Trends in Life Expectancy by Continent and Gender

As some may guess, a trend becomes apparent when dividing life expectancy by continent. North America and Australia boast the highest average range of life expectancy. By contrast, sub-Saharan Africa has among the lowest in the world. Gender is another determinant. In nearly all countries, women outlive men. Country of residence does not appear to influence the gap in life expectancy between the sexes and seems to be consistent throughout the world, although some exceptions exist. For the sake of simplicity, the average of both sexes will be used for comparison.

Life Expectancy in the United States

The most recent data from the CIA Factbook, which publishes life expectancy figures for more than 200 countries, reveals that people living in the United States have one of the highest life expectancies per capita in the world, at 78.37 years for both men and women. Residents in the U.S. have access to some of the best nutrition, health care and quality of life than the majority of the world’s countries. While this information is hardly surprising, there are a few very interesting exceptions.

1. Canada and Mexico

   Comparing the United States to two of it’s nearest neighbors, a slight, but distinct division in average life expectancy is seen. To the north, Canada boasts a longer average life span than the U.S. at 81.38 years, while Mexico, to the south, is lower, at 76.47 years.

2. South America

   Interestingly, the southern countries of South America, particularly Argentina and Chile, all have a higher life expectancy than the northern countries—76.95 and 77.7 years, respectively. Brazil, the largest country by area, has a life expectancy of just 72.53. Bolivia, just north of Argentina, has an average life span of just 67.57 years.

3. European Union

   Citizens living in the 27 countries of the European Union (EU) have an average life span of 78.07 years, which is slightly below the average for the United States. However, individual countries within the EU can range several years longer or shorter. For example, Italy boasts a life expectancy of 81.77 years, while Latvia (a country in the Baltic States of Slavic Europe) has an expected life span that is significantly lower—72.68 years.

4. Russia

   The people of Central and Eastern Europe seem to have a longer life expectancy as a whole than those who live in nearby Russia and the Middle East. Central and Eastern European countries seem to be influenced by proximity, even if they are not members of the EU. The expected life span of the population in Norway is 80.20 years; Bosnia and Herzegovina is 78.81 years. In stark contrast, Russia shows a significantly lower expected life span of 66.29 years, while just to the south, Kazakhstan is significantly higher, at 73.8 years. Nearby Uzbekistan is 75.4 years.

5. China and India

   The Asian continent has a diverse range of life expectancies, depending on the country. There are a number of factors that play into this, many of which are speculation. China is the largest country in Asia and the most populated country in the world. Despite its wide gap between the rich and the poor, the average life expectancy of 74.68 years is much higher than average and not far below that of people in the United States. Although India is second in population, it is much smaller. This, combined with a number of economic and social factors, influence India’s expected life span of only 66.80 years.

6. North and South Korea

   The differences between North and South Korea are startling. Korea was a single country until 1948, after which the Korean War separated the two countries by more than just a border. North Korea closed itself off from the rest of the world, which makes getting accurate data difficult. However, educated accounts estimate the life expectancy as 68.89 years and indicate that the quality of life for North Koreans is much lower than South Koreans, who live an average of 79.05 years.

7. Middle East

   An interesting development arises when looking at the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is one of the most highly developed countries in the world, with advanced health care, access to good food and a very high standard of living. However, the average life expectancy is lower than that of the United States, at 74.11 years. One of the richest countries in the Middle East, the small kingdom of Brunei, has a life span of just 76.05 years for its citizens, which makes the argument against the opinion that mere wealth of a country contributes to life span.

   Another stark contrast is the wide gap between citizens in Israel and the Gaza Strip. Perhaps due to protracted economic sanctions over many years, Gazans live an average of 73.92 years. Israelis, on the other hand, live to an average of 80.96 years, likely the result of regular support and protection by the United States and other friendly countries.

8. Africa

   The African continent seems to suffer from the lowest average life expectancy of any other continent on earth. Widespread famine, near-constant political strife and a large-scale AIDS pandemic are chief factors in these figures. This continues to be the case when looking into individual countries. The majority of countries in sub-Saharan Africa have a life expectancy of less than 60 years. Kenya’s citizens average 59.48 years and Sudan’s are at 55.42 years. Many others have averages below 50 years. Zimbabwe is 49.64; South Africa is 49.33 years. North African countries seem to fare better than most other countries on the continent. People living in Egypt live around 72.66 years, and those in Libya live 77.65 years on average.

Lowest and Highest

Unsurprisingly, the country with the lowest life expectancy on earth is in the African continent. The Republic of Angola, on the southwestern coast of Africa, has the dubious distinction of having the lowest life expectancy of just 38.76 years. A number of causes, including regular political unrest, are only part of the problem. A high infant mortality rate, rampant virulence of a number of diseases, including AIDS, tuberculosis and a host of other factors, as well as a generally poor population, play a large part in this dire figure.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the tiny Principality of Monaco is the country with the longest-lived citizens in the world, with an average of 89.73 years. Second only to Vatican City as the smallest international territory in the world, Monaco is famous for being the home of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace Kelly. While Prince Rainier died in 2005 shortly before his 82nd birthday, a large portion of Monaco’s citizens enjoys a longer life span. This may be due to the very high quality of life, an unemployment rate of virtually zero percent and a high-quality state-run education system.

There is a kind of unwritten rule among writers that you don’t criticize colleagues’ work too harshly, because they understand just how hard it is to produce great pieces. And yet, over the years handfuls of famous writers have taken huge exceptions to this rule, often with harsh but hilarious results. Some of them expressed their opinions in letters that have been included in their biographies, and who knows if they intended for the world to know of them. Either way, of the ones that are out there for all of us to enjoy, here are 10 of the best literary smack-downs ever recorded.

1. "Have you ever heard of anyone who drank while he worked?"

   Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner are two titans of American fiction, but apparently they weren’t each other’s biggest fans. When an interviewer asked Hemingway if it was true he brought along a pitcher of martinis to his writing area, he replied, "You’re thinking of Faulkner. He does sometimes — and I can tell right in the middle of a page when he’s had his first one." For his part, Faulkner said of Hemingway, "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”

2. "A formless and dull mass of phony folklore, a cold pudding of a book, a persistent snore in the next room, most aggravating to the insomniac!"

   Vladimir Nabokov is no hack writer. Two of his works are listed on the Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels list. So when, in a 1967 interview, he decided to give his two cents on writing legend James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, it was no surprise that he did it quite expressively. "Finnegans Wake‘s façade disguises a very conventional and drab tenement house, and only the infrequent snatches of heavenly intonations redeem it from utter insipidity."

3. "Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’."

   You know it’s a good put-down when it prompts the recipient to sue you. That’s exactly what Lillian Hellman did when author and critic Mary McCarthy dropped that line on her on national television. Hellman sued for libel to the tune of $2.5 million, quite a sum in 1979. Unfortunately for her, by filing the suit McCarthy then had to prove Hellman had lied in her memoirs. When Hellman died before the case ended, McCarthy said, "I didn’t want her to die. I wanted her to lose in court."

4. "It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death."

   Mark Twain’s insults could make a list in themselves, but he was particularly unfond of author Jane Austen. Twain claimed in a letter to a friend that he could read James Fennimore Cooper (another writer he famously loathed) "on salary," but not Austen. In another letter he said reading Pride and Prejudice made him wish he could "dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."

5. "A sack of the sheerest trash"

   Thomas Carlyle was a popular writer in the Victorian era, noted for his retained Calvinism despite his abandoned faith. The combination made for a man Samuel Butler quipped had fortunately married the perfect woman so that there would be two miserable people instead of four. But fellow Victorian writer Anthony Trollope had a much harsher take on Carlyle’s work, saying the eight shillings he had spent on Carlyle’s book were "very much thrown away." Carlyle’s "trash" was proof to Trollope that the man "who was always in danger of going mad in literature … has now done so."

1. "A more sententious, holding-forth old bore, who expected every hero-worshipping adenoidal little twerp of a student-poet to hang on his every word I never saw."

   Extra points to James Dickey for using the word "twerp" in his put-down. In an interview in 1972, the Deliverance author was asked if the poetry of Robert Frost, one of the most revered and well-known poets in American history, had impacted him. Dickey’s colorful response was that if anyone ever saw Frost’s influence on one of his poems, he would "take that particular work … shred it, and flush it down the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes."

2. "Is it all a practical joke?"

   Samuel Butler was an established author and translator in his own right, but in criticizing Johann Wolfgang von Goethe he took on one of the most well-respected writers in history. Forty years after Goethe’s death, Butler wrote that he had been reading one of Goethe’s works and that he thought it was "the very worst book" he had ever read." "I cannot remember a single good page or idea," he said. "Is it all a practical joke?"

3. "That’s not writing, that’s typing."

   Jack Kerouac spoke to a generation of Americans with his writing in books like On the Road. His style of prose was free flowing and unfettered and appealed to young people at a time when they were tired of feeling restricted by society. But Kerouac’s prose was apparently a little too loose to suit Truman Capote, the rock-star author of In Cold Blood. Capote’s clever zinger implied he thought what he did and what Kerouac did were two different professions.

4. "My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand."

   Shakespeare is a sacred cow in literature today, but he had his detractors in his own time. One of those was the poet and playwright Ben Jonson, who wrote several popular satires and had a wide influence on the genre. It seems Jonson was considered to be on the slow side when it came to writing plays, and he may have slightly resented Shakespeare’s ability to churn them out. "I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out line," Jonson said in his book Timber, or Discoveries. "My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand."

5. "One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing."

   Hopefully you’ve already read Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop, because this quote contains a spoiler. "Little Nell" is the heroine of the story, a young girl whose parents have died and whose only family in the world is her grandfather who raises her. Sadly, little Nell dies after a long journey to a village to live with her grandfather as beggars. Sad, of course, unless you’re Oscar Wilde, the notorious wit and author of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Apparently he wasn’t "buying" the tragedy of the story.

1. Numbnut

   Poor Sameer Mishra has gone down in history for one of the funniest spelling bee moments ever. At the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2008, he was assigned the word "numnuh," which sounds surprisingly similar to "numbnut," a word we’re betting Mishra was not expecting to have to spell. Fortunately, it only takes a definition and a repetition of the pronunciation to spark recognition in Mishra’s brain, but that priceless moment when he thought he was going to have to spell "numbnut" on national TV makes this one of the best spelling bee flubs of all time, made even better by the fact that by surviving the "numnah" round, Mishra was able to go on and win the grand prize.

2. Negus

   Like Sameer Mishra, Andrew Ley is another victim of word that sounds quite similar to something you’d really not want to say, much less spell, on national TV. Ley was assigned the word "negus," which when pronounced, sounds a lot like a derogatory word. Ley’s nerves are quite evident in this video, and as he stalls with the definition and origin, you can just see the disbelief and fear working in his mind as he hopes he really doesn’t have to spell a hateful word to win the spelling bee. Several deep breaths and scrunched, uncomfortable faces later, Ley does find the right spelling, dodging an incredibly offensive national incident. The shock and disbelief is apparent both in his actions and the reaction of the audience.

3. Sardoodledom

   What happens if you’re given a hilarious word during a spelling bee? If you’re lucky like this contestant, everyone laughs along with you as you’re barely able to get the words and letters out to spell it. Follow along as the contestant and judge both say "sardoodledom" over and over again, keeping a (mostly) straight face in the process. The kid makes it even sweeter by pulling out all the stops, asking for not just a definition and sentence, but also language of origin, alternate pronunciations, and part of speech, resulting in moment upon hilarious (and slightly uncomfortable) moment. Incredibly, he does eventually get it right, and books it back to his chair to collapse in laughter.

