Living Today: Issues of modern living

POST SEPT. 11 ATTITUDES CHANGE

If a goal of terrorism is to make victims feel less in control of their own destinies, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, succeeded, according to research from Saint Louis University.

The study, published in the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, is the first to compare people's attitudes before and after the attacks.

"Most people raised within the Judeo-Christian tradition believe that life is at least relatively fair -- if people work hard, you can succeed," says Fredric Wolinsky, professor at Saint Louis University School of Public Health.

Before the attacks, participants were much more likely to think they were responsible for their successes and that misfortunes were the result of mistakes they made.

LARGER PAY LINKED TO LONGER LIFE

A measure being considered in the House of Representatives would allow companies to assume their blue-collar workers will on average die sooner than pension plans now assume they will.

That's because a new actuarial table shows white-collar workers live longer than blue-collar workers, The New York Times reports.

However, according to the head of the panel that developed the new table, Edwin C. Hustead, workers' pay is a more powerful predictor of life expectancy than whether a worker was blue collar or white collar.

The bill does not recognize that higher-paid workers live longer and therefore require longer pension payouts, Hustead says.

For example, many auto workers and airline pilots are classified as blue collar in the bill, even though they are highly paid.

WHAT MEN WANT

While 98 percent of married men fantasize about having sex with someone other than their wives, 94 percent of American teenage boys plan to marry someday, the June issue of The Ladies' Home Journal reports.

"I know women don't want to hear this, but when a man -- even a monogamous one -- sees an attractive woman, he's going to think about having sex with her," says Syracuse University Professor John Marshall Townsend.

However, 55 percent of men thought it was OK for married women to work outside the home even if they had children, according to a Gallup poll.

Today, married men do half as much housework as their wives; in 1965, they did only one-sixth as much.

REAL WORLD PREPARATION

The Eastman School of Music's Arts Leadership Program, part of the Institute for Music at in Rochester, N.Y., aims to prepare students for the realities of the marketplace, USA Today reports.

Many of the courses provide business and financial skills such as: Essential Economics for Musicians and Surviving and Thriving in the Arts Marketplace: An examination of marketing, fundraising and management.

"I don't know any musician who does just one job," says Adrian Daly, Eastman's assistant dean.

More than 40 percent of musicians employed in 2000 worked part time, and more than 40 percent were self-employed, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.