trends. Intake of other major food types, including chicken, dairy fats, salad and cooking oils, and cheese also did not correlate with obesity trends. However, our results surprisingly revealed that consumption of corn products correlated with rising obesity and was independent of gender and race/ethnicity among population dynamics in the U.S. Therefore, we were able to demonstrate a novel link between the consumption of corn products and rising obesity trends that has not been previously attributed to the obesity epidemic. This correlation coincides with the introduction of bioengineered corns into the human food chain, thus raising a new hypothesis that should be tested in molecular and animal models of obesity.

Keywords: Obesity, food trend, corn product, genetically modified, bioengineered

Introduction

It is estimated that, worldwide, approximately 937 million adults are overweight and 396 million are obese [1]. This rising trend continues unabated both globally and in the United States, which claims the largest population of overweight and obese adults [2,3]. Various etiologic factors associated with obesity have been reported, including a number of genes identified from genome-wide scans and functional genomic studies as well as some viruses and bacteria [4–7]. The current prevailing hypothesis centers on the premise that the problem of obesity is one of energy imbalance, wherein total energy intake far exceeds energy output [8]. In addition, the global epidemic of obesity has been attributed to heuristic observations of an increase in the consumption of high-energy/high-fat content foods coupled with a sedentary lifestyle that expends little energy.

The notion that particular nutrients or food sources might influence obesity is controversial [9]. For example, the increased consumption of some food types, including beverages and foods that contain high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), is speculated to be associated with obesity [10,11]. Moreover, in a previous study, mice given HFCS-sweetened water gained more weight and showed increase adiposity [12]. While the results of this animal study seem to provide experimental evidence that supports the hypothesis that consumption of HFCS causes obesity, the results from epidemiological and clinical studies in human are inconclusive [13,14], leaving the question of HFCS association with obesity unanswered. Therefore, whether or not the intake of certain food types predisposes an individual to increased risk for obesity needs to be examined.

Quantifying the amount of food an individual consumes daily is difficult, and determining the intake of specific food types is intractable, thus posing significant challenges to the investigation of food intake and the development of obesity. It is known that the Loss-Adjusted Food Availability Data from the Economic Research Services (ERS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) constitute time series data on the national food supply of several hundred food-types targeted to the food marketing system. These data are represented as per capita food availability and are useful for studying food consumption trends, as they are an indirect measurement of actual food intake [15].

To determine whether or not excess energy intake or the consumption specific food types contribute to the development of obesity, we surveyed Loss-Adjusted Food Availability and obesity prevalence data to investigate the correlation between total energy intake and consumption of certain food types with rising trends in obesity. We confirmed a novel association of rising obesity trends with increased corn product consumption that may be linked to the growing and ubiquitous presence of genetically modified (GM) or engineered (GE) corn in the human diet.

Materials and Methods

Statistical analysis

We analyzed the relationship between the trends in obesity prevalence and the average daily per capita calories consumed for various food types using Pearson’s correlation. To validate the positive correlations, we investigated the dependence of the obesity trends on different food types by fitting a multiple linear regression using both full and reduced model functions.

Results

 

We analyzed the USDA ERS Loss-Adjusted Food Availability Data, which include seven major aggregated food groups including 1, meat, eggs, and nuts; 2, dairy; 3, fruit; 4, vegetables; 5, flour and cereal products; 6, added fats and oils, and dairy fats; and 7, caloric sweeteners. These groups are further comprised of more than 100 individual or specific food types (commodities). Analysis of these food types revealed that a large number of them including fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, beverage milk, fish and shellfish, fruit juice, nuts, and others, showed either negative trends or no change in trends of consumption and did not coincide with rising trends in obesity (Fig. 2).

 

Since energy imbalance resulting from excess calorie intake is thought to contribute to obesity, we first analyzed the trends in calorie intake between 1995 and 2008. The food availability data indicated that the average daily per capita total calorie intake has plateaued since year 2000, whereas obesity exhibited a rising trend (Fig. 3A), and Pearson’s analysis showed a correlation coefficient of 0.79 (Table 1). In contrast, strong positive correlations with obesity were unexpectedly found for chicken and corn products (Fig. 3B and C), with Pearson’s correlation coefficients of 0.96 and 0.99, respectively (Table 1).

Correlation coefficient means whether the food does or does not match with weight gain. The higher the number the more it matches. The high match for chicken may be that chickens are fed with corn grain. There is a high match for oils and dressings; many of which are made with corn.

 

Table 1

Correlation between trends in food type consumption and obesity

We also observed a positive correlation between total cheese intake and obesity (Fig. 3D). However, further analysis revealed that, with the exception of cheddar and mozzarella cheese, most other cheeses, such as provolone, parmesan, Swiss cheese, blue cheese, and others, showed little or no changes in consumption trends between 1995 and 2008, and Pearson’s analysis of either cheddar (Fig. 3E) or mozzarella (Fig. 3F) did not show correlation with rising obesity.

Even though correlation with obesity was not found for “Added Fats and Oils, and Dairy Fats” (Fig. 3G), with a correlation coefficient of 0.86 (Table 1), analysis of Salad and Cooking Oils (Fig. 3H) and Dairy Fats (Fig. 3I) revealed correlation with obesity, each with a correlation coefficient of 0.97 (Table 1). These correlations subsequently did not cross-validate upon further analysis by multiple linear regression (see below).