4. Feeling faint

   In 2004, speller Akshay Buddiga put on an incredibly smooth performance. He was asked to spell the word "alopecoid," after which he promptly passed out. The crowd was shocked, but just moments later, Buddiga calmly stood up again, and without any reference to the shocking moment that just happened, went on to spell the word correctly and walk off like he wasn’t just on the floor five seconds ago. But perhaps the incident did shake him a bit: Buddiga did not win the spelling bee, coming in at a still-impressive second place.

5. Chinook, as spelled by Napoleon Dynamite

   Sometimes the crowd is with you, sometimes they just don’t get the joke. For Dominic Ranz Ebarle Errazo, the latter was true, as he briefly impersonated Napoleon Dynamite in a stunt that we’re sure sounded hilarious to the 13-year old and his buddies. But his joke fell flat, catching only a subdued reaction, after which he quickly got serious and moved on to save face. Listen carefully to hear one woman who just doesn’t get it ask, "is that a secret message?"

6. Euonym

   Not exactly a flub, but wildly entertaining nonetheless, the final word that 1997 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion Rebecca Sealfon had to spell was a moment to remember. As she realized that she could easily spell the word "euonym" and claim her victory, Sealfon began to scream the letters aloud in a very dramatic, even funny fashion, as the audience and announcer laughed along with her.

7. Speling Bee

   Occasionally, it’s clear that the adults in charge just don’t have it together as well as the kids do. Dallas student Emily White offers a great example of this sad but true fact, as the spelling bee champion’s certificate was misspelled. Instead of noting her certificate of recognition with the "Dallas County Spelling Bee," hers was printed without the second "l" in spelling, reading "Dallas County Speling Bee." White posted her certificate on Facebook to share with friends, and the image spread throughout the Internet and news outlets. After the error was brought to light, White was issued a corrected certificate, and she wrote a letter of apology to her school district for attracting so much negative attention.

   

8. Spellling bee trophies

   Poor Emily White is not alone in her suffering. Students at Viewmont Elementary in Murray, Utah spotted an embarassing typo on their spelling bee trophies: instead of Emily White’s missing "l," they had entirely too many, three "l"s where there should be two, with "Spellling Bee" where "Spelling Bee" should have been. Third place winner Kevin Bailey says, "It’s funny ’cause I won this ’cause of spelling, and it has a spelling error on it." Unlike White, the boys in Utah are apparently keeping their misspelled trophies intact. One winner said that he prefers it this way: "I don’t want it spelled correctly ’cause it’s pretty cool, and it got me on the news."

   

9. How do you spell that?

   Contestants who are unsure (and even some who are sure) of words can ask a number of questions when given a word to spell, from the definition of the word to its country and language of origin. With so many questions available to them, it sometimes seems like the only one missing is "How do you spell that?" Katherine Morrison Seymour pulls out all the stops and actually does ask that question, seemingly in jest, sparking laughter from the audience and judge. The judge doesn’t miss a beat, though, responding, "I wish I could tell you." Unfortunately, answering the question would have been helpful for Seymour, as she ultimately got the spelling of "incunabula" incorrect.

10. Hechsher

    At the 79th Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2006, a rare error was made in the spelling of a word on the judges’ word lists. The mistake was made on the word "hechsher," which was incorrectly listed on the judges’ word list as "hechscher." In Round 8, participant Saryn Hooks correctly spelled the word, but was eliminated due to the incorrect spelling on the word list. Fortunately, the mistake was caught in time, and Hooks was reinstated. And it’s a good thing: Hooks went on to win third place in the competition.

    

11. Spelling bee smartass

    In 2007, Evan O’Dorney took the grand prize in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and was interviewed live by Michelle Hackman on CNN American Morning to discuss his achievement. We’re sure Hackman was expecting an easy interview, with lowball questions about how he felt, what homeschooling is like, and similar small talk. But O’Dorney is clearly not impressed by the attention and most of her questions fall flat. Even an attempt to have him spell a word blows up in Hackman’s face as she can’t pronounce it correctly, or give O’Dorney the language of origin he’s looking for. This is easily the most uncomfortable video we’ve shared, but it’s funny nonetheless to watch a young smartass at work on live national television.

1. Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli

   Before Forrest Gump, there was Maniac Magee. You’d think a young-adult book about an orphaned kid who runs away would be all preachy and schmaltzy. Ok, it’s a little preachy. But Jerry Spinelli does not let the story descend into a lecture about the danger of running away. It’s easy-to-read, light fun about a neighborhood legend every kid wanted to be like in some way or other growing up.

2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

   An instant classic, Tree is in its eighth decade of publication and still as beloved as ever. Bright young lady Francie Nolan tries to find her place in the world after growing up with an alcoholic father with no money to send her to high school. The tree of the title is a Tree of Heaven that grows in an abandoned lot near Francie’s home and, like the protagonist, refuses to be cut down.

3. The Body by Stephen King

   Yes, Stand By Me was originally a novella; a Stephen King novella, no less. People that aren’t horror fans may not know King is an incredible writer, and he wrote The Body the same year as The Running Man, another classic. Here, four boys head off on a search for a dead body, and… Well, you’ve seen the movie.

4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

   Containing one of the most noble characters in all of American literature, Mockingbird is the story of a black man on trial for his life in rampant-racism Alabama in the Great Depression. Six-year-old Scout and her brother Jem lose their innocence as they witness first-hand the ugliness of racial hatred. Despite the weighty subject matter, Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning story is at times funny, heartwarming, and beautiful.

5. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

   You will cry when you read the end, or your heart is made of stone. Young Billy Coleman lives in the Ozarks, hunting with his prized coonhounds Old Dan and Little Ann. The two beloved dogs stick by him through thick and thin, his constant companions. And then, one fateful night, they encounter a mountain lion on a hunt and… Suffice it to say, where the red fern grows is between two graves. So sad!

6. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

   In a house desperately in need of some testosterone, four sisters grow up together in Civil War-time New England. There’s Jo the tomboy; Meg, the oldest and prettiest; Beth, the perennially ill; and Amy, the spoiled youngest. There’s ever so much drama over boys and going to parties, but if you were ever a young girl with sisters you’ll feel right at home reading this.

7. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

   It takes a special kind of work to satisfy readers for over 100 years. Mark Twain’s Great American Novel is the tale of Tom Sawyer’s pal who heads down the Mississippi River and all the colorful characters he runs into on the way. Overprotective school boards that ban this book overlook the fact that the main character is anti-racist, as was its author.

8. What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

   Realizing your parents do not have it all together is a major milestone on the road to adulthood. Fifteen-year-old Evie Spooner swoons for handsome vet Joe and yearns to be romanced and fall in love, but the painful realities of human relationships soon set in. Illicit affairs, murder trials, and terrible secrets fill this thriller sure to appeal to the young girl in you.

9. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

   Blanket statement: You can’t reach your full potential as a male unless you read Hatchet as a boy. Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson must survive a biplane crash in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but a windbreaker and a hatchet. In a veritable triumph of the American spirit, Brian conquers his fears, comes to grips with his parents’ divorce, and lives the wild and free life alone in the mountains that boys looked out of the classroom window and imagined.

10. The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

    There’s a title that screams "teenage girl." It’s the sixth title by chick-lit star Sarah Dessen, and many consider it her best yet. Heroine Macy bottles her sorrow over her dad’s death while "sa-woon"-ing over hunky coworker Wes. It’s a simple plot kept afloat by great dialogue, funny scenarios, and a realistic approach to Macy’s grief.

11. A Separate Peace by John Knowles

    You may be inclined to dog this book because some English teacher made you read it for class. Now might be a good time to give it another shot; maybe your literary taste buds have changed. To refresh your memory, this is the one about two polar-opposite young guys at a prep school in New England who strike up an unlikely bromance, until teenage jealousy drives them apart. Modern-day readers might find it on the slow side, but the rise and fall of their relationship is beautifully crafted through the mundanity of a student’s life.

1. Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years by Misha Defonseca

   This memoir took enthusiastic readers into the Warsaw ghetto and followed a broken young Jewish girl as she desperately searches for her forcibly estranged (killed?) parents. Along the way, she murders Nazis and comes of age amongst a pack of friendly wolves. Also? She never existed. Instead, Misha Defonseca burst forth from the imagination of Belgian author Monique de Wael, who grew up neither ethnically nor religiously Jewish. Both she and her lawyers confessed to Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years being a massive hoax, although the author flakily defended herself by claiming, "The book is a story, it’s my story. It’s not the true reality, but it is my reality. There are times when I find it difficult to differentiate between reality and my inner world." Um. Yeah. Totally a legitimate justification for exploiting the suffering of very real people for nothing more than self-aggrandizement. Except not really.

2. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

   A million little fracases splinted from this Oprah’s Book Club phenomenon when it came to light that the author was – surprise, surprise – just making all his l’il memoirs up. Like his spiritual successor Monique de Wael, James Frey proffered a flimsy excuse regarding how the overarching message completely transcends the fact that he lied about overcoming substance abuse and a criminal lifestyle. Code for…couldn’t hack it as a novelist and decided to manipulate Random House’s heartstrings into a sweet deal by pandering to public lust for redemption stories. The Smoking Gun figured out his less-than-zany scheme when attempting to dredge up his mug shot and ultimately finding nothing.

3. How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life by Kaavya Viswanathan

   It takes a special brew of stupidity and arrogance to completely rip off another bestselling author’s works and finagle it into an allegedly half-million dollar book deal. An aspirant young adult novelist at Harvard lifted at least a dozen passages from two Megan McCafferty books when submitting the manuscript to How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. Megan McCafferty, by the way, happens to be an exceptionally popular young adult author. Obviously the best woman to completely rip off, because who could EVER make a connection? Before her Ivy League contemporaries uncovered the deception, Kaavya Viswanathan harbored even more plans to just go and plagiarize her way back onto the bestseller list. She has yet to issue any statement regarding whether or not the meaning should completely override her egregious decision, though she did claim any similarities to an author she just loved so much was an homage. A subconscious homage that she um, didn’t really mean? And now she’s so sorry.

4. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

   Three Cups of Tea was a trendy new memoir (guess where this one’s going!) published in 2006 which, to its (only) credit, served as an antidote to the rampant Islamophobia in America. Greg Mortenson’s failed K2 ascent landed him alone and helpless in the tiny Pakistani city of Korphe. So touched was he by their kindness, he vowed to return someday and build a school educating both male and female children. He did, in fact, establish the Central Asia Institute to assist Korphe and other villages, but the origin story never happened. Stones into Schools followed the disputed bestseller, alleging Mighty Whitey Mortenson’s imprisonment by the Taliban. Which, surprise surprise, also proved a fabrication. In addition, his CAI draws considerable derision because so many of its expenditures go towards funding book promotions, tours, and lectures rather than…you know…the schools themselves. Many of which, by the way, either ended up as makeshift grain silos, received no funding after being built, ended up built and promptly left behind, or – most egregiously – were never built at all.

5. The Wild Blue by Stephen E. Ambrose

   Beloved popular historian Stephen Ambrose disappointed his impressive audience when Forbes and other periodicals noted a pattern of plagiarism. The Wild Blue and other well-received, accessible works stole complete chunks from the author’s less mainstreamly prominent, but still highly respected, contemporaries. Thomas Childers unknowingly contributed at least three passages to the bestselling nonfiction about B-52 Bombers in World War II. Meanwhile, Ambrose excused the findings as forgetting to properly cite his resources amidst an ever so grueling schedule. This claim fails to take into account why other bestsellers penned long before he hit it huge, such as D-Day, sported the exact same phenomenon.

