Harper's Index #8

Some of these date back to the magazine issues of the 1990s.

Rank of Father’s Day among days on which the largest number of collect calls are made:  1

Rank of flowers, perfume, and fire extinguishers among Mother’s Day gifts Americans consider “v. appropriate”:  1-3

Percentage of Americans who say that women “sometimes deserve to be hit by their husbands or boyfriends: 12

Percentage who say that men “sometimes deserve to be hit by their wives or girlfriends”: 29

Number of students enrolled in “The Films of Keanu Reeves,” a course offered at a Pasadena arts college:  15

Percentage of all magazines on US newsstands last year that went unsold:  57

Ratio of the average speed of growth of human hair to the average speed of growth of Kentucky bluegrass:  1:7

Maximum flying speed of a dragonfly, in miles per hour:  30

Number of federal workers employed full-time to manage national-security documents: 32,397

Estimated number of standard-sized helium balloons required to lift a ten-year old off the ground:  2,450

Number of the world’s 20 most populous cities that meet WHO clean-air standards:  0

Number of IUDs on display at Toronto’s new Museum on the History of Contraception:  319

Number of phrases spoken by Mattel’s new Super Talk Barbie:  100,000

Pounds of tomatoes used in the “battle” at the Festival de la Tomatina, in Spain:  880,000

Amount for which a woman is suing the Pennsylvania lottery commission because she has never won:  $1,500,000

Number of major league baseball players since 1876 who hit a home run the first time at bat:  69

Number of the 55 no longer playing who never hit another:  11

Price of a 4 1/2 - pound steak dinner at Amarillo’s Big Texan Steak Ranch, if consumed within an hour:  $0

Number of the 22,000 customers attempting this since 1960 who were successful:  4,200

Number of paramedics on duty last fall for the speed-eating contest at the Artichoke Festival in California:  2

Number of contestants who have ever required the Heimlich maneuver:  1

Number of months of government-paid leave allowed Swedish parents:  12

Pounds of feed forced down a duck’s throat each day in the last month of its life to produce foie gras:  6

Tons of carbon dioxide produced by one US automobile in its lifetime:  42

Age, in years, of two sweet potatoes on display at the Potato Museum in Albuquerque, NM:  3,794

Gallons of hamburger grease sold by McDonald’s since 1955:  281,250,000

Height, in feet, of a West Virginia prison wall scaled by an escaping inmate using a cord made of dental floss:  18

Number of “offensive” words to be dropped from the 1995 Official Scrabble Dictionary:  100

Number of stories a New York City cat fell last June without sustaining serious injury:  46

Number of stories a cat must fall before reaching its maximum falling velocity of 60 mph:  5

Sheets of uncut dollar bills bought from the Treasury Dept for use as wrapping paper by a Japanese florist:  500

Rank of the local, state, and federal governments among the top three employers in Indianapolis:  1,2,3

Chances that a Santa Claus appearing in a mall this month has a college degree:  2 in 3

Price paid at auction this year for Elvis Presley’s American Express card:  $41,500

Estimated percentage of the $6.7 billion spent on Superfund cleanups since 1980 that has gone to lawyers:  85

Rank of Missouri among states with the greatest number of deaths [per capita]each year caused by hot weather:  1

Membership of the British Sausage Appreciation Society:  10,000

Number of women asked to leave an exhibit of Rubens nudes on Ohio because they were breast-feeding:  1

Pentagon spending 1992 on unnecessary items due to inventory errors, according to GAO:  $40,000,000,000

Percentage of female congressional staffers who say they have been sexually harassed by a congressman:  11

Chances that an American over the age of 45 is taking a prescription drug:  2 in 3

Membership of Philadelphia’s Silent Meeting Club, at whose gatherings talking is forbidden:  80

Number of Donahue shows broadcast since 1967 devoted to transsexualism and cross-dressing:  16

Estimated number of Egyptians who are living in Cairo’s mausoleums:  500,000

Amount the federal government spent each day last year on “intelligence”:  $79,000,000

Percentage of US spies in E. Germany since 1948 who proved to be double agents, according to the CIA:  100

Hip measurement, in inches, of a size-eight dress sold in the United States last year:  38

Hip measurement of a size-eight dress sold sixty years ago:  33.5

Percentage of American colleges that do not require an American history course for graduation:  80

Number of US universities that have a Taco Bell Distinguished Professorship of Fast Service:  1

Number of abandoned nuclear reactors in the world’s oceans:  9

Pounds of toxic chemicals released during each space-shuttle launch:  77,000

p.s. - I'm working with a new platform for the blog and have no idea why it sometimes chooses to double-space after a carriage return.  It's maddening...