Additionally, either poor or negative correlations were found for foods such as flour and cereal products, shortening, red meat, caloric sweeteners, and HFCS, with correlation coefficients of -0.03, -0.18, -0.40, -0.74, and -0.38, respectively (Fig. 3J-N, and Table 1). The consumption of refined cane and beet sugar (Fig. 3O) as well as sweet corn as a fresh vegetable (Fig. 3P) also did not correlate with obesity. The consumption of corn as a fresh vegetable constituted only a small percentage (averaging 0.01%) of the total calorie intake between 1995 and 2008.

To further test these positive correlations with obesity trends, we performed a fitting by multiple linear regression analysis with food types that showed correlation coefficients > 0.95, which included chicken, corn products, dairy fats, salad and cooking oils, and total cheese, in a full model function. This analysis showed that only corn products had p-values smaller than 0.05 (Table 2), suggesting that consumption of corn products had a significant effect on rising obesity trends. In the reduced model, we analyzed corn products and total cheese, which have p-values closest to 0.05 from the full model analysis, and our results confirmed a correlation between corn products, but not total cheese, and obesity trends (Table 2).

Table 2

Multiple linear regression analysis of food types and obesity trends

The observed correlation between consumption of corn products and rising obesity is surprising. It is noteworthy that HFCS is classified separately as a caloric sweetener and not aggregated with other corn products. Moreover, HFCS showed a negative correlation with rising obesity (Table 1).

 

We were also aware that genetically modified (GM) corn has been planted in the U.S. since 1996 [23]. To further investigate the relationship between bioengineered corn and rising obesity, we obtained data on the adoption of GM corn from the USDA, which covered the period between 2000 and 2008, for comparison with rising obesity. These data did not take into account the use of GM corn for other purposes besides as a food or animal feed. Despite this limitation, our result shows that the trends of obesity and adoption of GM corn were similar (Fig. 4B).

We further asked whether or not the consumption of corn products might be associated with the demographic distribution of the population. Using the NHANES stratified obesity prevalence data between NHANES III (1988-1994), NHANES (1999-2000), (2001-2002), (2003-2004), (2005-2006), and (2007-2008), we examined the relationship between corn product consumption and race/ethnicity of men and women between 1995 and 2008. Our results show that the trends of obesity and corn product consumption rose in parallel irrespective of gender among non-Hispanic white men and women (Fig. 5A and B), non-Hispanic black men and women (Fig. 5C and D), and Mexican-American men and women (Fig. 5E and F), thus suggesting that the association of rising obesity trends with increased corn product consumption is independent of race/ethnicity and gender.

 

Discussion

Our analysis of obesity and food type consumption trends data in this report yielded three major findings. First, it has been long accepted that overconsumption of food coupled with a sedentary lifestyle results in a positive energy imbalance, which is a formula for obesity development. Our analysis in this report, however, indicates that even though total calorie intake in the U.S. has plateaued in recent years, the incidence of obesity continues to rise, thus suggesting that rising obesity trends do not correlate with total energy intake. Alternatively, it is conceivable that the total caloric intake has plateaued while the levels of physical activity have also not increased, thus explaining the intransigent obesity trends.

Second, HFCS as a cause of obesity has been intensely debated. It was shown recently that rats given HFCS along with a regular chow diet gained more weight than control rats, even when they consumed the same amount of calories [24]. Further, consumption of an HFCS-containing diet increased visceral fats and blood triglycerides over time. However, our results show a negative correlation of HFCS with rising obesity, as HFCS consumption has been on the decline since 2000. However, this negative correlation does not refute the underlying biological role of HFCS in obesity. Instead, it suggests that HFCS consumption on the whole may not contribute to rising obesity trends. Though we initially also observed positive correlations between increased consumption of chicken, salad and cooking oils, dairy fats, and total cheese with obesity, subsequent multiple linear regression analysis and cross-validation of these results revealed a lack of significance in these correlations.

The above observations suggest that additional factors may be involved in rising obesity trends. Therefore, our third finding of a correlation between increased corn product intake and rising obesity between 1995 and 2008 is intriguing, as these foods are not generally considered unhealthy. What are the underlying etiologic links between these foods and obesity?

In the ERS dataset, corn products are considered an aggregate comprised of flour and meal, hominy and grits, cornstarch, and other corn products, which are widely used in the manufacture of a large variety of food products consumed by humans. Recently, it was reported that approximately 85% of the corn grown in the U.S. is transgenic [25]. The increased ubiquity of GM or genetically engineered corn products in human food sources is noted, but their potential impact on human health has not been investigated despite recent reports of hepatorenal toxicity in rats fed GM maize [26,27]. Moreover, the rising trends in obesity coincide, in part, with the introduction of GM corn in foods and animal feeds in the U.S. [28,29]. These observations prompted us to hypothesize that consumption of GM corn products may contribute to rising obesity trends. The implications of our results and the new hypothesis raised here are provocative but testable, as the effects of GM corn products can be assessed in molecular and animal models of obesity. No data are currently available on how much genetically engineered food is on the market due to a lack of proper labeling and traceability.

We further speculate that the bacterial antigen derived from the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) entomocidal crystalline protein protoxin [30], which is genetically engineered into corn to confer resistance to insect pests, may be the underlying culprit that causes anomalous adipose tissue dysregulation and obesity development.

