1 64% 25% 1mph WNW bar29.97 windchill-1 Winter
Waxing Gibbous Crescent Moon
OK. This is interesting.
Which is more of a threat to your health: Al Qaeda or the Department of Homeland Security?
“An intriguing new study suggests the answer is not so clear-cut. Although it’s impossible to calculate the pain that terrorist attacks inflict on victims and society, when statisticians look at cold numbers, they have variously estimated the chances of the average person dying in America at the hands of international terrorists to be comparable to the risk of dying from eating peanuts, being struck by an asteroid or drowning in a toilet.
But worrying about terrorism could be taking a toll on the hearts of millions of Americans. The evidence, published last week in the Archives of General Psychiatry, comes from researchers who began tracking the health of a representative sample of more than 2,700 Americans before September 2001. After the attacks of Sept. 11, the scientists monitored people’s fears of terrorism over the next several years and found that the most fearful people were three to five times more likely than the rest to receive diagnoses of new cardiovascular ailments.”
The article goes to identify roughly 10 million people affected by the, what else to call it, fear-mongering of the Department of Homeland Security. Can anyone say Committee of Public Safety? I agree with the article and the physicians that the health consequences to individuals are significant and in themselves alarming; but, I believe the larger health problem is that of the body politic. 10 million voters with a fear of terrorism so significant that it affects their personal health represent a voting bloc, a demagogues paradise. Now let me see, have we had anyone playing the terrorism card in recent elections?
Going to the Walker Art Center tonight to see the TEAM, a group of performance artists who have a work called, Heartland. I’ll let you know how it was.