Selections from the November "Harper's Index" #7

• Amount employees of private-equity firm Bain Capital have donated to the campaign of its co-founder Mitt Romney: $69,500

• To the Obama campaign: $119,900

• Percentage of all Americans who consider themselves part of the top 1 percent of U.S. earners: 13

• Miminum number of U.S. colleges that offer courses in unmanned-drone operation: 5

• Portion of the Veterans Health Administration's budget devoted to veterans with mental-health or addiction problems: 1/3

• Chance that a U.S. worker is of normal weight and without a chronic health problem: 1 in 7

• Number of working-age people for every person  over sixty-five worldwide in 1950: 11.7

• Number today: 8.6

• Projected humber in 2050: 3.9

It's hard to get in

• Percentage of applicants offered undergraduate admission to Harvard this year:  6.2

• Percentage of applicants accepted for employment on McDonald's National Hiring Day in April: 6.2

- from Harper's Index, June 2011

Harper's Index #6

Selections from ~1992-1994:

Number of the world's 810 vampires who live in the United States, according to the Vampire Research Center: 550
Number who live in Romania: 3

Estimated number of cows it takes to supply the 22,000 footballs the NFL uses each season: 3,000
Number of pigs: 0

Amount the CIA will spend in 1992 to buy back each Stinger missile it gave to Afghan rebels: $100,000
Amount each missile cost the United States government: $25,000

Number of finance ministers of the Group of Seven countries who have a degree in economics: 1

Number of poems included in The Best American Poetry 1993 that rhyme: 1

Ratio of the number of wild turkeys in the United States to the number of wild-turkey hunters: 2:1

Number of hunters who have had their cremated remains loaded into a shotgun shell and shot at an animal: 40

Percentage of the world's cranberries that are grown in Massachusetts: 42

Rank of cola, breakfast cereal, and ground beef, among the groceries Americans spent the most on in 1993: 1,2,3

Ratio of the number of Americans who prefer toilet paper to unroll off the top to those who prefer the bottom: 3:1

Average number of members of Congress charged with a crime each decade between 1789 and 1970: 2
Average number charged with a crime each decade since then: 24

Number of tourists murdered in Florida 1994: 7
Number murdered in Egypt: 1

Average number of Robert Ludlum novels sold worldwide, per minute: 18

Average number of Americans who die each year as a result of insect bites: 40

Ratio of the emissions produced by a car driven 50 miles to those produced by a lawn mower in one hour: 1:1

Amount by which the price of a pair of J. Crew broken-in jeans exceeds the price of a pair of regular J. Crew jeans: $8

Number of American cats fitted with pacemakers last year: 800

Chances that a funeral procession in Taiwan includes a stripper: 1 in 3

Chances that an indicted American will be defended with public funds: 3 in 4

Portion of all war fatalities in the last 500 years that took place in the twentieth century: 3/4

Gallons of Kool-Aid consumed by Americans each summer: 204,000,000

Number of Americans who must become Rhodes scholars for Clinton's Cabinet to "look like America" : 17,000,000

Rank of Bill Clinton's shoes, among the largest of any president since Woodrow Wilson: 1

Number of government employees VP Gore invited to accompany him on his trip to Russia: 600

Number of American states in which a notary public is required to be literate in English: 12

Percentage change, since 1850, in the number of wooded acres in New Hampshire: +118

Age, in years, of a piece of wedding fruitcake on display at the Grover Cleveland Birthplace in NJ: 106