Despite such shortcomings, the BRFSS obesity trends were remarkably similar to the NHANES dataset. In addition, the data for the rate of GM corn adoption in the U.S. did not take into consideration the different uses of these transgenic corns other than as foods and feeds. Although it is clear that transgenic corn has penetrated into human foods and animal feeds, and the consumption of GM crops has been deemed safe [31], precise data regarding the amounts and types of foods containing transgenic corn products are unavailable, and the correlation with increased emergence of common human diseases including diabetes and obesity has not been investigated.

Taken together, our results reveal a novel association of corn product consumption with rising trends of obesity, which may be linked to the increased ubiquity of transgenic corn in the diet. These trends data findings warrant further investigation and confirmation through laboratory testing.

Acknowledgments

We thank Jennifer E.W. Hill, Ph.D. (Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Toledo, College of Medicine, Toledo, Ohio) for helpful comments and discussions regarding the manuscript.

Footnotes

This work was supported in part by a National Institutes of Health grant CA102204.

References

1. Kelly T, Yang W, Chen CS, Reynolds K, He J. Global burden of obesity in 2005 and projections to 2030. Int J Obes (Lond) 2008;32:1431–1437. [PubMed]
2. Popkin BM. Recent dynamics suggest selected countries catching up to US obesity. Am J Clin Nutr. 2010;91:284S–288S. [PMC free article] [PubMed]

 

Archives | 1990 New York Times

Hiring Quotas Exist, but Employers Won’t Tell

, Page 00020The New York Times Archives

To the Editor:

”Enough Haggling on Civil Rights” (editorial, July 17) argues that it is a red herring to claim that the civil rights bill of 1990 would result in quotas, for neither President Bush nor business lobbyists ”produce any evidence that the 1971 ruling resulted in job quotas.” You have taken employers’ fear of self-incrimination in revealing their use of quotas for the absence of evidence that they have been forced to use them.

It is an open secret among personnel professionals that race-conscious hiring has become the rule, not the exception, since the 1971 Griggs ruling you refer to, and moreover that such practices are routinely camouflaged by statistical legerdemain or newspeak about what constitutes merit hiring. While employers often resort to quotas or other race-conscious hiring procedures to avoid litigation under Griggs, they must deny such practices publicly to avoid reverse discrimination suits. We need not wonder why employers are not coming forth to document the legacy of Griggs.

One of America’s best-kept open secrets is that the Employment Service of the Department of Labor has unabashedly promulgated quotas. In 1981 the service recommended that state employment agencies adopt a race-conscious way of recomputing test scores on the Employment Service aptitude test battery to avoid adverse impact when referring job applicants to employers.

Under the recommended procedure, called race-norming, each candidate’s score is reported not in relation to those of all other candidates, but only in relation to the scores of applicants of the same racial group. Blacks are compared only with other blacks, Hispanics only with other Hispanics and ”others” with all but blacks and Hispanics. Race-norming does the work of quotas by, in effect, giving bonus points to all members of groups that tend to score lower than others, offsetting average differences in scores among groups.

The score adjustments are not trivial. An unadjusted score that places a job applicant at the 15th percentile among whites would, after race-norming, typically place a black near the white 50th percentile. Likewise, unadjusted scores at the white 50th percentile would, after race-norming, typically place a black near the 85th percentile for white job applicants.

The Employment Service recommended this system of racial quotas, despite showing that its aptitude tests meet the Griggs job-relatedness criterion, simply to avoid adverse impact, which is the trigger for litigation established by Griggs and its progeny. By 1986, state employment agencies in 40 states were using the United States Employment Service system to some extent.

This system of race-conscious score adjustments has been subjected to scientific scrutiny and some public debate since 1986, when Assistant Attorney General William Bradford Reynolds threatened to sue the Labor Department for reverse discrimination. Whatever the system’s eventual fate may be, its use by 40 states in the last decade belies the claim that Griggs did not lead to quotas.

 

LINDA S. GOTTFREDSON

Newark, Del., July 18, 1990

The writer is a professor of education at the University of Delaware.

 

 

 

What is it about serial books that keep kids coming back for more? The Harry Potter Series, the Rick Riordan – Lighting Thief series, and Nancy Drew among others have entranced young readers for generations and made books disappear off shelves.

So, what is it then? Readers young and old get invested in the characters in the book. Harry, Nancy and Percy Jackson become known to us and become like old friends. Just like our favorite soaps or shows on TV, we become a part of their family and their lives.

Additionally, with kids, they look upon their paper characters as figures to copy and emulate. For instance, I always loved Nancy’s shoes and convertible. Wow! I wanted one. I also wanted to be just like Nancy when I grew up. That’s some role model!

Additionally, the books are usually grouped together on shelves, their covers look very much the same and are easily recognizable. For a ten-year-old who is overwhelmed by the volume and complexity of the ordinary library, this is an important selling point. It is not important to remember the exact title or author. Just, that wizard kid with the glasses will do.

Serials have actually been around for much longer than I had realized. I did a little research on Millie Wirt Benson, who started writing the Nancy Drew series in 1930. Edward Stratemeyer, the editor, created the Hardy Boys books earlier. The series was such a hit, he decided to create a female version for his girl readers. He hired Benson as his ghostwriter.

Stratemeyer was preceded in the genre by Horatio Algers whose kid books were popular before the turn of the twentieth century. So, serial readers have been around for some time.  They are excellent ways for kids to get ‘hooked’ on reading. After reading as many of the Drew books as possible, I graduated to Jane Eyre and English romances.