6. Sarah by JT LeRoy

   Not even a year before Oprah found herself grappling against the Frey fiasco, another one of her Book Club authors emerged as a shameless huckster. Or perhaps a super savvy performance artist using literature as a commentary on society’s penchant for sordid tales of teenage prostitution and drug addiction? Probably the former. Author Laura Albert created the character – not just pen name – of JT LeRoy, a West Virginian who hightails it to California as an adolescent and winds up vagrant within its seedy back alleys, paying for highs with whoredom. The fact that this celebrated writer rarely appeared in public and only granted interviews over the phone added to his allure, resulting in his semi-"autobiographical" novel (not memoir) Sarah. Starting with New York magazine’s Stephen Beachy, journalists and literary critics began digging into the reality of JT LeRoy, eventually unearthing the real culprit and her many accomplices; Savannah Koop was revealed as the reserved figure stepping out when a warm body was needed to fill in the author’s chair. Albert went on to lose $350,000 to Antidote International Films, who owned the rights to Sarah and sued her for fraud. On a more saddening note, she conceived of the character as a means of working through her own personal issues with gender identity, sexual assault, homelessness, and prostitution, factors she couldn’t bring herself to work through using her real name and history.

7. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

   Unlike some of the other books listed here, The Secret‘s lauding of the bilious chyme of pseudoscience known as the "law of attraction" couldn’t lose any of its credibility, seeing as how it (debatably) lacked any in the first place. Put simply, this mindset touts that anything anyone wants is within reach if only they want it hard enough, because working for anything is hard. Also? If anything bad happens to someone, it means they obviously deserved it. That includes, of course, victims of rape and sexual assault, child/domestic/intimate partner violence, mental/physical/emotional abuse, famine, genocide, and more! According to Rhonda Byrne and other New Age automatons promoting the "law of attraction" these things happen because those on the receiving end think negative thoughts and draw horrible actions to them as a result (curiously enough, Oprah, herself a survivor of childhood rape, is almost singlehandedly responsible for the travesty’s success).

8. The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter

   Forrest Carter fearlessly channeled his own life into a wildly popular semi-autobiographical novel about survival as a Cherokee at a time when interest in Native American rights and perspectives began emerging. He claimed to be a cowboy of Cherokee blood with a passion for social justice issues and enough drive to teach himself how to read and write. Which would be undoubtedly worthy of applause where he not actually a thorough ruse by proud, avowed Klansman Asa Gardner – who just happened to write Alabama governor George Wallace’s wrenching, disgusting "Segregation now…Segregation tomorrow…Segregation forever" speech. Dan T. Carter with The New York Times discovered the hoax in 1991, after three decades of The Education of Little Tree enjoying its status as a mainstay of indigenous literature. Since the real author retreated from the public eye long before the book’s publication and his eventual passing, nobody’s exactly sure what to make of his deception. Theories range from an earnest, if misguided, attempt to renounce the racism characterizing his earlier life to, more frighteningly, the first step in a desire to subvert the movement from the inside. Some even posited he might have been channeling memories of a Native American relative, but his brother shot that down by saying they never grew up with any.

9. Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

   Memoirs, as one can easily ascertain, inspire far more scrutiny than their fictional and partly-fictional counterparts. For good reason, of course. In 2007, previously scandal-free Augusten Burroughs wound up sued by the Turcotte family, who adopted him as a teen after his mother abandoned him into their care. Their libel suit railed against depictions in Running with Scissors, particularly involving the allegedly nasty conditions in which they kept their home, the matriarch’s fondness for consuming canine treats, and – most controversially – their allowing children and adolescents to engage in sexual congress with adult paramours. Some pretty nasty accusations eventually laid to rest once Burroughs agreed to a $2 million settlement, though he continues insisting he never embellished or fabricated anything in the book.

10. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

    The Da Vinci Code never hit shelves as anything but a fluffy escapist thriller novel, but author Dan Brown still elicited significant controversy by claiming the history, art, architecture, and theology behind it were painstakingly researched and very, very true. Experts in all fields, however, picked apart everything from the number of glass panes at the Louvre (he claimed 666, reality says 673) to Opus Dei’s clergy structure (it doesn’t have one, but ordains monks in the book). And pretty much everything else Brown bragged about studying in depth and obviously didn’t. Theologians and historians especially noted that many of the sources he cited as showing thorough and irrevocable proof that the Catholics were hiding something were debunked years (if not decades or centuries) before, though they do concede to some degree that all major organizations throughout history have their secrets. Probably not as massive and egregious as the ones featured in the novel, though. Instead of exploding as some edgy, world-changing tell-all like the author intended, The Da Vinci Code eventually faded away as little more than the conspiracy theories of a real-life Dale Gribble whose abysmal research skills would only barely cut it at Fox News.

1. Excessively flattering offers

   Who doesn’t like to have their ego stroked now and then? While it can be a great self-esteem boost, when it’s coming from a publisher you might want to beware. Unscrupulous publishers may be using this as a method to manipulate you and are trying to butter you up in order to gain your business. While your writing may indeed by great and you may really deserve to be published, legit publishers won’t bother with all the flattery. Regard excessive flattery as a red flag and avoid companies that try to compliment you into doing business with them.

2. Promises that are too good to be true.

   If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is," is an adage that holds as true for self-publishing as it does for other aspects of life. Some self-publishers may promise you that they can get your book into every bookstore in America, which sounds great and may prompt you to pay more to go with this company. The thing is, this promise doesn’t mean much of anything. Your book won’t be stocked on the shelves of most bookstores but will merely be available to order should customers request it. Not so great now, huh?

3. Copyrighting tricks

   Is your self-publisher harping on how hard and expensive it is to get an ISBN number for your book and a copyright? They’re probably scamming you if they offer to help you with those details for a fee. In fact, it’s actually quite simple to get both of these and shouldn’t cost more than $160 for both. You can purchase an ISBN from the agency directly (and depending on the type of book you’re writing, you may not even need an ISBN at all) and you automatically own the copyright to your work, but you can register it with the Library of Congress for a mere $35.

4. Crazy contracts

   If you can’t understand the contract a self-publishing company is presenting you with, there’s probably a reason they don’t want to make it easy for you. Never sign anything without understanding what it is you’re doing first. You may need to get a lawyer to look it over. Additionally, never be afraid to ask how and how much you’ll be paid before signing anything.

5. Suspect marketing

   If you’ve done any shopping around for self-publishers, you’ve probably come across a variety of all-inclusive packages that include editing, proofreading, sales, publicity, and shipping. Yet these extra materials and services may not do much for you at all and are often things you could easily do yourself for a fraction of the cost (or for free). These marketing materials very often include little other than press releases (which will likely end up in the garbage as they’re sent out en masse by just about every publisher) and a listing in a book catalog. You’d be better off contacting local papers, libraries, book clubs, and bookstores on your own and penning your own press release.

6. Vanity publishing

   Many self-publishers are what are referred to as "vanity publishers." They offer authors a chance to get their books in print for a fee and often advertise that they "need" more authors. Any legitimate company will never "need" more authors, as should be clear to anyone who’s ever tried to write a book. These companies charge unsuspecting authors to publish their work, often producing works that are poorly written, aren’t proofread, have terrible covers, and for all intents and purposes are virtually worthless. That is, to everyone except the publisher, who makes thousands of dollars from the author.

7. Guaranteeing success

   There is never a way to guarantee that a book will be successful, and you can assume anyone claiming otherwise is totally full of it. There is no way to get instant success, become an overnight star, or ensure that you’ll take this book to the top. It’s a risk, and it takes a lot of hard work and determination, no matter what a publisher will tell you. Real, legitimate publishers will never promise that your book will be a best-seller or will achieve any level of success. No one can promise that, and anyone who does is just looking to take your money.

8. Promises to make your book "available."

   While it might sound great that your book will be listed on Amazon and will be available to distributors, this is pretty much meaningless when it comes to your success as an author. First, anyone can list a book on Amazon. Secondly, most bookstores won’t touch publish-on-demand books. Why? Because they can’t be returned if they don’t sell. Most scammy self-publishing companies won’t offer distribution services, which usually means your book is pretty much dead in the water short of a miracle. Choose a publisher that will serve you well and can actually help you to get your work into a bookstore.

9. Editor services and referrals.

   If a self-publisher offers to edit your book for a fee or refers you to a specific (and often very expensive) editor, then you should be quite cautious that you might be getting scammed. Often, editing services provided by unscrupulous publishers are little more than spell check, and you can likely get editing services for far less money somewhere else. If you feel like you’re being ripped off, get a second opinion.

10. Offering discounts to authors for resale.

    It might seem great that a publisher would offer discounts on your books so that you can purchase them yourself and resell them, but this is usually a sign that a publisher is working you over for more money. Chances are pretty good that in most cases, you won’t be able to sell those books because they’ll be low quality or bookstores just won’t carry them. Additionally, these discounts aren’t available to retailers who might want to purchase the books, lowering their incentive to purchase the books as they won’t be able to make enough of a profit.

In practice, unschooling is child-centered and child-directed. Children organically glean and absorb educational and life lessons from everyday experiences. This can include playing a video game, watching television, performing household chores, creating craft projects, engaging in role-play activities, learning measurements by cooking, practicing the piano or visiting a recycling center. Adults serve as supporting characters, always nearby when needed, but never interfering or dictating.

The Origins of Unschooling

The revolutionary 18th century philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who believed education should be a byproduct of life experiences that allow children to develop morals and character, first propagated the unschooling philosophy. He also advocated for an educational system that was developmentally appropriate rather than age-based.

In 1921, progressive educator Alexander Sutherland Neill opened the Summerhill School. The British boarding school puts democratic power into the hands of the students, who determine the direction of their curricula and the social rules they live by. Still in operation, the school has repeatedly proven that freedom is self-motivating, not self-indulgent. This has been especially true for students who previously struggled in traditional classrooms.

Building upon these principles, in 1977, educator John Holt first coined the term unschooling in Growing Without Schooling, a home education publication read by an international audience. Through his newsletter, Holt promoted his thesis that the most effective way to maximize a child’s education was to replace conventional teaching, testing and grading methods with child-initiated activities that involves the exploration of activities and the pursuit of knowledge in subjects they are interested in learning more about.

As Holt famously once noted, "Since we cannot know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it in advance. Instead, we should try to turn out people who love learning so much, and learn so well, that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned."

Structure and Discipline

Due to its individualized nature, unschooling is a philosophy more than a technique. Unschooling, at its core, is a legal form of home education, yet its unique viewpoints and applications make it as estranged from homeschooling as it is from traditional public education. Unschooling gives children the freedom to learn through their natural life experiences, including play, work and social interactions, rather than strictly from books.

Critics pull out a long list of fears for children when they condemn unschooling, including the lack of opportunities to develop social skills, to prepare for the job market, to interact with authority figures and peers, as well as to be motivated to learn. Yet supporters say these concerns are unfounded. In fact, most unschoolers enter the real world with a natural curiosity for learning, as well as with abilities to learn about and adapt to anything.

There is little structure and discipline employed in unschooling since its very nature means that children learn through organic experiences as they go about their daily lives. Unschooling takes into consideration each child’s interests, passions, present needs, goals, pre-existing knowledge, learning style and maturity. Children are able to learn at their own pace based on their stage of development, rather than their age.

Parents or tutors serve as information facilitators, reference guides and life coaches. The limited help they provide in locating resources and setting goals tapers off as children grow older so that eventually their education is wholly self-led. Supportive resources come from a variety of online channels, including Unschoolers.com and the YouTube Unschooling Channel.

Of the roughly 2 million American students who are presently home schooled, approximately 10 percent follow unschooling principles. A few groups have applied the doctrines of unschooling to the classroom. The U.S. is home to nearly 30 Sudbury schools that have successfully implemented child-led education practices since 1968. As a children-led, democratic institution, students are able, but not obliged, to attend classes. They are not required to take tests, they do not receive grades and they spend the day studying what they want to learn.