Number of American amateur soccer players killed by falling goalposts since 1979: 18

Harper's Index #5

Avg number of shopping carts stolen from American supermarkets each hour: 39
Ratio of the number of plastic flamingos to number of real ones in the US : 700:1
Number of Americans injured by jewelry per year: 43,000
Amount of writing Florida state colleges require students to complete before their junior year, in words: 24,000
Ratio of homebuyers in Orange Co., CA named Smith to those named Nguyen: 1:2
Tons of trash generated by the Rio Earth Summit in June, per day: 7
Estimated percent of all hats sold in the US each year that are baseball caps: 70
Chance a defendant tried in a criminal case in Japan will be found guilty: 99 in 100
Rank of the US, among the 12 largest democracies, in voter turnout: 11
Number of wisdom teeth extracted from Americans last year: 9,337,000
Ratio of Americans employed by government to those employed by manufacturers: 1:1
Ratio of the amount the Ford Motor Company spent in 1993 on health care to the amount it spent on steel: 1:1
Percentage of Mexican-Americans who say there are too many immigrants in the US: 75
Rank of basketball among sports contributing to fatalities among players: 1
Number of times a WV man accidentally shot himself in the foot while cleaning his three guns: 3
Weight in pounds of a hairball removed from an Alexandria, IN, manhole: 200
Number of new clerical workers hired each day by US physicians to do paperwork: 68
Chance that a dollar spent on health care goes for administrative costs: 1 in 4
Percent of TV viewers who wouldn't give up watching TV in exchange for any amount of money: 25
Percent of Super Bowl viewers who do not live in the United States: 89
Average length of a professional football player's career, in years: 3.2
Chances that a Russian lives in an area in which air pollution exceeds safety standards by five times: 3 in 4
Trees used to produce the mail-order catalogues sent to US households each year: 14,000,000
Percentage of all US domestic mail that consists of personal letters: 4.5
Number of years since there has been no dog in the White House: 79
Number of beds at Mass. General Hospital, per billing-department employee: 3.5
Number of classified manuals used by the Department of Energy to specify what is to be classified: 850
Hourly wage the Resolution Trust Corporation paid contract workers to photocopy documents: $35
Number of body parts suitable for piercing, according to a NYC jewelry store: 30
Number of women scalped by hay balers in New York State since 1976: 4
Average speed of Heinz ketchup, from the mouth of an upended bottle, in miles per year: 25
Chances that a visit to a psychiatrist will end with a drug prescription: 1 in 2
Number of the world's 187 countries that do not have Most Favored Nation trading status with the United States: 12
Percent of American vegetarians who eat red meat once a week: 10
Chance an American does not know which president appears on the $1 bill: 1 in 5
Average number of steps an American adult takes each day: 9,000
Ratio of rats to people in Washington, D.C.: 2:1
Number of nuclear reactors it would take to supply the energy consumed by United States refrigerators: 25

Harper's Index #4

Chances that an American is an immigrant: 1 in 14
Chances that a Canadian is an immigrant: 1 in 6

Number of members of the Cossacks, a Moscow motorcycle gang: 8
Number of motorcycles they own: 1

Percentage of American households in which no books were bought last year: 60
Number of Ph.D.s hired last year to "develop" carrot sticks for McDonald's: 45

Percentage of Taiwan's cabinet who have Ph.D.s from U.S. universities: 43
Percentage of United States cabinet members who have Ph.D.s: 0

Percentage of Americans who don't know how long to hard-boil an egg: 74
Percentage of Americans who say they are "excellent" or "very good" cooks: 63

Percent of Japanese high-school seniors who have taken 6 years of English: 100
Percentage of Americans who think "espresso" is an "overnight delivery system" : 7
Percentage of annual U.S. economic aid to Israel used to pay debts to the U.S.: 99
Estimated number of seconds it takes a N.Y.C. thief to break into a locked car: 27
Portion of the world's countries to which the United States has sold arms: 5/6
Number of new saints canonized by the Vatican since 1978: 262
Pairs of moose-dung earrings sold each year at Grizzly's Gifts in Anchorage: 6,000
Value Lloyd's of London has placed on a Viking turd owned by England's Archaeological Resource Centre: $34,000
Ratio of the density of the average fruitcake to the density of mahogany: 1:1
Change, since 1969, in U.S. median household income, adjusted for inflation: 0

