7/89Percentage of Muscovites who say that “average people don’t have any say about what the government does”: 43

Marttila & Kiley (Boston)-Market Opinion Research (Detroit)

    Percentage of New Yorkers who say this: 52

Marttila & Kiley (Boston)-Market Opinion Research (Detroit)

7/89Ratio in 1988 of New York State residents who bought lottery tickets to those who voted: 3:2

N.Y. State Division of the Lottery (Albany)/N.Y. State Board of Elections (Albany)

7/89Number of stories about George Bush that aired on the evening network news during his first 100 days in office: 336

Center for Media and Public Affairs (Washington)

    Number of stories about Jimmy Carter that aired during his first 100 days in office: 906

Center for Media and Public Affairs (Washington)

7/89Percentage change, since 1979, in the average number of hours of television devoted to public affairs: -51

Essential Information (Washington)

7/89Percentage of Americans who say that Soviet aggression is “a very serious threat” to national security: 50

Americans Talk Security (Winchester, Mass.)

    Percentage who say that global environmental problems are “a very serious threat” to national security: 77

Americans Talk Security (Winchester, Mass.)

7/89Acres of Alaska’s temperate rain forest cut down each day: 90

South East Alaska Conservation Council (Washington)

7/89Estimated change in the distance between the Hawaiian Islands and the Soviet Union each year, in inches: -4

Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Univ. of Calif. (San Diego, Calif.)

    Estimated change in the distance between the United States and Europe each year, in inches: +1

Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Univ. of Calif. (San Diego, Calif.)

7/89Chances that a West German conscript will refuse to serve in the military: 1 in 7

Zentralstelle für Recht und Schutz der Kriegsdienstverweigerer aus Gewissensgründen (Bremen, West Germany)

7/89Rank of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Japan, among countries with the most industrial waste per square mile: 1,2,3

World Resources Institute (Washington)

7/89Combined long-term corporate debt of Toyota, Nissan, and Honda: $8,800,000

Honda (N.Y.C.), Nissan (Carson, Calif.), Toyota (Tokyo)

    Combined long-term corporate debt of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler: $9,000,000,000

Chrysler (Highland Park, Mich.), Ford (Dearborn, Mich.), General Motors (Detroit)

7/89Percentage of their income American CEOs derived from stock options and other long-term incentives in 1978: 15

Sibson & Co. (N.Y.C.)

    Percentage today: 42

Sibson & Co. (N.Y.C.)

7/89Chances that a merger involving a U.S. company will be hostile: 1 in 4

W.T. Grimm & Co. (Schaumburg, Ill.)

7/89Payment that five former employees demanded from Du Pont in 1988 for not disclosing the Lycra formula: $10,000,000

Du Pont (Wilmington, Del.)

7/89Estimated number of maternity uniforms the New York City Police Department has issued its officers since 1982: 1,000

N.Y.C. Police Department

7/89Percentage of women who say they control the TV remote control in their household: 34

Roper Org. (N.Y.C.)

    Percentage of men who say they control the TV remote control: 56

Roper Org. (N.Y.C.)

7/89Rank of July, among all months last year, in the amount of prime-time television watched by Americans: 12

Nielsen Media Research (N.Y.C.)

7/89Percentage of American commuters who eat breakfast in their car: 25

John L. Stanton, St. Joseph’s Univ. (Philadelphia)

7/89Number of FAA-certified pilots whose driver’s licenses have been revoked or suspended due to drunk driving: 10,300

U.S. Dept. of Transportation

7/89Portion of all oil produced worldwide that is used for transportation in the United States: 1/5

U.S. Dept. of Energy

7/89Portion of all illegal drugs produced worldwide that are consumed in the United States: 3/5

Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and Internat’l Operations

7/89Percentage of Americans who say that mowing the lawn is “risky”: 54

Louis Harris & Assoc. (N.Y.C.)-Public Opinion (Washington)

7/89Ratio of Americans killed by lightning each year to Americans killed by fireworks: 9:1

Nat’l Safety Council (Chicago)

7/89Number of the 698 people who have died in U.S. national parks since 1984 who were killed by animals: 2

U.S. Nat’l Park Service

7/89Proposed maximum fine for participating in a dwarf toss in South Carolina: $200

Rep. Tom Keegan, South Carolina House of Representatives (Columbia)

7/89Number of coin-operated suntan-lotion spray dispensers in Ocean City, Maryland: 16

Suntan Lotion Application Systems (New Castle, Delaware)

7/89Number of butterfly parks in the United States: 3

Wall Street Journal (N.Y.C.)

7/89Percentage of all animal species worldwide that are beetles: 40

Smithsonian Institution (Washington)

7/89Maximum number of aphids that FDA regulations permit in a pound of frozen broccoli: 269

U.S. FDA/Harper’s research

7/89Average number of times an American opens the refrigerator each day: 22

Paul Lachance, Rutgers Univ. (New Brunswick, N.J.)

7/89Average number of months in an American’s lifetime that are spent opening junk mail: 8

Priority Management Pittsburgh

7/89Rolls of toilet paper Chicago’s city government has produced this year from recycled City Hall wastepaper: 19,000

Chicago City Hall

7/89Length of the entry for the word “set” in the 1989 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, in pages: 60

Oxford Univ. Press (N.Y.C.)

7/89Rank of dog, cat, snake, and U.S. president, among World Book Encyclopedia entries consulted most often: 1,2,3,4

World Book Encyclopedia (Chicago)