By Christy Barritt

Dating Preferences in 2014

The “2014 State of Dating in America” report was released in January. The study, done by the online dating communities Christian Mingle and JDate, highlighted some interesting new insights into modern dating.

Their findings showed that poor hygiene was the number one deal breaker for both men and women in dating someone. For women, unemployment followed hygiene as another red flag. For men, smoking and being overweight made it onto their top three turnoffs.

Other facts that came to light through the survey included that singles don’t want to be asked out via text message; the most attractive attribute for most singles looking for mates is a sense of humor, followed by physical appearance; the average age people want to get married is between 26-30; and everyone seems confused about what constitutes a date.

“Tidal Wave” of Cancer Coming?

The World Health Organization released a new report on cancer rates around the world and warned of an incoming “tidal wave” of the disease that will be a human disaster.

The report said that the number of cancer cases is expected to increase by 70 percent over the next two decades. Researchers at the WHO based their findings on the latest trends of cancer incidence and mortality worldwide.

One of the report’s writers said that prevention and early detection was crucial in combating the disease.

Their findings, published in the World Cancer Report 2014, warned that most of these cases are expected to occur in third world countries where there is a lack of early detection.

The report also revealed that the most common cancers in the world diagnosed in 2012 were: lung at 13 percent, breast at 11.9 percent, and large bowel at 9.7 percent.

Facebook vs. the Bible

An article by the online news magazine The Blaze analyzed numbers and compared the percentage of people using Facebook to the percentage of people reading the Bible on a daily basis.

The results showed that more Americans check Facebook daily than read their Bibles by a large percentage.

Facebook, which turned 10 this year, currently has 757 million daily users, 143 million of those residing in the U.S. and Canada. More than 40 percent of Americans say they use the social networking site on a daily basis.

In contrast, a CBS News poll found that of the 267 million adults living in the U.S., only 40 million claim to read their Bibles every day. This breaks down to only 15 percent of U.S. adults.

Another poll by the Barna Group last year found that 26 percent of Americans claim to read their Bibles four or more times each week.

America as Eleven Nations

Colin Woodard, a reporter and author of several books, is claiming that America is no longer united and no longer truly made up of 50 states. In fact, he divided North America into 11 separate nations. He did this by examining dominant cultures, voting behaviors, and public opinion polls. Woodard laid out his theory in a new book called American
Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

He broke down the continent into: Yankeedom (the Northeast), New Netherland (New York City), The Midlands (the Midwest), Tidewater (coastal regions of Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, and Delaware), Greater Appalachia (West Virginia through the Smoky Mountains and into northwest Texas), The Deep South (from Southeast Texas over to South Carolina, including most of Florida), El Norte (Southwest Texas and the border region), The Left Coast (the coastal edge of California, Oregon, and Washington), The Far West (the Great Plains), New France (area around New Orleans), and First Nation (the Arctic North of Canada and Alaska).

Christy Barritt is an award-winning author, freelance writer, and speaker living in Chesapeake, Virginia. She and her husband Scott have two sons.
www.christybarritt.com