The Good and the Bad

While series are undoubtably a wonderful source of enticing literature for kids, there have been some disturbing trends in the modern genre and fiction books in general. In doing my bit of research into the creation of the Drew series, I was interested to note that Stratemeyer had guidelines for all his juvenile fiction writers. Those were no extreme violence, death or sexuality beyond a little cheek peck. Later, some of these books were deemed to be hopelessly old-fashioned and had to be ‘modernized’. Geeze, save us from old-fashionedness!

Book sales have always been important, even in Stratemeyer’s day. However, there seems to be a growing trend in all fiction markets to keep pushing the limits of ‘acceptable’ particularly in the uses of graphic violence and graphic sexuality. I love a good mystery and have read a lot of them. However, mystery/thriller writers like Steven Berry and Patricia Cornwall have pushed the limits so far with their scenes of violence and sick brutality, that I won’t read their books anymore. In my list of popular series for Young Adults, The City of Bones series which I read, has some scenes of sick violence so great that I wish I had never read them. One scene with a baby keeps playing in my head. Uck!

Now it is difficult to draw a straight line from violent films, literature and games to violence in the streets. All parents wish they had a sure-fire litmus test they could use on these medias to tell which ones are harmful. Unfortunately, there is no such test. As parents and teachers, we will be forced to use the old noggin and common sense to help direct kids to quality reading.

For example, Harry Potter, who I have mentioned several times, is not used as a literature book in school, although it is in most school and public libraries. The reason: Harry is a wizard and his world is filled up with magic, violence and death. These themes are unacceptable to many parents, so schools just avoid the fight and don’t teach with those books. However, The Giver, which is commonly used, is also about birth and death, just in not such a theatrical fashion.

I will list the most popular series books sold and list them by millions of copies sold. I will also list which ones feature violence and death and let you make your own decisions about them.

The Book Series                                                                                    Millions of Books sold

Harry Potter – Rowling                                                                        450 Million (magic, violence and death)

Percy Jackson – Riordan                                                                      400 (some violence)

Sweet Valley High- Pascal                                                                   250

Babysitters Club – Martin                                                                    172

The New Girl – Puckett                                                                        80

The Hardy Boys – Dixon                                                                     70

Nancy Drew – Keene                                                                           70

Hunger Games – Collins                                                                      65 (violence, death.)

City of Bones – Clare                                                                            36 (graphic violence, death)

Eragon – Paolini                                                                                    33 (graphic violence )

Artemis Fowl – Colfer                                                                          21- (some violence)

Redwall – Jacques                                                                                20 – (violence)

Divergent – Roth                                                                                  20 (some violence)

Golden Compass – Pullman                                                               15 million

 

Refer to: www.commonsensemedia.org and http://www.shmoop.com for further reviews.

 

Courtney Webb

The Clues to the Real Carolyn Keene – writer of the Nancy Drew mysteries. …..

‘The wind howled through the dark night. Nancy bent over with the light of her torch to examine the dark spot on the wood floor. Blood? She dipped in the tip of her finger and put it to her nose. Yup. It was the stuff.

Further away she shone her light on the floor and could see remains of a shattered vase. It looked to be expensive like everything else in this Arts and Crafts style house on the edge of Pasadena. She shone the light around and could detect footprints leading away.

Cautiously, making as little noise as possible, she followed the prints through the swinging wood door. It led to a large dining room. Nancy advanced softly and could just make out the slumped form next to the oak table. He looked like he had been trying to pull himself up. The elderly gentleman was lying almost face down with his head to the side and both hands clinched. A large spot on the back of his head showed through his white hair. Something white peeked through fingers of one craggy old hand.

Knowing full well she shouldn’t do this, Nancy gently tugged the paper out of his hand. She touched him at the neck knowing there would be no pulse. There wasn’t. She shone her torch on the paper. The Ghost….was scrawled on the paper. There was a bang in the background, Nancy jumped. The murderer could still be in the house.

Catlike, she retraced her path back to the front door. She stepped gingerly out turning off the torch. She peered around the front driveway and bushes. No one. Her heart in her mouth, she grabbed the car keys from her purse and made a run for her car.

She yanked open the car door, slammed it shut and banged down the locks. The key in the ignition, she did a rapid three-point turn and peeled rubber until she was far down the hill and on the way home. She pulled into a coffee shop and called the police. She knew her buddy, Sergeant Fred or Freddie wouldn’t be working this late so, she made the report to the desk cop and left her name and number. Yikes! What an evening. Jeepers.’

 

Mildred Wirt Benson leaned over her heavy black typewriter and peered at her copy. Was this going to do it? This character was something new and different. A Sherlock Holmes type but, American and importantly, female. Wow! How were people going to react to this character? She wasn’t typical female and broke so many rules.

This Nancy was, hum, Mildred had to think. Nancy was strong-minded, strong-willed, independent. She was curious, action-oriented, loved to get into trouble, mind other people’s business and in general make a nuisance of herself. She was the bane to her lawyer father, who loved her to bits, and her somewhat scattered boyfriend, Ned.

Plus, Nancy was continually getting into and out of scrapes with and without the help of friends and family, yet, by the hair of her chinny-chin-chin, managed to pull the rabbit out of the hat at the last moment.

