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The Daily Dose/October 29, 2008
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
   
Finally! Some numbers from around the Human Experience...
WE THE PEOPLE: Some numbers from US presidential elections:
270: the number of Electoral College votes a candidate must receive to be elected President of the United States.
525: The most electoral votes received by a presidential candidate. (Ronald Reagan, 1984)
5: Number of Presidents who served from 1801-1841 who had previously seen service as Secretary of State. (Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren)
1: Number of presidents since 1841 who were once Secretary of State. (James Buchanan)
0: Number of Republican tickets elected since the Depression that did not have a Nixon or a Bush on it. Seriously, we were not making that up. A reader posed that question on the official Writer's Shack message boards and we gave it some thought, and it's true! You have to go back to Herbert Hoover and Charles Curtin in 1928 to find the last Republican ticket elected that did not have a Nixon or Bush on it.
1: Number of men who have lost the presidency despite receiving an absolute majority of the popular votes. (Samuel Tilden, 1876). Others have lost the presidency despite receiving a plurality of the popular vote.
FunFact: Before his death, Tilden reportedly confided he had never known a woman in the biblical sense.
4: Number of times, including this year, that Ralph Nader has run for president.
184: Number of years since a president will take office following two presidents who each served two terms. The last time America had consecutive presidents who served two terms was Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe.
180: Approximate number, in millions, of Americans who are registered to vote.
6: Number of presidential elections held on November 4 since Congress mandated the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in years evenly divisible by four in 1845.
Dry, Technical Matter: Under this formula, the earliest a presidential election can be held is Nov. 2; the latest Nov. 8.
MEANWHILE, I'M GOING TO BUFFET TONIGHT: Some numbers on how people live and die:
1,050: The approximate number of people who die from hunger every hour.
240: The approximate number of people who die from AIDS every hour.
10,590: Number of US dollars a swinging bachelor in the US needs to earn to stay above the official US Census Bureau poverty line.
16,530: Number of dollars a family of three needs to earn in a year to stay above the official US Census Bureau poverty line.
PLAYING FAVORITES: Some numbers concerning teams that have earned official Writer's Shack Fave status:
9: Number of NCAA Division III national football championships won by Mt. Union College
2: Number of times Mt. Union has set the NCAA record for longest winning streak. (55 games, 54 games)
1: Number of Rugby World Cups won by our All Blacks, the national team of New Zealand, which is a country down by Australia.
The Pain May Never Go Away: The All Blacks, heartbreakingly, lost in the quarter-finals in last year's World Cup to, of all people, the goddamn French.
4: Number of future members of the baseball Hall of Fame on the 1908 Chicago Cubs, the last Cubs team to win the World Series. (Mordecai Brown, Frank Change, Johnny Evers, Joe Tinker)
HOLD YOUR FIRE! Some numbers from Death Row:
14: Percentage, according to more than one study we are not going to bother to cite, of people sentenced to death in the United States who were later released because they did not commit the crime they were condemned for.
130: Number, as of this past May, of inmates released from death row because they hadn't committed the crime they had been condemned for.
We Recognize Britney, But Who The Hell's The Column Three Photo?James Beathard, a man who did not commit the crimes Texas put him to death for. His final statement is rather profound reading.
OH, JESUS H: Some numbers showing this country is not getting the most out of its collective talents:
6.75: Number of hours per day the average US television is on.
4.5: Number of hours of television the average American watches each day.
9: Number of years an average American will spend watching television over the course of a 65-year tee vee watching career.
0: Number of heavenly bodies man has walked on since Apollo 17 left the Moon in December, 1972.
1: Number of states where less than 20 percent of the population is really fat. (Colorado)
3: Number of states where more than 30 percent of the folks are really fat. (Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi)
66.3: Percentage of US citizens over the age of 20 who are merely overweight.
STOP THE PRESSES! Some numbers from the dying but still-proud newspaper industry:
4.6: Percentage circulation decrease of 507 reporting newspapers, for the six-month period ending this past Sept. 30.
7: Number of Pulitzer Prizes won by the Christian Science Monitor, which recently announced that, after 100 years, it will stop printing a daily print edition in favor of its web site and a weekly news magazine to be launched in April.
10.6: Percentage drop of the Dallas Morning News, the biggest drop amongst the 25 largest daily, US papers.
1690: Year the first American multi-page newspaper, Publick Occurences both Foreign and Domestick was published in the Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts. Governor Thomas Hinckley - citing "sundry doubtful and uncertain Reports" expressed his "high Resentment and Disallowance of said Pamphlet" and shut it down after one issue.
THIS IS CASEY COUNTING THEM DOWN: Some numbers from Billboard's Hot 100 chart:
16: Most number of weeks a song has spent at #1. (One Sweet Day, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men, 1995-96)
11: Most number of weeks a song has spent at #2. [Exhale (Shoop Shoop), Whitney Houston, 1995]
10: Most number of weeks a song has spent at #2 without hitting #1. (Work It, Missy Elliot, 2002; Waiting For A Girl Like You, Foreigner, 1981)
95: Biggest jump to #1, done this past week by the inevitable, and honestly, rather adorable, Britney Spears' Womanizer.
Thought For The Day: America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. - Gene Cernan, Commander, Apollo 17, and the last human to set foot on the moon.
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: There was no trivia question last time, silly! Remember?
Today's Stumper: You expect trivia after today's column? The trivia question will return next time.
Comments? Recipes? Complaints? Email the Writer's Shack here!
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