Harper's Index #3

Average amount of milk an American dairy cow produces, in gallons: 1,703
Average amount a cow produced in 1950, in gallons: 618

Number of trial lawyers who have taken acting lessons from Applied Theater Techniques in Los Angeles: 8,000
Years it would take to execute every American on death row, at a rate of one execution per day: 7
Percentage of Americans who say they watch "too little" television: 23
Number of United States universities that offer a bagpipe major: 1
Estimated number of Americans who have had wires, screws, pins, nails, or plates surgically implanted: 4,400,000
Number of florists on the White House staff: 5
Ratio of the production cost of a Coca-Cola can to the production cost of the Coca-Cola it contains: 2:1
The longest time a Life Saver has been kept intact in a human mouth, in hours: 7
Tons of gold made into wedding rings in the United States each year: 17
Number of American farmers who asphyxiate in manure pits each year: 3
Number of Americans treated last year for bowling-related injuries: 22,515
U.S. consumer debt in 1991 as a percentage of total disposable income: 96
Percentage of all American astronauts who were Boy Scouts: 45
Ratio of the number of Chinese who will watch the Super Bowl to the number of Americans who will: 3:1
Number of Americans who have been shot in the last decade by children under six: 138,490
Average number of drugs prescribed each year to an American over 60: 16

Harper's Index #2

Number of people in New York City who jump subway turnstiles, per minute: 105
Amount a cousin of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd lost at casinos on the French Riviera: $21,640,000
Number of U.S. states that dispose of hazardous waste in another state: 50
Maximum running speed of a wild turkey, in miles per hour: 25
Percentage of hunting injuries in Georgia that are the result of hunters falling out of trees: 36
Ratio of Coast Guard employees disciplined for drug violations to drug smugglers caught by the Coast Guard: 1:3
Chances that a CIA officer stationed in Mexico City can speak Spanish: 1 in 5
Number of years since the balanced-budget bill became law in 1985 that its deficit-reduction targets have been met: 0
Number of months after the Pentagon bought 80,000 camouflage helmet-covers that it found 80,000 in storage: 3
Number of the 11 magazine articles about lottery winners published in 1989 that ran in Jet magazine: 11
Rank of Washington, D.C., among U.S. cities with the highest rate of tax delinquency: 1
Portion of the 115 armed conflicts worldwide that are civil wars: 9/10
Amount Americans spend each year on birdseed: $1,100,000,000
Number of curbside frog ramps in the streets of Stevens Point, Wisconsin: 4
Total number of the US government's 3 million employees who were fired last year for poor performance: 290
Amount the Republican Party was fined for illegally giving $2,700,000 to Senate candidates in 1986: $24,000
Estimated amount of time that Michael Jordan has spent aloft while playing in NBA games, in hours: 3
Number of the 6 best-selling extracurricular books in college bookstores that are collections of cartoons: 4
Number of people killed by stray bullets in New York City in 1989: 39
Number of the ten largest environmental magazines that were printed on recycled paper as of 1990: 3
Pages of guidelines the NYC Transit Authority sent to a Boy Scout who wanted to clean a subway station: 6
Fine for parking a pickup truck in one's own driveway in Flossmoor, Illinois: $10
Percentage of Southern Calif. drivers who say they have made "indecent gestures" at other drivers: 38
Portion of all deaths worldwide in 1989 that are children under age 5 in developing countries: 1/3
Chances that a U.S. obstetrician has been sued at least once: 7 in 10
Percentage of American parents who say they yell at their children every day: 19
Percentage increase in the protrusion of a woman's buttocks when she wears high heels: 25
Number of pigs an American eats in a lifetime: 28
Number of times WXTB, a Florida radio station, played "Stairway to Heaven" consecutively on Dec 31, 1989: 181

Percentage of men living in Bangladesh who live past the age of 65: 55
Percentage of men living in Harlem who do: 40

Rank of Washington, D.C., high school students, among students with the lowest mathematics scores nationwide: 1
Rank of Washington, D.C., high school students, among those most likely to say they are "good in math" : 1

Weeks it took the poultry industry to produce a full-grown chicken in 1940: 12
Average number of weeks it takes today: 6

Chances that a chicken sold in a supermarket is infected with salmonella: 1 in 3
Children admitted to hospital ERs last year for injuries involving shopping carts: 32,866
Number of the 100 buttock implants performed in the United States last year that were done in California: 92
Weight of the ovarian cyst removed from a West Virginia woman, in pounds: 180
Number of unsolicited phone calls made by U.S. telemarketers each second: 200
Chances that a worker anywhere in the world is employed by the travel and tourism industry: 1 in 15
Estimated number of grains of sand in one acre of beach: 2,000,000,000,000,000

Harper's Index #1

I don't know whether I'm allowed to reproduce in this blog some items from the Harper's Index; perhaps I will be spared punishment if I provide suitable documentation. I've been an avid reader of Harper's for at least 20 years. For most of that time I've selected items from the famous Index and retyped them onto a "favorites" list. I'll use this category in TYWKIWDBI to offer some of those for the enjoyment of others. Please note that dates and times in the items are not related to the present - that is, I may have copied a post in 1992 referring to "last year" without inserting the numerical year, so take all such entries as being approximations only. Items that are related to one another are grouped in pairs; the remainder are gathered in larger groups ----

Convicted drunk drivers in Orange County, CA, 1988-89, whose sentence included a tour of the morgue: 569
Number of repeat offenders among them: 1

Number of times that the U.S. Congress has declared war: 5
Estimated number of times that a U.S. president has sent troops into combat situations: 130

Average size bra worn by an American woman in 1985: 34B
Average size in 1990: 36C

Number of bees that invaded a Bayport, New York, house while the owners were on vacation: 20,000
Estimated pounds of honey they produced before being removed: 10

Percentage of all valentines that are sent by women: 85
Estimated number of American dogs that have been named as beneficiaries in wills: 1,000,000
Estimated number of miles an item of food consumed in the United States travels before it is eaten: 1,200
Average number of pounds of pennies in an American home: 6
Average ratio of US funds spent fighting a war to United States funds spent on that war's veterans' benefits: 1:3
Chances that an employed American works in a shopping center or mall: 1 in 11
Percentage of fast-food restaurant workers who admit to doing "slow, sloppy work on purpose": 22
Number of times a nude or seminude woman accepted a Domino's Pizza delivery in Washington, D.C. last year: 15
Fee a Norwood, Mass bank requires from depositors before they can ask a question about their account: $1
Gas mileage of an M-1 tank, per gallon: 0.56
Number of doctors who belong to the Surfer's Medical Association: 504
Percentage of American men who say they clean their navel every day: 42
Percentage of Americans who say that, given the choice, they would rather hear the bad news first: 63
Estimated amount the national debt will increase in the time it takes to read this line: $33,000
Number of snails that animal-rights activists liberated from a snail farm in England: 153,000

Average number of Americans who are injured annually by chain saws: 36,000
Average number who are injured by clothing: 112,000

Ratio of women who buy Mother's Day cards to men who do: 5:1
Ratio of women who buy Father's Day cards to men who do: 8:1

Incidents of international terrorism since 1977 that involved a BMW: 33
Incidents that involved a Chevrolet Camaro: 1

Percentage of Peru's coca crop destroyed by U.S.-assisted forces last year: 1
Percentage destroyed by insects: 20

Number of people per square mile during peak season in Yosemite Valley: 3,320
Number of people per square mile in Houston: 2,986

Barrels of oil the United States imports from Iraq and Kuwait annually: 290,000,000
Barrels of oil that could be saved by raising United States auto-efficiency standards by 2.75 mpg: 290,000,000

Number of words in the written vocabulary of a 6-14 y.o. American child in 1945: 25,000
Average number today: 10,000