She pulled the last sheet out of the typewriter and placed in on the pile with the others. Hopefully, her editor would like it, approve of it and most importantly, pay her for it! A smile of satisfaction played on Mildred’s lips. Nancy was all the things she could never be. Nancy would probably just march right into Stratemeyer’s office and….

 

The character, Nancy Drew, was conceived by Edward Stratemeyer, founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Stratemeyer had created the Hardy Boys series in 1926, which had been such a success that he decided on a similar series for girls, featuring an amateur girl detective as the heroine. He was aware that the Hardy Boys books were popular with girl readers and wished to capitalize on girls’ interest in mysteries by offering a strong female heroine.

Stratemeyer initially pitched the new series to Hardy Boys publishers Grosset & Dunlap as the “Stella Strong Stories”, adding that “they might also be called ‘Diana Drew Stories’, ‘Diana Dare Stories’, ‘Nan Nelson Stories’, ‘Nan Drew Stories’, or ‘Helen Hale Stories’.” Editors at Grosset & Dunlap preferred “Nan Drew” of these options, but decided to lengthen “Nan” to “Nancy”. Stratemeyer accordingly began writing plot outlines and hired  Mildred Wirt, later Mildred Wirt Benson, to ghostwrite the first volumes in the series under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene.

The first four titles were published in 1930 and were an immediate success. The books popularity can be seen in a letter that Laura Harris, a Grosset and Dunlap editor, wrote to the Syndicate in 1931: “can you let us have the manuscript as soon as possible, and no later than July 10? There will only be three or four titles brought out then and the Nancy Drew is one of the most important.”

The 6,000 copies that Macy’s ordered for the 1933 Christmas season sold out within days. In 4/1934 Fortune Magazine featured the Syndicate in a cover story and singled Nancy Drew out for particular attention: “Nancy is the greatest phenomenon among all the fifty-centers. She is a best seller. How she crashed a Valhalla that had been rigidly restricted to the male of her species is a mystery even to her publishers.”

During the height of the greatest depression that the US has ever experienced, the appearance of these books and their popularity was astounding. Maybe it was the times. Maybe people need to feel that they had some kind of personal control.

 

The Real Carolyn Keene

 

Mildred Benson was born Mildred Augustine in Ladora, Iowa to Lillian and Dr. J. L. Augustine. Benson earned her degree in English from the University of Iowa in 1925 in a short three years. She later returned to the University and in 1927, became the first student there to earn a master’s degree in journalism. She was married to Asa Wirt, an Associated Press writer. The couple had a daughter, Peggy Wirt, in 1936. After Wirt’s death in 1947, she married George A. Benson, editor of the Toledo Blade.

Benson worked for 58 years as a journalist, and author of children’s books. She died in 2002 at the age of 96. Benson was a great adventurer, making numerous trips to Central America, traversing the jungle in a Jeep, canoeing down rivers, visiting Mayan sites, flying airplanes and witnessing archaeological excavations.

Nancy Drew

While she wrote scores of books under her own and many other names, Benson is perhaps best known as one of 28 individuals who helped produce the Nancy Drew books.

Published book rights for the Nancy Drew series were then owned by the Stratemeyer Syndicate and are now by Simon & Schuster. As with all syndicate ghostwriters, Benson was paid a flat fee of $125 to $250 for each Stratemeyer-outlined text, the equivalent of three months’ pay for a newspaper reporter at that time. At Edward Stratemeyer’s death in 1930, all Syndicate ghostwriters, including Benson, were sent royalties from their books.

By contract, Benson signed away all rights to her texts and any claim to the pen name, Carolyn Keene. She was, however, permitted to reveal that she wrote for the Syndicate.

Stratemeyer provided Benson with index card thumbnail sketches. However, she was the one who created Nancy’s spunky, plucky personality, and her daring, adventurous spirit. Benson took the plots supplied by the Syndicate and created a character that is still loved today. The Syndicate published the books using the pseudonym, Carolyn Keene. Later, most of the Nancy Drew stories that Benson wrote, were re-written by Edna Stratemeyer Squier and, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams after Stratemeyer’s death.

Other ghostwriters who used this name to write Nancy Drew mysteries included Leslie McFarlane, James Duncan Lawrence, Walter Karig, Nancy Axelrad, Patricia Doll, Charles S. Strong, Alma Sasse, Wilhelmina Rankin, George Waller Jr., Margaret Scherf, and Susan Wittig Albert. To-date, over 80 million copies of the Nancy Drew series have been sold and the books have been translated into 45 languages.

However, Benson herself went on to write even more books. She created The Dana Girls series under the name, again, of Carolyn Keene. Also, the Penny Parker and Dan Carter, Cub Scout series. She was a long-time journalist for her husband’s paper, The Toledo Blade and covered many topics to include the crime beat.

 

Mildred Wirt Benson captured the essence of the American spirit in the form of a sixteen-year-old girl. Nancy Drew was smart, curious, resourceful, nosey and helpful to others. She used the resources at her disposal to help others in need. She was the epitome of American can-do attitude and at a nexus point in American history, helped to redefine women’s roles. Nancy became a model for girls who would become women themselves one day, of who and what they wished to be. For myself, I always wanted to be Nancy Drew when I grew up. I really loved those shoes!

 

The end.

References

 

Books at Iowa: The Ghost of Nancy Drew – Iowa Digital Librarydigital.lib.uiowa.edu/bai/lapin.htm

For Indeed it was He, Author unknown, 1934.  Fortune Magazine.

