Salient

Pecking Order

By Salient | 1 Oct, 2007

Number of classrooms that could be without teachers by 2008 if current class size trends continue: 1000

Fee for which a Florida middle-school gym teacher allowed students to skip class, before he was fired in January: $1.30

Years that his predecessor had operated under the same policy: 1

Date in which the proposal for a $20 million dollar marine education center on Wellington’s south coast was scuttled: 22 September, 2007

Amount of taxpayer money spent on the proposal so far: $400,000

Factor by which the average noise level underwater in the ocean has increased since 1965: 3

Extra amount each Kiwi household is expected to pay next year as a result of rising prices: $2,890

Average number of credit cards per U.S. household: 12.7

Number of dollars a woman earned for every dollar that a man did in 1983 and 2000, respectively: 1.07, 1.06

Percentage of Kiwi men who say they clean the toilet compared with woman: 77, 90

Percentage of Kiwis that read while on the toilet: 43

Number of copies a book of poems must sell per week to make the Poetry Foundation’s bestseller list: 50

Rank of Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion among Amazon.co.uk’s top-selling “Religion and Spirituality” books this year: 1

Rank of Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great: 2

Number of copies Pope Benedict XVI’s book Jesus of Nazareth has sold in the United States: 68,000

Percentage disapproval rating for George W. Bush in July: 66

Ratings for Harry Truman in 1952 and Richard Nixon in 1974 respectively, the only presidents ever to climb as high: 67,66

Percentage rating for Mayor Kerry Prendergast as candidate most likely to get votes: 21

Rating of rivals Bryan Pepperell and Ray Ahipene-Mercer respectively: 41, 22

Number of cast members of the movie Predator who have run for Governor: 3

Last year in which no film, screenplay, or performance relating to mental illness was nominated for an Oscar: 1953

Fine levied on a Swedish couple in 1996 for naming a son Brfxxxcccxxmnnpcccclllmmnprxxvvclmnckssqlbb1l116: $1003

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E-mail Pecking Orders to editor@Salient.org.nz

SOURCES: 1, 5, 7, 10, 11. Sunday Star Times, September 23; 2, 3. Escambia County Sheriff’s Office (Pensacola, Fla.); 4. Dominion Post Saturday, 22 September 2007; 6. Sean Wioggins, Scripps Institiue of Oceanography; 8. The Nilson Report (Carpinteria, Calif.); 9. General Accounting Office (Washington); 12. The Poetry Foundation; 13, 14. Amazon.co.uk; 15. Nielsen BookScan (White Plains, N.Y.); 16, 17. The Gallup Organization (Princeton, N.J.); 18, 19. www. stuff.co.nz; 20. Sonny Landham for Governor (Ashland, Ky.)/Californians for Schwarzenegger (Santa Monica)/Office of the Governor of Minnesota (St. Paul); 21. Harpers magazine; 22. Hallands Nyheter (South Gothenborg, Sweden)