Fun_People Archive
25 Sep
Harper's Index -- August, 1996

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 96 16:50:39 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: Harper's Index -- August, 1996

From: Harper's Magazine, August, 1996

Ratio of annual federal spending on Atlanta's homeless in the last five  
years to the amount spent this year : 1:6

Estimated number of security personnel per athlete at the Olympics this month : 5

Annual amount by which Wisconsin's new mandatory workfare plan will outspend  
its old welfare budget : $102,000,000

Ratio of projected rainfall this year in the U.S. wheat belt to average  
annual rainfall there during the Dust Bowl : 1:3

Percentage change in the size of the annual U.S. budget deficit since Bill  
Clinton took office : -50

Rank of the United States among G-7 countries whose deficit represents the  
smallest percentage of GDP : 1

Rank of Ireland among European Union countries with the largest percentage  
increase in GDP last year : 1

Minimum length the European Committee for Standardization set for condoms  
this year, in inches : 6.7

Percentage change, since last February, in sales of vegetarian cookbooks at  
Britain's largest book chain : +300

Rank of tandoori chicken pizza among the best-selling Domino's pies in the  
U.K. this year : 1

Number of Ben & Jerry's Peace Pops sold each week through Pentagon vending  
machines : 12

Number of U.S. military service medals that cannot be purchased without an  
authorized signature : 1

Percentage of Boy Scout merit badges whose purchase requires one : 100

Months after a child molester was paroled from prison in 1994 that a VA  
hospital gave him a penile implant : 10

Estimated number of abortions performed on victims of rape or incest each  
year : 15,000

Number performed on born-again or evangelical Christians : 250,000

Percentage of Republicans who said in May that the party's platform should  
"remain silent" on abortion : 28

Number of New York Times columns Maureen Dowd has devoted to abortion since  
January 1995 : 0

Number she has devoted to Barneys clothing store : 3

Price a New York City doctors' group charges for an hour of  
"psychoanalytically guided self-inquiry" via e-mail : $125

Number of espresso makers Sandy Hill Pittman took with her last March on her  
third attempt to climb Mount Everest : 1

Price of a prosthetic nose at Hello Gorgeous!!, a San Francisco boutique  
devoted to Barbra Streisand : $79

Price a John Wayne Gacy web site charges for a printout of a 1976 photograph  
of Gacy with Rosalynn Carter : $15

Years after Gacy became an Illinois Democratic Party precinct captain that  
he was arrested for 33 murders : 3

Amount of cash inmates compete to grab from between a bull's horns each year  
at the Oklahoma State Prison Rodeo : $100

Percentage by which the Pillsbury Bake-Off increased its grand prize last  
year : 1,900

Number of months later that a man finally won it : 9

Number of contestants who entered Arkansas's Fifteenth Annual Mosquito  
Cook-Off last August : 16

Length, in feet, of the course used this month at New Jersey's Annual  
Cockroach Derby : 4

Maximum number of months humanity could survive without invertebrates : 6

Rank California dentists assign the trustworthiness of Bill Clinton's smile  
as compared with that of Bob Dole's : 2

Ratio of blank or "spoiled" ballots cast in the Israeli election in June to  
the number of votes by which it was decided : 5:1

Ratio of civilians killed this year by the Israeli Army in Lebanon to those  
killed by terrorists in Israel : 3:1

Copies of Muammar Qaddafi's first short-story collection sold in Egypt since  
its publication last March : 200,000

Minimum price of a line of Al Kracht's custom poetry, from Limerick Lane  
Poetryworks of Chappaqua, New York : $7

Amount Comedy Central paid in May for two acres of Whitewater Development  
property : $10,000

Square footage of parking lot that Chicago Democratic Convention planners  
have designated as a protest area : 85,000

Number of nonskid strips the Delaware Correctional Center affixed to its  
gallows steps before a hanging last January : 23

Bail set for a Maine man last year after he was arrested for barking at a  
police dog : $25

Days in jail to which a Pennsylvania man was sentenced last March for  
repeatedly oinking at his ex-wife : 30

© 1996 Peter Langston