Project Gutenberg project. Author unknown. 2018. Nancy Drew. http://www.self.gutenberg.org/articles/nancy_drew

Webb, C.  Nancy Investigates – 2015

Wikipedia. 2018. Author unknown. Mildred Wirt Benson. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred_Benson

Wikipedia. 2018. Author unknown. Edward Stratemeyer.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Stratemeye

 

• Published on July 5, 2018

Brigette Hyacinth

Trust is the foundation of any successful relationship, whether professionally or personally and when it’s broken, it is extremely hard to repair. I had a supervisor if I was over one minute on my lunch time, she would send an email to remind me of my lunch hours, even though most of the time I never took my full lunch hour. I couldn’t even send an email without her approving it first. She was so inflexible that it was overbearing. I couldn’t trust her. When employees feel they can’t trust their boss, they feel unsafe, like no one has their back, and then spend more energy on survival than performing at their job.

The corporate world is littered with such micromanagers. Sadly many organizations prefer these managers because they seem to be on top of, and in control of everything. In the short term, they may produce results but in the long run they leave a trail of destruction in their path.

“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to to. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” ― Steve Jobs

5 Damaging Effects of Micromanagement

1.Decreased Productivity – When a manager is constantly looking over their employees’ shoulders, it can lead to a lot of second-guessing and paranoia, and ultimately leads to dependent employees. Additionally, such managers spends a lot of time giving input and tweaking employee workflows, which can drastically slow down employee response time.

2. Reduced Innovation – When employees feel like their ideas are invalid or live in constant fear of criticism, it’s eventually going to take a toll on creativity. In cultures where risk-taking is punished, employees will not dare to take the initiative. Why think outside the box when your manager is only going to shoot down your ideas and tell you to do it their way?
3. Lower Morale – Employees want the feeling of autonomy. If employees cannot make decisions at all without their managers input, they will feel suffocated. Employees that are constantly made to feel they can’t do anything right may try harder for a while, but will eventually stop trying at all. The effects of this will be evident in falling employee engagement levels.
4. High Staff Turnover – Most people don’t take well to being micromanaged. When talented employees are micromanaged, they often do one thing; quit. No one likes to come to work every day and feel they are walking into a penitentiary with their every movement being monitored. “Please Micromanage Me” Said No Employee ever. I have never seen a happy staff under micromanagement.
5. Loss of Trust – Micromanagement will eventually lead to a massive breakdown of trust. It demotivates and demoralizes employees. Your staff will no longer see you as a manager, but a oppressor whose only job is to make their working experience miserable.

Micromanagement is a complete waste of everybody’s time. It sucks the life out of employees, fosters anxiety and creates a high stress work environment.

A manager’s job is to provide guidance and support. It’s facilitating a healthy environment where employees can perform at their best. Always be quick to recognize, appreciate and reward employees efforts. Micromanagement breeds resentment and disloyalty. If you hired someone, it means you believe they are capable of doing the job, then trust them to get it done. A high level of trust between managers and employees defines the best workplaces and drives overall company performance.

Micromanaging is the opposite of empowerment and it creates toxic work environments. It chokes the growth of the employee and the organization and fosters mediocrity. When you empower employees, you promote vested interest in the company. Empowered employees are more confident, more willing to go the extra mile for employers, and more willing do whatever it takes to care for customers. The best ideas and advancements are a result of empowering your team.

All in all, keeping great talent really can mean the difference between a business succeeding or failing. In this volatile global marketplace, happy loyal employees are your biggest competitive advantage. If you want performance at scale: Select the right people, provide them with the proper training, tools and support, and then give them room to get the job done!

…………

 

 

“Why can’t we, Mom? Angie just got one. A little white one. He’s really cute.”

Sue paused wiping her hands on a dish towel. She stared at her six-year-old daughter. Scoot, as she was nick-named had silky blond hair, cut in a short bob. She was tall for her age and stared up at her mother with large, luminous green eyes. In common parlance, Scoot was adorable.

It was difficult to say no to her. For anything.

“Scoot, we’ve talked about this before.”

“But, Mom….”

“Scoot, remember,” Sue turned and started unloading the dishwasher, “we’re saving for a house. A house with a yard. Then we can have a dog.”

Scoot looked disappointed and walked away, head down.

 

Eight months later, Sue and Scoot were moving into their first house. A house with a front yard, back yard and a fence.

Sue stared with satisfaction out at the yard. Not big really, but a little landscaping, nice, and joy of joys, a real slump-stone fence on each side, about five feet tall. Plus, there were large wooden gates with latches on each side. She sighed and slumped down on a green metal yard chair. She had ordered a set to go with the new glass-topped table. They would be able to have real barbeques out here. Right on! She smiled to herself. Patience is its own reward.

 

The dog discussion was back in full force. Sue was reminded frequently of her promise. Her ex-husband, Billy Bob, started to appear at the new house and join in the discussion.

“Don’t want no little, yappy dogs. Hate them things. Just want to drop kick one a ‘em across the goal post of life.”

Sue rolled her eyes.

“Need a real dog, hunting dog, dog ‘wit bones on ‘em.”

“Yah, Billy, and who exactly is going to be the one to take care of this here hunting dog? Ah, I know, me. No. No big dogs. I’m the one who’ll end up picking up the dog poop, so, the less, the better.”

