12/90Number of new businesses that have been started in Poland this year: 175,000

Gazeta International (Warsaw)

    Number of businesses that have folded: 147,000

Gazeta International (Warsaw)

12/90Chances that a Pole’s favorite TV program is Dynasty: 1 in 4

Gazeta International (Warsaw)

12/90Percentage change, since 1989, in U.S. investment in foreign stocks and bonds: +68

U.S. Department of Commerce

    Percentage change, since 1989, in foreign investment in U.S. stocks, bonds, and Treasury securities: -80

U.S. Department of Commerce

12/90Number of times Japanese banks have raised the prime interest rate in the last 18 months: 6

Bank of Japan (New York City)

12/90Number of shares of stock in their own companies that oil- and gas-industry executives have sold since August: 1,130,000

Invest/Net (North Miami, Florida)

12/90Percentage of Americans who do not know that the United States supplied arms to Iraq during its war with Iran: 73

Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press (Washington)

12/90Percentage of all hostages held by Iraq who are from Third World countries: 98

Associated Press (New York City)

12/90Portion of the 115 armed conflicts worldwide that are civil wars: 9/10

Carter Center of Emory University (Atlanta)

12/90Number of free gas masks the Israeli government plans to distribute to Israeli citizens and visitors this year: 4,500,000

Israeli Consulate (New York City)

12/90Amount the Israeli government plans to charge Palestinians in the Occupied Territories for a gas mask: $20

New York Times (Jerusalem)

12/90Minimum amount each Soviet family emigrating to Israel this year received in Israeli government subsidies: $11,000

Israeli Consulate (New York City)

    Estimated percentage of Soviet immigrants to Israel this year who are professionals: 55

Israeli Consulate (New York City)

12/90Number of the 206 endowed professorships at M.I.T. that have been funded by Japanese companies: 21

M.I.T. (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

12/90Price of a gold-plated refrigerator from the Mitsukoshi department store in Tokyo: $6,181

Mitsukoshi department store (Tokyo)

12/90Price, in zlotys, of a “saddle of love” from Intersex, a newly opened sexual-novelty shop in Warsaw: 724,000

Intersex (Warsaw)

12/90Estimated chances that a Catholic priest in the United States is sexually active: 1 in 2

A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy, by A. W. Richard Sipe (Brunner/Mazel, New York City)

12/90Members of the Christian Motorcyclists Association: 33,805

Christian Motorcyclists Association (Hatfield, Arkansas)

12/90Number of meditators meditating at once it takes to affect world affairs, according to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi: 7,000

Maharishi International University (Fairfield, Iowa)

12/90Phone number for the hot line of the Society for Secular Armageddonism, in San Francisco: 673-3666

Doom, the Society for Secular Armageddonism (San Francisco)

12/90Average number of Christmas cards received by an American household each December: 26

Hallmark Cards (Kansas City, Missouri)

12/90Market value of three French hens: $15

J. Patrick Bradley, Provident National Bank (Philadelphia)

    Of seven swans a-swimming: $7,000

J. Patrick Bradley, Provident National Bank (Philadelphia)

12/90Amount Americans spend each year on birdseed: $1,100,000,000

U.S. Office of Migratory Bird Management (Arlington, Virginia)

12/90Amount the U.S. government lent Brazil last year to build a highway through the Amazon rain forest: $20,000,000

Inter-American Development Bank (Washington)

12/90Number of curbside frog ramps in the streets of Stevens Point, Wisconsin: 4

City Hall (Stevens Point, Wisconsin)

12/90Winning distance in a guitar-throwing contest held in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, last July, in feet: 89

Ziegler Music (Baton Rouge, Louisiana)

12/90Average number of American blacks who have moved to the South each day since 1986: 349

U.S. Census Bureau

12/90Percentage of blacks in the New York City area who would have to move for the races there to be evenly distributed: 80

Douglas S. Massey, University of Chicago

12/90Average amount of time that a black American waits for a kidney transplant, in months: 13.9

U.S. Office of the Inspector General (Baltimore)

    Average amount of time a white American waits, in months: 7.6

U.S. Office of the Inspector General (Baltimore)

12/90Number of the 26 human bodies frozen in the hope of being brought back to life that are in California: 24

Alcor Foundation (Riverside, California)

12/90Estimated amount a $100,000 Individual Reanimation Account will yield in 2090: $219,976,130

Reanimation Foundation (Vaduz, Liechtenstein)

12/90Price of pectoral implants for a man, from Dr. Brian Novack of Beverly Hills, California: $6,500

Brian Novack (Beverly Hills, California)

12/90Average score Americans give themselves on a one-to-ten scale of looks: 6.5

Roper Organization (New York City)

12/90Percentage of 8- to 12-year-old boys who agree that “a cool haircut makes a kid cool”: 50

Sports Illustrated for Kids (New York City)

12/90Rank of TV viewing, eating, and shopping, among activities Americans spend the most leisure time engaged in: 1,2,3

University of Maryland Survey Research Center (College Park)

12/90Number of television pilots broadcast in September that contained the word “suck”: 4

Jay Martel, Rolling Stone (New York City)