October 6, 1998

Matt Bielejeski
Staff Writer

With November fast approaching, the time to vote is drawing near.  Although we don’t get to vote on a president this year, there are still all kinds of other offices that the average Joe can vote for. However, voting participation results show some pretty bizarre figures. With the aid of Harper’s Index from January 1997, I’ve obtained some interesting facts to share with you, the thoughtful reader.  Speaking of voting:

•Number by which Americans who watched last year’s Super Bowl exceeded those who voted in November: 43,000,000

Are you serious?  Yes, in fact, I am serious. I’ve heard of voter apathy, but this is ridiculous.  Everyone is always griping and moaning about how government sucks, spends our money, and generally gives John Q. Public the shaft. Well, by God, do something about it!  I understand that as college students, we don’t have a lot of time to do volumes of research on every candidate for Court-Appointed Janitor, but at least make the effort to vote.  You can’t complain if you didn’t do anything to keep some fool out of office. Enough said.

 It’s time to get political.

•Chances that a Republican man believes that “poor people have hard lives”: 1 in 4

What? Do they think being poor is all fun and games?  Apparently so, because Congress thought welfare recipients were getting too much cash..

•Chances that a person directly affected by the welfare-reform law signed last year could vote: 2 in 5

Tsk, tsk, tsk.  Don’t you just love it when something affects you and you have absolutely no control over it?  Does it remind you of being a student here at ASU? In all seriousness, those folks that couldn’t vote couldn’t do anything.  Do you need me to beat you with the corpse of Mr. Ed any longer?  Vote, vote, vote!

Speaking of the government spending our tax dollars, the way they get our money is by taking a big fat chunk of it from our hard-earned paycheck. All of us love to see 15-20 percent of our dough go straight to Uncle Sam. It’s all because we have to work; and speaking of work,

•Ratio of the population of North Dakota to the total number of Americans employed by Wal-Mart: 1:1

So if I were to take all the people that work for WallyWorld across the nation and count them up, they would equal the population of North Dakota, right?
Frightening, isn’t it.  Gotta love the power of corporate America.

•Chances that an evil character in a Disney animated movie speaks with a foreign accent: 1 in 2

Remember Jaffar, that bad guy from Aladdin?  Now I’m not exactly a Disney movie buff (in fact, Aladdin was the last Disney movie I saw), but it seems to me that we’re trying to send a pretty evil message to our kids; namely, that people with accents are evil. So then Apu, that lovable Indian guy who runs the Kwiki-Mart on The Simpsons is Satan, right?  Start the Disney boycott…

For those of us without an accent, we seem to be pretty proud of ourselves, according to the next factual tidbit.

•Percentage of Americans who say that they speak English “very well”: 94

For some reason, I don’t think so.  Maybe it’s just me going insane, but I hear enough bad grammar on a daily basis that could fill up…let’s see here…maybe the Grand freakin’ Canyon!  If you don’t believe me or the Harper’s Index, just turn on Jerry Springer.

•Average number of potholes per mile of paved U.S. road: 8

All I know is that Boone pushed the national average up by a bunch.  For our lovely mountain town, I’d say we have 12 potholes per every quarter mile.  And I’m being generous.  But then people say that we only have all of these potholes because of construction.  And if you thought ASU spent a lot of money on construction, take a look at how our spending affected the national average:

•Amount the U.S. spends on road construction and maintenance each day: $180,429,842

Yes, that’s right, almost $180.5.  Per day.  That’s 24 hours.  That’s insanity.  That’s a lot of waffles.

•Number of Bill Clinton Waffles a California bakery has sold since their introduction last September: 50,000

Presidential waffles-- what a great idea.  I wonder how many times Monica Lewinsky chowed down-- on waffles, of course…

Once this whole scandal thingie is over, Miz Monica needs to go get this procedure done:

•Amount that SculptYours, in Santa Monica, California, charges to bronze a set of buttocks, depending on size: $2,700-$3,700

If that’s not capitalism at its best, I don’t know what is.  I figure Monica could sell quite a few copies of her gilded ghetto booty.  She could sell for even more if Clinton gets impeached, and market them as “The Ass That Brought Down The White House.”

Speaking of sex,

•Percentage of poor, urban fifth graders in a University of Michigan study who say that they’ve had sexual intercourse: 46

Good God, orgy on the playground.  If kids are having sex in fifth grade, then they’ll be a mother of two by eighth grade and a grandparent when they’re a sophomore in high school.

•Rank of Texas, the state with the least generous welfare program, among states with the highest adolescent birth rate: 2

All that verbal mishmash means that Texas is the state with the second most children having children. Could that have something to do with a lack of welfare money?  Let’s see…

•Rank of North Dakota, the state with the most generous welfare program: 50

The bottom line is this: more welfare money equals less adolescent pregnancies.

Now I’m sure I’ll get some fools writing letters to the editor about my liberal column and how I need to get my facts straight.  Well, bucko, the facts are right there.

Interpret them however you want.  It’s pretty obvious to me.  Bring it on, Sea Bass.