“Ha,” Billy Bob replied. “Yappy dogs. Bah.”

 

For weeks, Sue searched the internet for deals on dogs. There weren’t any.

“Golly, two hundred fifty, four hundred dollars for a puppy. Geeze, what are these people thinking?” She sighed and kept looking. This was getting discouraging.

 

One day Sue and Scoot got home from school. Billy Bob’s old white pickup truck was parked in front of the house. He had taken to letting himself into the backyard. Sue didn’t really mind but wondered what was up. Through the living room glass slider, she could see him sitting out at the backyard table smoking a cigar. Something was running around in the yard.

What in the world? Sue opened the slider and heard barking. A large, brown dog barked and ran toward her. She darted back behind the slider. Billy Bob laughed.

“He won’t hurt nothing. He’s just a big puppy. Razor, come here boy.” The dog ran toward him and sat. Billy patted his head. “See, just a big baby. Come on out here.”

Sue approached cautiously and sat. The dog approached her, tail wagging. He licked her hand. Razor was a large, brown, short-haired something. A mix of boxer and who knew. He wasn’t full grown yet, but had big feet and was all wiry muscle, probably 75 pounds. Definitely not a little, yappy dog. A big yappy dog.

“Well, he seems friendly,” she ventured, cautiously. “But where did he come from?”

“He was from one of the guys at the cigar shop,” Billy took a puff and blew out smoke.

She frowned.

He leaned forward and whispered, “They were going to have to put him down.”

Billy nodded and puffed on his cigar again, smiling. Scoot came out and started to oh and ah over the dog. Razor wagged his tail more and began to run in happy circles.

Sue sat and contemplated, A lot bigger that I wanted of course, but he seems friendly enough, so…. She left Scoot with her dad and went to the pet store to get pet food.

#

 

The next few weeks proved to be more eventful than Sue had expected. Razor ate a lot of food, left massive poops and started to dig up the backyard. Sue got a shovel to pooper scoop and even Billy Bob helped with some of the cleanup. Problems started when Scoot let Razor in the house.

Sue discovered this when she found her best camera on the floor of the living room. It had been chewed to bits. The bite marks went through both the leather case and into the metal. She picked up the camera and looked at it with amazement. Incredible.

The digging in the back yard continued as Razor systematically destroyed all the landscaping. Sue shook her head. Both house cats were hiding under her bed and would only come out to eat and use the litter box. Sue kept assuring them that the dog was just a puppy. Neither were buying it.

The piece de resistance came about the second month of dog ownership. The next-door neighbors, Bill and Joan Barnett were ‘house proud’ as some would say. A retired couple, their house and their yard were their castle.

Although Sue had been over several times for coffee, the pair had never invited her into the sancto-sanctorum, the backyard pool. Sue tried to have no hard feelings over this. Instead, she choose to not complain and maintain good neighbor relations. It had not been a good week, dog-wise. Razor had gotten into Sue’s closet and managed to find not one, but two pairs of new leather shoes. He chewed up one shoe of each pair. Then, somehow, who knew how, he got out the gate and started to bark at the mailman and chase him down the block. The man was terrified, and Sue was still not sure there wasn’t going to be a formal complaint. Good God, what next?

What next came the very next week with an ominous knock on the front door. Sue was home alone working in her office. Hearing the knock, she went and peeked through the spy hole. It was her next-door neighbor, Bill. This was not a good sign. He never came over. She opened the door cautiously.

“Sue, you got a new dog?” Kind of a question, of course, he already knew the answer.

“Well, yes, Bill, my ex brought him over for Scoot….”

“Sue, that dog crawled over the fence and got into my back yard and started tearing stuff up.”

“I, I, ah…” Sue stuttered. He got over the fence? Unbelievable, it’s five feet high!

“Sue, here’s the thing,” Bill peered at her with a maniacal gleam in his eye. Bill was an old union guy retired from the local brewery. “That dog gets into my yard one more time, I’m going to shoot him. Then I will drag his cold, dead carcass over here and leave him on your front yard.”

She stared at Bill, open-mouthed.

“Ya get me, Sue?”

She nodded dumbly.

“Good, I am so glad we understand each other.”

With that, Bill turned on his heel and stomped back home.

Sue closed the door softly and went back to her office, slumped in her chair, staring into space.

#

 

“Billy, it’s Sue.”

“Yeah, Sue girl. What’s up?”

“The dog has to go, Billy.”

“Go, go where? Where should he go?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. You brought him here, you take him back.”

“But, but, I told you what was going to happen to him….”

“Don’t give me any more information, Billy, come and get the dog.”

#

“But where did Razor go Mom?” Scoot looked at her mom with beseeching eyes.

“Your dad had to take him back Scoot, where he got him. I’m sorry, the people wanted him back,” Sue lied. Scoot looked like she was going to tear up. “But,” Sue added quickly, “look at this.” She opened her computer screen to a site and pointed to a picture. It was a picture of a little, black puppy with curly hair.

“Look Scoot, he is a little older now, but not much and the lady is willing to sell him to us. A little cocker spaniel. Just our kind of dog.”

“Really?” Scoot looked open-mouthed at the picture. “When do we get him?”

“We go pick him up this weekend. And I will let you pick out a name. What do you think it will be?”

Scoot got serious and thought hard.

“Would it be okay if we called him Razor too?”

Sue laughed with relief.

“If that would make you happy, we’ll call him whatever you want.”

