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February 2001 · Harper's index · Previous · Next

Harper’s Index

Chance that a democratic national election held last year was marred by violence or a disputed outcome: 1 in 4

Chance that an election held in 1999 had such problems: 1 in 5

Ratio of the insurance industry's U.S. political contributions last year to those of the legal profession: 2:5

Rank of the Democratic Party and Nike, respectively, among sixty brand names tested for customer loyalty in 1999: 53, 4

Rank of the Republican Party: 60

Average number of brand-name items requested per shopping trip by a U.S. child between the ages of four and twelve: 14

Weeks that a Massachusetts school prohibited a boy from cross-dressing last fall before a judge overturned the ban: 13

Number of Hooters girls who visited a teenage leukemia patient in a Philadelphia hospital last fall at his request: 3

Estimated number of minors held in U.S. prisons in 1998 without segregation from adult inmates: 3,700

Number of Floridian ex-cons denied the right to vote last November because of felony convictions: 525,000

Number of times a Floridian can be convicted of DUI before the infraction becomes a felony: 3

Minimum number of limo rides illegally charged to the U.S. Postal Service by nine of its executives since June 1996: 520

Pages of documents related to racial profiling by New Jersey State Police released by the state last year: 91,000

Pages of Haitian government documents that the United States has held since seizing them from the country in 1994: 160,000

Number of years after fleeing Haiti in 1995 that death-squad leader Toto Constant was selling real estate in New York City: 5

Estimated amount of Colombian drug money laundered each year via purchases of U.S. goods and services: $3,000,000,000

Amount this represents as a percentage of U.S. military aid pledged to Colombia last year: 578

Estimated percentage of U.S. Army troops deployed in Bosnia who will be replaced by National Guardsmen in 2002: 50

Year in which Colin Powell complained, "I'm running out of villains. I'm down to Castro and Kim Il Sung": 1991

Year in which the maker of genetically engineered StarLink corn promised the EPA it would be fed only to animals: 1998

Estimated percentage of the U.S. corn supply now contaminated with genetically engineered StarLink corn: 20

Ratio of the number of people who died of famine in North Korea since 1993 to the current population of its capital: 1:3

Minimum annual "baby bonus" that the government of Singapore pays couples who have a second child: $500

Maximum number of people who may legally congregate outdoors in Burma without government authorization: 5

Number of poets scheduled to attend a literary conference in China last year before the government banned it: 200

Number of "prefectures...east of the mountains...growing nothing but thorns," according to poet Tu Fu: 200

Percentage change since 1987 in the jellyfish population off Louisiana's coast: +400

Chances that an Alabama voter voted against legalizing marriage between blacks and whites last November: 2 in 5

Chances that a young black man living in Los Angeles's Watts neighborhood is unemployed or in prison: 7 in 10

Number of Catholics who received penance at a weekend-long "confess-a-thon" held in Washington, D.C., last fall: 22,000

Percentage change in the annual number of Roman Catholic priests ordained in Brooklyn and Queens since 1980: -92

Percentage of doctors at a New York City hospital who report often not knowing the cost of the drugs they prescribe: 80

Chance that a patient given a placebo in one impotence-drug trial reported an erection: 1 in 3

Score shouted by Justice Antonin Scalia at a Washington, D.C., tennis court in 1998 before claiming victory: "5-4!"

Percentage of women who chose Al Gore or George Bush from among last year's presidential nominees to be their valentine: 40

Percentage who refused to choose: 44

Rank of assertiveness among qualities the American Psychological Association cites as most common to great presidents: 6

Rank of intellectual brilliance: 1

Number of articles published since 1998 containing the words "George W. Bush" and "aura of inevitability": 350



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SEE ALSO: Gore, Al; Alabama; Scalia, Antonin; Bosnia-Herzegovina; Burma; California; The Catholic Church; China; Powell, Colin; Colombia; Democracy; The Democratic Party; Disease; Drugs; Environmental Protection Agency; Education; Castro, Fidel; Fish and Other Aquatic Life; Florida; Freedom; Bush, George W.; Haiti; Forms of Justice; Law; Literature; Marriage; The Media; Medicine; Mendacity; Money; New Jersey; New York City; North Korea; Policing; Pollution; Prison; Race; Religion; The Republican Party; Sex; Shopping; Singapore; Sport; United States Supreme Court; United States of America; Vice; Washington, D.C.
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MAY 2008

NUMBERS RACKET
Why the Economy Is Worse Than We Know
By Kevin Phillips

MY LOBBY, MYSELF
How John McCain's Hypocrisy Is Laundered As Reform
By Ken Silverstein

THE NEXT THING
A story by Steven Millhauser

Also: Patrick Symmes, Wendell Berry