Primary Sources
Federal marshals behaving badly; the relationship between terrorism and bad driving; the surprisingly high divorce rate among born-again Christians
The first casualty of battle is the battle plan—or so goes a military maxim. And a new study suggests that the first casualty in a terrorist attack on an American city would be the civil-defense plan. Researchers at the New York Academy of Medicine told 2,545 randomly selected adults what they should do in the event of a terrorist-induced smallpox outbreak (go immediately to a vaccination center) or the detonation of a terrorist-delivered dirty nuclear weapon (find and remain inside an undamaged building). Then the researchers asked those people what they actually would do—with disquieting results. Only two fifths of the respondents said that they would follow instructions and go to a vaccination center; the remainder said that fears of vaccine side effects, and worry that they would contract smallpox amid the large crowds at a vaccination center, would keep them away. (Concern about side effects isn't unreasonable, since about 50 million Americans run the risk of serious complications from the smallpox vaccine.) Meanwhile, three fifths of the respondents said that in the event of a dirty-bomb attack they would follow instructions and remain in a building other than their home. Many said that unless they were able to verify that their loved ones were safe, they would leave the building to protect their families—an understandable urge, of course, but one that would expose them to a serious risk of radiation poisoning.
—"Redefining Readiness: Terrorism Planning Through the Eyes of the Public," New York Academy of Medicine
In the aftermath of 9/11 one step toward increased security seemed a no-brainer: more money and manpower for the Federal Air Marshal Service. And sure enough, the United States has dramatically expanded its force of marshals and increased the air-marshal budget more than a hundredfold, from $4.4 million in 2001 to $545 million in 2003. How much safer this makes you feel probably depends on whether you've leafed through a recent report from the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, which evaluated recent air-marshal hiring practices and conduct records. The report examined a review of 504 job applicants, all of whom had been approved and were scheduled to receive an offer of employment, and found that 161 had incidents in their records that should have raised a red flag (including misuse of government resources, and allegations of domestic abuse, drunk driving, or sexual harassment). With this in mind, it's hardly surprising to learn that from February of 2002 to October of 2003 there were 753 documented reports of misconduct by air marshals on duty. Among the improprieties: falling asleep, testing positive for drugs or alcohol, and having a weapon lost or stolen.
—"Evaluation of the Federal Air Marshal Service," Office of Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security
Terrorism strikes fear into society, but how, exactly, does that fear manifest itself? Perhaps in reckless driving. According to a team of researchers from Princeton University and Hebrew University, in Jerusalem, who analyzed Israeli traffic-accident data from an eighteen-month period, the number of fatal traffic accidents increased by 35 percent on the third day following an attack by Palestinian militants (and only on the third day; the effect disappears thereafter). The reason for this spike is unclear, since traffic volume diminishes in the days following a terrorist attack. Perhaps, the authors suggest, it's on the third day that many people attempt to resume their normal activities, even though they haven't psychologically recovered from the trauma. The most intriguing possibility, however, is suggested by a phenomenon known as "imitative suicide," in which prominent suicides are succeeded three days later by a rash of traffic fatalities. If the Israeli traffic accidents are not accidents at all but covert suicides, this would explain why on the third day only fatal accidents spike, whereas the rate of merely "serious" accidents holds steady.
—"Terror Attacks Influence Driving Behavior in Israel," Guy Stecklov and Joshua Goldstein, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
The Brookings Institution's "Afghanistan Index" tracks the status of that country according to a variety of statistical measures. Current trends reveal an interesting combination of positive and negative indicators. The most alarming news? The Taliban is 50 percent stronger today than it was last year.
—"Afghanistan Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Taliban Afghanistan," Brookings Institution
There are some difficult-to-interpret rules in the Bible, but the New Testament prohibition of divorce for any reason other than adultery isn't among them. So one might think that Christians, and especially "born-again" Christians, would make an extra effort to keep their marriages intact. But according to a recent nationwide survey by the Barna Group, a Christian market-research company, the divorce rate among born-again Christians is 35 percent—exactly the same as for the population as a whole. (Of course, the propensity of the non-born-again to cohabit rather than marry may artificially lower their divorce rates; but even if break-ups by couples who live together are counted as divorces, the born-again rate is only three percentage points lower than that of the general population.) The survey also uncovered some interesting denominational variation in the divorce rate: Catholics (whose hierarchy still holds a traditional line on divorce) were much less likely to divorce (25 percent) than Protestants (39 percent). Among the latter, Pentecostals were the most likely to divorce (44 percent) and Presbyterians were the least likely (28 percent). So why do many Christians not heed Jesus Christ's warning that "anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery"? Because they don't agree with him, according to the Barna researchers: only one in four born-again Christians—and only one in seven respondents overall—"strongly agrees" that divorce when no adultery has taken place is a sin.
—"Born Again Christians Just as Likely to Divorce as Are Non-Christians," Barna Group
We always knew it was true, but now there's proof—working women have less leisure time than working men. According to a first-of-its-kind study of American time use, conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employed men on average spend about 6.4 hours a day at work, whereas employed women spend about five hours. But a woman's extra nonworking time is usually given over to household activities; when her day at the office is over, she still has just under two hours of housework waiting for her (compared with an hour and ten minutes for working men) and about forty-five minutes of caring for family members (versus about twenty-four minutes for men). Working men also claim nearly forty minutes more "leisure" time a day—time that their female counterparts tend to spend running errands, participating in civic activities, talking on the phone, or engaging in "personal care activities." What do men do with their extra free time? They probably plop down in front of the TV, where Americans spend about half their leisure hours.
—"American Time Use Survey," Bureau of Labor Statistics
Journalists tend to play up economic good news during Democratic Administrations and play it down when the Republicans are in power. Or that's the argument advanced by the latest entrant in the media-bias wars: a paper from the (conservative) American Enterprise Institute that analyzes more than a decade's worth of newspaper headlines. As the authors point out, whether economic news is seen as good or bad can depend on a headline writer's spin: the same GDP numbers can produce a headline reading "Economy Remained Strong" or "GDP Growth Disappoints," depending on how one chooses to look at them. The authors' research suggests that American papers tended to give the same economic news a more positive spin during the Clinton years than during the two Bush Administrations. (Among ten major daily newspapers, only the Houston Chronicle was more likely to put a positive gloss on economic news during a Bush presidency.) If the AEI authors are right (and it's worth noting that one of them is the controversial gun-control scholar John Lott, who has himself been accused of bias—and worse—over the years), then the putatively liberal-leaning media are just behaving like the public, whose opinions on matters economic, a new Brookings study finds, are determined more by ideology than by any factual knowledge of the issues at hand.
—"Is Newspaper Coverage of Economic Events Politically Biased?" John Lott Jr. and Kevin Hassett, AEI; "What Does the Public Know About Economic Policy and How Does It Know It?" Alan S. Blinder and Alan B. Krueger, Princeton
The Middle Ages may have been a healthier epoch in which to be alive than many of the centuries that followed, according to a study of male height. Using a sample of skeletons from Northern Europe, the study reports that average male height (a solid proxy for good health) fell sharply during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from about 5'8" in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries to 5'5" by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Northern Europeans didn't recover their medieval stature until the twentieth century. The diseases that accompanied increased trade bear some of the blame for the decline in height, and climatic shifts may have played a part as well. So, too, did the economic expansion and urbanization that got under way in the fifteenth century. That expansion paved the way for the present era's high standard of living, but in its early stages it involved economic dislocation, rising inequality, and poorer living and working conditions.
—"New Light on the 'Dark Ages': The Remarkably Tall Stature of Northern European Men During the Medieval Era," Richard H. Steckel, Ohio State University