The two sat and looked at more pictures of prize cockers. She marked the calendar in big letters,

Pick up Razor!!!!!!

 

The end.

 

cew

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I made a batch of blueberry muffins. The fat, blueberries oozing their juicy goodness through the muffin as the tops rose and turned a light golden brown.

Taking the muffins out of the tin, I enjoyed them for breakfast several days. A pat of butter on a hot bun served on a clean white plate. Morning coffee in a white china cup; a special dark roast blend, slightly bitter, the way I like it.

As the muffins dwindle down, unfortunately, they start to become a little tough. At that point, I peel off the muffin paper and take them out to the yard and throw them as far as I can. This is to get them away from the cat. In a flash, Muffin squirrel is down the tree and sussing out the muffin. Although one landed behind a bush, his little nose vibrates with smells and he finds it.

First tearing a bit off, he moves back to the grass to nibble it down. Going back, he gets another bit to eat and another. Pretty soon he has moved the remainder of the muffin to the grass. He continues to nibble until it is smaller and carrying size. At that point, the whole thing is in his mouth and he scampers up his tree.

Oops! The muffin falls. No worry, he is back down again, grabs it and hurries back up the tree. I laugh watching this, finish my cup of coffee and go back inside. Sam, the cat, is looking at me from the hallway trying to decide what is going on.

Sam goes outside on a regular basis and spends a great deal of time watching the squirrels. Muffin squirrel, like his brothers, is a fat, little brown thing with a big fluffy red tail. In the depths of his primeval cat mind, Sam seems to know he should be doing something about these smaller, fuzzy creatures. But he is not exactly sure what. Muffin is no fool and so far, is faster than Sam. As soon as Sam shows up, Muffin is up the tree chattering at him.  Sounds like a taunt.

One day last week, I had been on a bread/toast run for several days and had not made any muffins. On the tree in front of the glass slider, Muffin squirrel paused looking directly at me. He started chattering. The tone clearly indicated I was falling down on the job because no muffins had been forthcoming. I was duly chastened and got blueberries out to thaw.

Yesterday I was surprised to see something grey moving on the porch. I got closer. It was a grey squirrel. What was it doing on the porch? To my horror, Sam suddenly appeared on the top of the banister and pounced. There is an escape hatch at the bottom of the banister and grey squirrel escaped through there. Later, I told Sam I didn’t want any squirrels coming home for dinner. He looked nonplussed and gazed out into middle distance. Doubtful Muffin squirrel would have allowed himself to be so cornered.

Sam and the squirrels continue their dance. So far, squirrels are ahead. I have done my duty with Muffin squirrel and maybe he’ll leave me alone for a few days. A girl can only do so much, you know?

 

 

cew

 

5 things all unfaithful people regret after they cheat
No matter how or when infidelity occurs, there are a few things that all cheaters regret.
Mariel Reimann Jun 01, 2017

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No matter how infidelity occurs, there are things that the cheater always regrets. Here are at least five things that these people regret after they have a romance outside of their marriage or relationship:

1. Not realizing what they had before
Cheaters are egocentric people who put their desires above anyone else’s. They have no problem putting everything on the line for something they want. No matter what sort of relationship they are in, they tend to find a new “target,” and go for it.

“I knew I loved her, but I had no idea how deep my feelings for her were when I decided to be unfaithful to her,” a 29-year-old man explains in an open letter to an infidelity specialist. People who are unfaithful regret not realizing how much they loved their partner.

2. Feeling like they need to be unfaithful to be wanted
People who cheat are egocentric, but behind the façade is great insecurity. This person is someone who previously used seduction as a tool to measure their acceptance. They lack confidence when they aren’t actively involved in a romantic “chase” for affection.

They dream of falling in love with someone and being able to stop feeling like they need to seduce someone to know their value. These people fall in love, but they have an innate “need” to know that they are still irresistible. This is when they start to feel tempted.

3. Not confessing their infidelity (or not being able to control it)
One of the most common traits in people who are unfaithful is that they think they can control everything. They think that if they cover it well enough, no one will see it.

In the previous letter to the infidelity specialist, the man explains, “I had almost completely forgotten about this event until one day, I was napping at my girlfriend’s house and she woke me by slapping me across the face.”

She had discovered his infidelity, and she wasn’t happy. After a while, they were able to resolve the issues and get back together, but her trust for him wasn’t the same as before.

4. What they’ve done will deprive them of freedom

People who cheat love freedom, and infidelity can be a way of using that freedom in their eyes. However, when one partner is unfaithful, the other will never give them the freedom or trust they once had.

This leads to future partners being unable to trust them, and leads to a life of imprisonment instead of freedom.

5. How much pain they caused their loved one because of their mistake
The chances of living happily ever after once an affair is discovered isn’t likely, but it’s possible. Statistics show that only 31% of marriages last after the affair has been discovered or admitted to.

People who are unfaithful to their partners regret causing their loved one so much pain and heartache. Even if the couple decides to stay together, it’s very hard for them to have a trust-based, happy relationship.

If you’re thinking about cheating, just don’t do it. You have everything to lose
This article has been adapted and translated from the original “5 cosas de las que TODOS los INFIELES se ARREPIENTEN luego de traicionar” which was originally published on familias.com.

Mariel Reimann
Mariel Reimann is the content manager for familias.com. She studied law at the National University of Cordoba and currently resides in Salt Lake City, Utah.