Exercise 3: Measure the number of inches between your brow line and the peak of you hairline in inches. Place this number as a fraction, with the number or teeth visible when you smile functioning as the denominator. Is the product divisible by two? It should be unless you consider yourself maladaptive or edgy.

Physiognomists believed that the most essential way to graft the essence of a person was to study his features without knowledge of the subject's identity getting in the way, and before allowing the subject to speak. German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, in his1851 essays Parerga and Paralipomena, wrote on objectivity during analysis:

"The first condition of success is to maintain a purely objective point of view, which is no easy matter … There are some people whose faces bear the stamp of such artless vulgarity and baseness of character, such an animal limitation of intelligence, that one wonders how they can appear in public with such a countenance, instead of wearing a mask,".

It is clear that the science of physiognomy requires the analyst to empty his brain of all preconceived notions of beauty. It is good that plastic surgery is available to everyone today, so that in cases in which the analyst cannot divorce himself from natural human preference and cultural identity, face lifts and nose jobs can rise to the occasion.

The technology used to match faces of airport travelers to those of potential terrorists is filtered through a security official who watches each image appear on screen and makes the final assessment whether an individual needs to be detained. According to Simson Garfinkel of Discover magazine, the technology that informs the security official's decision is made possible by one of two programs, each of which rely on a system of facial measurements or comparisons. One program renders a digital photograph of every person, then classifies that photograph as one of 128 possible default facial combinations. A template is created based on the person's features and classification, which is then compared to all saved templates of the FBI's U.S. terrorist threats. If the template of the face in question bears a resemblance to any saved templates of terrorists, the person is pulled aside to undergo further questioning. The second program, instead, takes measurements of up to 80 facial features based upon a digital photograph, then compares each distance to the values between facial features of those dangerous alignments of stored in a database.

Exercise 4: Place your nose between two fingers and rock them from side to side. Now take a string or a piece of dental floss from your medicine cabinet and trace your nose's potential arc of motion. The diameter of this imaginary circle determines your degree of sociability. Large diameters suggest ability to work well with others, while noses with short diameters or immobile noses are typical of those with antisocial tendencies, a red-flag attribute when dealing with martyrs and psycho killers.

While the layout of a face takes precedent over gesture, physical movement was also analyzed in the late 18th century, both in terms of a subject's gait and slight movements when speaking. Involuntary facial gesturing is also apparently grounds for reading terrorist behavior. The FBI and CIA are currently working closely with researchers who can read faces, detecting true emotion in a face, even in cases when that emotion differs from what a subject voluntarily shares verbally. In his article published by The NewYorker , Max Gladwell explains how psychologist Paul Ekman created a catalogue of all possible combinations of facial muscles. By studying the anatomy of the face, and forcing his own facial muscles into every possible gesture, electrically shocking each muscle to locate the minor ones, Ekman has divided the face into 43 possible action units, each of which can be combined to create thousands of series of gestures. There are some action units that are nearly impossible to imitate in the absence of the accompanying emotion. Eckman can, for example, detect the difference between a forced smile and a sincere one, based on the lift of muscles surrounding subject's eyes while smiling. If a smile is not sincere, a subject cannot voluntarily raise that muscle. Such analysis in very useful to U.S. security branches in order to detect if a subject is lying. Classes are being constructed in a counter-terrorism effort, in which FBI agents learn to read involuntarily gesture.

If you download a copy of Digital Physiognomy for $17.00 , there is a sample of the program's process to curb skeptics. When clicking through the program's library of free samples, the first to pop up is of Osama bin Laden. His features apparently suggest “predilection to shyness” and “patience,” with a “confidence factor of 60 percent.” “Don't worry,” says the intro to the analysis, “ Digital Physiognomy not so much allows you to determine psychological characteristics, as it allows you to understand how others see this personality.”

This means that everyone will be safe, not only from terrorists, but also from people who look like terrorists, who are just as dangerous. The next time you are in line at the video rental place, take a few minutes to evaluate the faces of your fellow consumers. Are their noses suggestive of selecting movies with anti-American sub-plots? The next time you hold afternoon tea in your home, practice trafficking at the front door. Wear a pistol on your hip and politely ask guests to stand in profile while you make quick thumbnail photographs of them with your digital phone. It's the responsibility of every American to take these practices to the public sphere. Whoever said “don't judge a book by its cover,” was obviously un-American, and probably a terrorist, too. We should be judging books exclusively by their covers, layouts, and binding. We should be selecting our leaders based on the shape of their teeth and skulls. Never open a book again unless its cover has red, white and blue in its color scheme. Never listen to a public speaker who lacks the proportionate smile of blissful middle America . Never trust a set of eyes that squints at this country's logic.

to see more work from Russell Lord, visit www.groundleveldesign.us