Described by SudburySchooling.com as ”a scaled-down model of the real world,” students not only discover who they are, but they also learn how to work with others, overcome obstacles, independently solve problems, think critically and resolve conflicts. "This helps them become resourceful, articulate and mature," the website says.

It can seem like a novelty that people from all corners of the globe can communicate with each other and exchange information. But in important areas such as commerce, medicine and law enforcement, the ability to communicate on a global scale has helped to save lives, create jobs and offer opportunities to people that had not been available in the past.

As cultural barriers get broken down and more people are relying on technology, you need to start building up survival skills that will help keep up with our rapidly changing society. It is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid the invasive need for information, and that is causing a lot of people to have to adjust the way they approach life.

Adaptability

Everything in our world is changing. From our home life to the workplace, our increasingly diverse society is bringing together people from different cultures. Anyone who wants to be successful in the new global workplace needs to be able to adapt to working with and benefiting from other cultures.

But adapting in the 21st century does not just mean becoming tolerant of others’ beliefs and cultures. It also means being able to adjust to the rapidly changing face of technology. The Internet is a powerful communication medium that is constantly changing, and social networking is at the heart of it.

The ability to shift with the changes in social networking is important for private individuals as well as businesses. The newest platform that everyone uses to communicate could change in six months or less. If people want to stay in touch, and businesses want to maintain contact with clients, then we all need to adapt to the changes.

Don’t forget the constant changes in computer and mobile communication technology as well. If you want to use the newest handheld computing marvel, then you need to spend time adapting to how it works.

Collaboration

As communication and travel make people more accessible to each other, the idea of a global workplace becomes more of a reality. Video conferencing, overnight deliveries and jet travel have made it easier for people to work together on creating new ideas. That means that everyone needs to start adjusting to a more collaborative world.

But there is more to it than just working with other people to generate your information. Because collaboration is so easy to do, individuals are finding it increasingly necessary to collaborate with others to gain credibility. A more global attitude means that everyone needs to get used to collaborating with others to gain respectability and credibility.

Problem Solving

Have you noticed that your local radio station has almost completely stopped using trivia questions as a way to give away prizes? That is because the process of problem solving has changed completely in the 21st century. People can now find the answer to a trivia question within seconds thanks to the Internet. It has changed how people view the complexity of many things.

But have you also noticed that the radio station trivia question has been replaced with giving prizes to the person who is able to be the 10th caller? That has been the challenge that problem solving has offered us as a society. Just because we can access the answers quickly does not mean we are any smarter.

If you want to survive in the 21st century, then you need to understand the question as well as being able to solve the problem. The survival skill of being able to find credible solutions to problems is difficult to master when there are so many sources of information to choose from.

Patience

People underestimate the value of patience as a 21st century survival skill until they stop and realize how many contacts they make with others in the course of a day. Between phone calls, workplace contacts, Internet contacts and personal contacts, there are a lot of people to deal with in the course of a day.

But the added layer of Internet contact has created the need for even more patience. As the home computer becomes the central point of family life, the challenges of protecting the home computer become stressful.

The home computer holds important financial information, personal information and is the primary way that many people shop. Internet hackers, spyware, viruses and spam email all add stress to a person’s life. Developing patience helps people survive the added stress that an expanding Internet can cause.

Media Filter

Who is lying to us? Who is telling us the truth? It is an accurate statement to say that the truth is out there for us to find. As one of the more important 21st century survival skills, we all need to develop an effective media filter.

Because the 24-hour news networks and Internet blogs all need something new to keep people interested, the average person is now given several points of view on the same subject. The truth can often get buried in cleverly crafted lies that are designed to get you to think in a certain way. People who are surviving the 21st century are the ones that know how to look through the lies and find the truth.

Thick Skin

Are things really worse now than they were 50 years ago, or are we just exposed to more information these days? Every time you turn on the television you are shown images of violence in some part of the world or you have to endure the political bickering that can create sharp divides within our country.

If a person in the 21st century wants to learn about what is going on in the world, he first has to develop the thick skin necessary to get past all of the violence, political propaganda and bad news that exist today.

The expansion of the Internet and the existence of the 24-hour television news networks have made it difficult to find reliable information in the 21st century. As the world starts to feel like a smaller place, we all must develop a new set of survival skills that will help us to get on with our lives in this day and age of expanding technology and divisive propaganda.

As the case loads for every federal judicial district kept on growing, the backlog was causing a massive slow-down in the legal system. That is when the title of magistrate was created. While the role, and even official title, of magistrate has changed over the years, it is still regarded as an extremely important part of the American judicial system. Considering the caseload that magistrates oversee, it would be difficult to imagine the federal district court system without magistrate judges.

Description

A federal magistrate judge is an appointed officiate of the federal district court system. The full-time magistrate judge is appointed by the federal district court judge for a term of eight years. A part-time magistrate judge can be appointed by a federal district court judge for a term of four years, but the part-time magistrate is much less prominent than a full-time magistrate.

A magistrate judge can only work on cases assigned by the district judge, but a magistrate can preside over a jury or non-jury case. Magistrate judges can preside over any kind of case except for a felony. In the case of a felony, the magistrate judge is allowed to preside over pre-trial proceedings but cannot render any kind of final decision in a felony case.

A district judge must get approval from both parties involved in a case for the magistrate’s decision to be legally binding. Magistrates are required to be bar-certified and attend training that is created and administered by the U.S. District Court system. Training is held at a central location known as the Federal Judicial Center located in Washington, DC.

History

The genesis of the magistrate judge program came with the passing of the Federal Magistrates Act of 1968. Prior to the passing of the act, the federal court system was assisted by commissioners that did not report to any federal agency and not governed by a uniform set of rules.

