Have almanac, will terrorize

The government's warning about malicious use of almanacs got us to wondering exactly how.

On Christmas Eve, the FBI sent a bulletin to 18,000 law enforcement organizations nationwide, warning them to keep an eye out during traffic stops and the like for individuals carrying almanacs.

The bulletin warned, "Terrorist operatives may rely on almanacs to assist with target selection and preoperational planning."

Almanacs, it cautioned, contain information on bridges, tunnels and other landmarks. Almanacs with unusual notations or markings are a particular warning sign of possible terrorism - sort of an orange-level reference alert.

"Ma'am, raise your hands and step away from the reference desk. Put down the highlighter and do not, I repeat, do not touch that almanac."

Almanacs, for crying out loud. The handy fact-packed, tiny-typed book beloved of librarians, teachers and copy editors everywhere has been tarred with the brush of suspicion.

"We've done some ridiculous things in the name of Homeland Security, and the almanacs are something I would categorize as ridiculous," says Charles Pena, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian research organization in Washington, D.C.

The warning is so general that it provides law enforcement with little guidance, Pena says. "Are we going to question or arrest everyone who has one or buys one?"

Tourists often carry detailed guidebooks with maps and specific information about buildings and bridges. "Are we going to see anyone who's interested in anything about our country as possible terrorists?"

Pena says, "In all fairness to the government, the terrorists are not going to go into detail about their plans. These are judgment calls they have to make."

But warnings as nonspecific as the almanac bulletin could have unanticipated consequences. "Either they just get resoundingly ignored because they're so vague, and then when you have a real specific warning they ignore that, too.

"Or they take it to the extreme and start searching everyone with a book bag."

Kevin Seabrooke, senior editor of the World Almanac and Book of Facts, says the publication is simply providing "the same interesting and useful public information we have provided for 136 years."

He stresses that word "public." Much of the almanac's data comes from government sources. And as for the lists of tall buildings and bridges: "There are no schematics, no diagrams, no photographs."

Flipping through the World Almanac for 2004, it's tough to find anything that seems like inside information. There is plenty of trivia, hundreds of pages of sports stats, entertainment factoids and history bites, if a terrorist were of a mind to talk someone into a coma.

The state governments section includes governor's annual salaries (Jeb Bush makes $124,575). The most-visited site in the National Park System in 2002 was the Blue Ridge Parkway. About 43.6-million Americans have no health insurance coverage. The Star-Spangled Banner has four verses, not just the one everyone sings at ball games. (Although the almanac prints the lyrics, it doesn't tell us whether anybody knows all four verses by heart.)

The book does contain some general information about the U.S. military, such as the number of personnel on active duty, the military pay scale and ranks and insignia, but that's hardly top-secret.

The almanac has a list of the 50 companies with the largest Department of Defense contracts, with dollar amounts. It also has the Homeland Security Department's emergency preparedness tips, including the classic duct tape recommendation and this helpful reminder: "In case of a nuclear blast, take cover immediately." But bad guys and good guys can access those tips on Homeland Security's Web site with a couple of clicks.

Perhaps a terrorist could make some use of the list of hazardous waste sites, but the World Almanac identifies only the states they're in, not the cities.

On Page 180 is an impressive list of "major venomous animals," but deploying a death adder or a black mamba as a weapon seems impractical.

Some of the World Almanac's contents might just scare terrorists off. Front and center is a seven-page, self-important special section on baby boomers (and I say that as a self-important baby boomer), complete with a fatuous essay by that most insistently navel-gazing boomer writer, Joyce Maynard.

Seabrooke says the World Almanac "also contains such subversive documents as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States with all the amendments, and the presidential oath of office."

The data most potentially useful to terrorists may be a list of Internet search engines. After all, who needs an almanac when all that information is out there waiting to be Googled?

"Of course the Internet has directly affected our sales," Seabrooke says. "You can buy the almanac right online." Despite the Internet's smorgasbord of information, he says, the World Almanac consistently sells about 1-million copies a year. Even Web users find it a useful tool because it offers so much data in a clearly organized format in the palm of your hand. If you have large hands.

"If you want to know who won the best actor Oscar in 1955, you have to see, is your computer on? You have to boot up, you have to go to the site, you have to search. With the almanac, you just go to the quick reference index, turn to Page 285, and there it is: Ernest Borgnine, for Marty."

Seabrooke says he does not think the FBI warning is likely to keep people from buying almanacs. "A lot of people will want them just because they wonder what all the fuss is about. People who were fans of the almanac in the past will be reminded it's still around."

Almanacs that compiled astronomical, weather and religious information have been around almost as long as the written word. By the 17th century they had evolved into a form of folk literature, with everything from medical advice to jokes added to the star charts.

Perhaps the most famous is Poor Richard's Almanack, published from 1732 to 1757 by that original American patriot Benjamin Franklin. Its contents ranged from anatomy lessons and soapmaking instructions to maxims such as "Haste makes waste" and "Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."

In the 20th century, almanacs became the kind of fat, fact-crammed books the FBI is talking about, such as the World Almanac. There are still some of the old-fashioned variety left, though, and they seem even more unlikely terrorist textbooks.

"To say the least, we're surprised and taken aback," says Judson Hale. He is editor in chief of the Old Farmer's Almanac, in print since 1792 and billed as North America's oldest continuously published periodical.

"The kind of information the FBI is saying is typically found in almanacs, about cities, states, bridges - we don't do any of that," Hale says. "The Old Farmer's Almanac is really more about lifestyle, I guess you'd say. It's got wit and wisdom, gardening tips, weather forecasts."

But there is precedent for the FBI warning, he says. During World War II, the U.S. government banned the Old Farmer's Almanac for several weeks. Hale says it happened after a German agent came ashore from a U-boat, landing on Long Island.

"He was captured going into Penn Station, and he was carrying an Old Farmer's Almanac. It was the 1943 edition. They figured he was looking at it to see what the weather was going to be like."

Hale says his uncle, who had "a very dry sense of humor," said that the Germans probably were using the almanac's weather predictions: "After all, they went on to lose the war."

During the latter part of World War II, Hale says, only the government was allowed to make weather predictions. "So if you look at the '44 and '45 editions of the Old Farmer's Almanac, you'll see "weather indications,' because they couldn't call them predictions."

These days, weather data and so many other kinds of information are available from other sources, such as television and the Internet, that Hale thinks it's unlikely would-be terrorists would turn to his publication.

"Today, I just don't think we'd have anything that would be helpful. If the government did find something like that, of course we would cooperate, absolutely. Though I don't know what it would be."

The World Almanac is missing one thing that Hale says the Old Farmer's Almanac offers. "Now, we do have instructions on how to hypnotize a chicken. But I just don't think the terrorist would have a use for that in their evil ways."

He thinks about it for a moment. "Well, maybe al-Qaida might want to hypnotize every chicken in America. It would have an impact on the poultry industry, on egg production, you know."

Which, the World Almanac will inform you, in 2002 added up to 86.7-billion eggs.

-- Colette Bancroft can be reached at bancroft@sptimes.com or 727 893-8435.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright