Harper’s Index

Rank of retired and housewife, among the most common “occupations” of donors to Bill Clinton's legal defense fund: 1,2

Chance that a member of the American Association of Retired Persons holds a paying job: 1 in 3

Rank of Bob Dole's 1996 e-mail list of supporters, among the largest campaign e-mail lists ever created: 1

Briefing books with Al Gore's photo over Dan Quayle's bio printed for the 1999 Davos, Switzerland, economics forum: 3,100

Percentage of the 125 people included in 1999's Flemings Who's Who in Central Banking who list no “leisure pursuits”: 90

Number of the 15 Congress members whose net worth exceeds $19 million who are Democrats: 9

Chance that a mother of dependent children depicted on a prime-time network TV show holds a paying job: 1 in 3

Chances that a nonfictional American mother with children does: 2 in 3

Percentage of children born in New York City last year who are living in poverty: 52

Number of states in which families living at or below the federal poverty level are subject to income tax: 19

Percentage by which Jasper County, Texas, raised property taxes this year to finance the murder trial of John William King: 4.5

Number of times that a white man has been executed for killing a black man in Texas since 1860: 0

Chance that a black woman living in the U.S. will be a victim of violence this year: 1 in 18

Chance that a Native American woman will be: 1 in 10

Rank of José, among the most popular names given boys born in California or Texas last year: 1

Percentage change since 1997 in the number of illegal immigrants deported by the U.S.: +51

Percentage change since 1997 in the annual number of people seeking asylum in Switzerland: +72

Chance that one of last year's applicants for Swiss asylum was a Turkish Kurd: 1 in 3

Estimated number of deaths for which Kurd rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan is accused of being responsible: 30,000

Estimated number for which Chile's Augusto Pinochet is accused of being responsible: 3,100

Estimated number of drug-related U.S. extradition requests to Mexico that are pending: 40

Chance that a day since December 28 has passed without U.S. or British forces bombing Iraq: 1 in 2

Value of the U.S. military equipment earmarked last year to aid Iraqi anti-Hussein groups: $97,000,000

Amount that has been used: 0

Amount Cambodia has agreed to pay a U.S. lobbying firm to “recast” Hun Sen's government “in a favorable light”: $550,000

Head of cattle that Hyundai's founder brought from South Korea last fall on a visit to North Korea's Kim Jong Il: 1,000

Number of elephants enrolled in painting schools in Thailand: 10

Average duration in hours of the stupor induced in Japanese beetles by the consumption of geraniums: 8

Number of the 25 species seriously affected by the 1989 Exxon Valdez Alaskan oil spill that have fully recovered: 2

Amount of the $5 billion that Exxon was ordered to pay in punitive damages in 1994 that it has paid: 0

Estimated amount that Exxon has earned by investing this money in the meantime: $5,000,000,000

Portion of the domestic oil-refining market that Standard Oil controlled prior to being broken up in 1911: 9/10

Portion of the domestic market that the proposed merger between Exxon and Mobil will control: 1/7

Percentage change since 1997 in the number of antitrust investigations opened by the Federal Trade Commission: +234

Number of independent-counsel investigations since 1978 whose prosecutors and targets have not been made public: 2

Ranking points by which the name Monica has dropped in popularity among those given U.S. girls since 1997: 24

Days the President should spend in jail “simply for hitting on a dog like” Paula Jones, according to O. J. Simpson: 30

Number of subscribers to PursuitWatch, an L.A. paging service that alerts customers when a high-speed chase is televised: 350

Number of subscribers to Eternal Ink, the official newsletter of the Christian Tattoo Association: 23

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