The Magistrates Act was put on a trial run in a select number of districts before it was implemented nationwide in July 1971. Central administration of the magistrates program was given to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The initial duties of the magistrates were to preside over misdemeanor cases and assist district judges in the pre-trial activity for felony trials. In misdemeanor cases, the defendant had to agree to have the case heard by a magistrate instead of a federal judge before the magistrate could hear the case.

Throughout the 1970s, the role of the magistrate judge was refined by several new pieces of legislation. In 1976, magistrates were given the authority to preside over pre-trial motions and proceedings that applied to habeas corpus cases. In 1979, congress gave magistrates the power to preside over civil cases but only with the consent of both parties involved in the case.

The advantage to expanding on the powers of the magistrates was to help expedite the system and unload the backlog of cases that was being created. Instead of waiting months, or possibly years, for a civil case to be heard by a federal judge, lawyers from both sides could now get a case heard sooner by a magistrate.

The term “magistrate” was in effect from 1968 until 1990. Due the expansion of the duties of a magistrate, congress expanded the term to be known as “magistrate judge.” In addition to being able to preside over civil and misdemeanor cases, magistrate judges were also allowed to preside over pre-trial discovery proceedings for felony cases. The federal district judge would have to assign the case to a magistrate judge before the magistrate could proceed with discovery hearings.

The Judicial Conference of the United States works with the district judges to determine how many magistrate judges are needed in total and for each district. The individual appointments are left to the discretion of the federal district judges, but the central U.S. District Court offices must approve all appointments.

Some Numbers

As of 2011, there were a total of 527 full-time and 41 part-time magistrate judges. There are also three special four-year positions referred to as Clerk of the Court/Magistrate Judge in the United States federal court system.

For the year ending in September 2010, magistrate judges performed duties in 353,847 civil cases, 186,337 felony cases and 2,369 misdemeanor proceedings. Of those civil cases, 333 were trials with a jury and 171 were non-jury proceedings.

Breaking down the 2010 felony numbers shows us that 38,921 were pretrial felony case conferences that had been granted to magistrates in 1979. Evidentiary hearings made up 2,222 proceedings for magistrates in 2010.

Other miscellaneous numbers for magistrates in 2010 included 4,226 cases related to social security issues and the disposition of a total of 116,983 cases.

The federal district court system is an extremely busy organization that hears hundreds of thousands of cases every year. Prior to the creation of the organized magistrate judge system, district judges were forced to rely on patchwork of court commissioners. Since the full implementation of the magistrate system in 1971, district judges have been able to expedite the results of millions of cases that may have otherwise sat for years before being resolved.

While the concept of NCLB is a great one, it comes with a whole list of problems that can be seen as the core of why education standards in the United States are changing. To understand why failing is now passing in the United States, you need to understand what has changed in the funding of the education system that has driven states to lower their standards and sacrifice the quality of education for our children,

Big Government

It must first be said that the NCLB legislation was something that did not have be ratified by individual states. It was a federal program that was conceived by the president of the United States, debated on Capitol Hill and passed by the Congress. Why is that so significant? Because the states pay for education and the federal government is now dictating standards.

The federal government contributes nine cents for every dollar spent on education in the United States. But the NCLB act is a series of laws that every school system must meet in order to take part in state funding for schooling. The federal government offers some grants that help with testing of students and some other smaller programs to assist in improving results. But the states are forced to pick up the tab on every other part of the program. No one is complaining about the notion that the education system needs to be overhauled; the complaints come from the federal government pushing the costs to the states.

For example, if a school fails to meet education standards for state testing, then there is a series of programs and improvements the state must implement to bring the school up to standard. The state must pay to improve school conditions and then retest the students to make sure progress is being made.

The test grades for ethnic groups within school systems are separated out and if those scores fall below state mandated levels, then extra measures must be taken to correct the scores. The states are forced to pay for any extra teachers, materials or class time needed to make sure that no child is left behind. It sounds great in theory, but it is having a negative effect on the education of American children.

Our Standards

The National Assessment of Education Progress, or NAEP, is the standards that the federal government would like to see the states use to determine the abilities of American students. But, for the time being, the states are still allowed to dictate their own standards. Because the NCLB costs can be so high if a school fails the standard tests, reports are finding that states are lowering their standards to avoid a flood of failing grades. In some cases, the state standards in grading are between 30 to 40 percent lower than the federal standards. That means that states are lowering their standard test grading curves to prevent schools from failing the standard tests. Education levels are not rising; testing standards are falling.

What used to be considered failing just a few years ago is bordering on passing these days. It looks like math is the subject that is getting the most help while reading comprehension seems to not be falling at such a drastic rate.

One of the things being lost in the entire debate is the damage being done to the overall education of children in the United States. The NCLB act has its focus on mathematics and reading. When children begin to fall behind in those subjects, a significant amount of the state’s education budget is spent on bringing the schools back up to standards. But math and reading are not the only subjects being studied in schools.

The NCLB act covers children primarily in grades four through eight with periodic follow up on through the high school years. But very little provision is made for monitoring other education standards. Children are also engaged in studies involving history, politics, science and physical education. The NCLB standards make no provision for any of those subjects.

The result is that the bulk of a state’s education budget needs to be spent on analyzing and improving standard scores for math and reading while the rest of the educational progress suffers. Schools have their standards and testing for each of these other subjects, but the weight of importance is placed on math and reading. Children struggling in science, history or physical education can be left on their own to try and improve their progress as their school careers advance.

The priorities of the federal government can have a broad effect on the way our country views education. When the state governments are called on to meet federal standards with no federal financing, the ones that will suffer will be the students. Grades that were considered failing grades a few years ago are suddenly getting revisited as test scores are playing an important part of state and local education budgets.

Conclusion

The focus is no longer on educating children as much as it is on preventing state education budgets from going bankrupt. When the emphasis shifts so strongly towards assessment without thought of education, the end result is a generation of children that can memorize test answers but do not know how to think for themselves.