5/85Number of the top ten industrial companies in Nicaragua that are owned by the state: 5

Nicaraguan Ministry of Industry

    Number in which U.S., British, or Canadian corporations own a controlling interest: 4

Nicaraguan Ministry of Industry

5/85Latin American countries in which military governments have been replaced with civilian ones since 1979: 9

The New York Times

5/85Political bombings, kidnappings, beatings, and death threats in Argentina in 1984: 800

Ambito Financiero (Buenos Aires)

5/85U.S. military aid to El Salvador since 1980, per guerrilla: $52,300

Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus (U.S. Congress)

5/85Journalists killed in Latin America in 1984: 11

Inter American Press Association (Miami)/Committee to Protect Journalists (New York City)

5/85Number of murders the average American child has seen on television by the age of 16: 18,000

National Institute of Mental Health (Bethesda, Md.)

5/85Percentage of New York City police officers who fired their guns in the line of duty in 1984: 1.2

New York City Police Department

5/85Percentage increase in members of Manhattan’s West Side Rifle and Pistol Range since the Goetz shootings: 30

West Side Rifle and Pistol Range (New York City)

5/85Percentage increase in violent crime in Jamaica in 1984: 23

The New York Times

5/85Annual U.S. arms exports to the Third World: $9,500,000,000

Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (Washington, D.C.)

    Annual Soviet arms exports to the Third World: $4,500,000,000

Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (Washington, D.C.)

5/85Percentage of funds the Pentagon has requested since 1981 that Congress has appropriated: 97.5

America’s War Machine, by Tom Gervasi (Grove Press)

5/85Portion of U.S. military pensioners who work full time: 2/3

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Washington, D.C.)

    Percentage of U.S. military pensioners who are over 65: 15

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Washington, D.C.)

5/85Percentage of American adults who say they want to live to be 100: 49

Media General (Richmond) and Associated Press Poll

5/85Average amount a lower-class American family spends rearing a child (to age 18): $84,000

“Investing in Children,” by T. J. Espenshade (Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.)

    Average amount an upper-class family spends: $110,000

“Investing in Children,” by T. J. Espenshade (Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.)

5/85Percentage of mothers who do not receive the court-ordered child support to which they are entitled: 28

U.S. Census Bureau

5/85Percentage increase in the number of women in U.S. prisons since 1974: 780

U.S. Department of Justice

5/85Number of privately operated prisons in the United States: 16

U.S. Department of Justice

5/85Percentage of American astronauts who have experienced motion sickness in space: 48

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

    Percentage who publicly discuss it: 0

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

5/85Months it will take for the number of AIDS cases in the United States to double: 12

Centers for Disease Control (Atlanta)

5/85Percentage of all cases of measles in the United States that occurred on college campuses in 1980: 1.5

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

    In 1983: 19.8

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

5/85Percentage of Harvard’s class of 1984 who graduated with honors yet had below median grades: 21

Harvard University

5/85Percentage of American 13-year-olds who think it is illegal to start a third party: 58

High School, by Ernest L. Boyer (Harper & Row)

5/85Average annual percentage increase in wheat production by Chinese peasants since 1978: 12

The Economist (London)

5/85Average number of Ethiopian refugees who arrive daily in the Sudan: 3,000

International Committee of the Red Cross (Geneva)

5/85Percentage increase in admissions for malnutrition at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital from 1981 to 1983: 24

Cook County Hospital (Chicago)

5/85Chances that an American adult is obese: 1 in 5

National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Panel

5/85Rank of Mother’s Day among all holidays in the number of Americans eating out: 1

National Restaurant Association (Washington, D.C.)

5/85Portion of American adults who do not drink: 1/3

Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (Washington, D.C.)

5/85Portion of American adults who have never flown in an airplane: 1/3

Air Transport Association of America (Washington, D.C.)

5/85Percentage increase in members of the Mormon Church since 1975: 56

Mormon Church (Salt Lake City)

5/85Number of wild mustangs in the American West: 51,880

U.S. Department of the Interior

5/85Total horsepower at the 1984 Indianapolis 500: 23,000

Harper’s research

    At the 1984 Kentucky Derby: 1,000

Harper’s research

5/85Longest recorded flight by a chicken: 302' 8"

International Flying Chicken Association (Rio Grande, Ohio)