Jay Ross's Blog, page 10

Ten Troubling Ways That America Has (Not?) Changed Since Selma

[image error] Fifty years since Selma.  How have things changed?  Quite a bit.  And not enough.  Let's look at some troubling numbers.

1.  The Police State:  From 1980 to 2008, the number of Americans in jail quadrupled.  How is that possible?  Did crime suddenly quadruple?  We have 25% of the world's prisoners.  And African-Americans are now incarcerated at a rate six times greater than whites.  (The popular narrative is that this is because of Republicans, but this does not match the numbers.)  At the end of 2013 there were over 525,000 black men in jail.  About 42% are for nonviolent crimes.  That's 525,000 dads that can't be there for their kids.

2.  The Family:  In the 1960's, only 10% of babies were born out of wedlock.  Today that number is more than 40% (73% in the African-American community).  In America, marriage drops the probability of child poverty by 82%.

3. Public Schools:  More than 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, 40% of Latino students and 30% of Black students are in schools where they are 90-100% of the student body with no school choice.  Big government has tried throwing more money at the problem, but despite spending more per student than any other country in the world, we still score in the middle of the pack on international tests and continue to let the federal government and state government call most of the shots.  (All of this, of course, would be a moot point if all parents got involved in their child's education.)

4.  College Accessibility:  Affirmative action has had mixed results, but college enrollment for African-Americans has doubled from 10% to 20%.  Unfortunately, pouring government dollars into higher education to make it more accessible has helped triple the cost of college since 1974 in 2014 dollars.  (The average student debt is now $30,000.)

5.  "Women's Healthcare":  Infant mortality rates for African-Americans have dropped from 41.7 deaths per 1000 live births in 1965 to only 11.22 deaths today...But Roe v. Wade has resulted in the legal termination of over 13 million African American pregnancies and over 28 million female babies.

6.  Representation in Media:  Hollywood still grossly under-represents all minorities.

7.  White women still earn 77 on the dollar compared to white men.  But black women earn 64 cents and Latina women earn 55 cents.

8.  Voter ID laws may affect as many as 25% of African Americans...despite IDs being free and being necessary for things as essential as getting a library card.

9.  Home ownership for African-Americans has only risen .3% from 42.6 to 42.9.

10.  Black membership in Congress has increased eightfold from 6 members in 1965 to 48 today...unfortunately, Congress still has an approval rating of 16%...

DiaryOfAmerica@gmail.com

Ten Interesting Things About Hollywood Last Year

The 87th Academy Awards airs tomorrow.  Forty-three million people turn on their TVs to watch Hollywood congratulate themselves for creating just over 30 hours of entertaining film last year.  Seems like as good a time as any to look at some numbers...

1.  Thirteen movies made over $200,000,000 domestically last year:  Hunger Games, Guardians of the Galaxy, American Sniper, Captain America, The LEGO Movie, The Hobbit, Transformers, Maleficent, X-Men, Big Hero 6, Dawn of the Apes, Spiderman 2, and Godzilla.  (By comparison, there wasn't a single book that sold over 2 million copies last year, and only 6 sold over 1 million.)
2.  According to MovieGuide, conservative movies made three times as much money as liberal ones.
3.  According to SAG. the average actor made $52,000 last year.  (Click here to see what everything from agents to animal actors make.)
4.  The three highest paid actors last year were Robert Downey Jr. ($75 million), Dwayne Johnson ($52 million), and Bradley Cooper ($46 million).
5.  According to Forbes, the three most overpaid Hollywood actors last year (based on return on investment) were Adam Sandler, Johnny Depp, and Ben Stiller.
6.  The most prolific actors last year were Wendi McLendon-Covey (8 roles), Willem Defoe (7), Oliver Platt (6), Liam Neeson (6), and Ray Liotta (6)...Nicholas Cage was only in five movies.
7.  G-Rated movies accounted for less than 1% of all releases last year.  BoxOfficeMojo.com only lists 6 of them (and 3 of those made $500K or less)...There were more than 50 horror movies released last year...
8.  Boyhood, The LEGO Movie, and Mr. Turner were the three best reviewed movies on RottenTomatoes.com.
9.  Left Behind, I Frankenstein, and The Legend of Hercules were the three worst reviewed movies.
10.  Nearly half of all respondents want American Sniper to win Best Picture.



Think you know a lot about movies and the Oscars?  Try this Insanely-Hard-Oscar-Trivia.

DiaryOfAmerica@gmail.com

Ten Things To Know About My Presidents

Happy Presidents' Day, everybody!  Established in 1885 to honor George Washington, it now covers all 44 of 'em, and it seems like as good of a time as any to sit back and look at some presidential numbers...

1.  The average age of my presidents when they took office was 54 years 11 months.  (The youngest to take office was Teddy Roosevelt, 42.  The youngest to be elected was JFK, 43.  And the oldest was Ronald Reagan, 69.)
2.  Despite having presidents from all kinds of jobs, 25 of my 44 presidents have been lawyers, and I've never had a doctor.
3.  Sixteen presidents had been Senators; twenty had been in the House; and twenty were governors.
4.  Six presidents graduated from Harvard (including both Roosevelts and JFK).  Three went to Yale (Taft and the Bushes).  Three went to the College of William and Mary (Jefferson, Monroe, and Tyler).  And eleven never graduated from college (including Washington, Lincoln, and Truman).
5.  Thirty-one of my presidents served in my military.
6.  My three richest presidents were Washington, Jefferson, and JFK--each with a net worth in the hundreds of millions.  I've only had nine presidents with a net worth of less than a million (in today's dollars), including Lincoln, Grant, and Wilson.
7.  New York and Ohio have both been home to six of my presidents.  Virginia has five.  Massachusetts has four.  And California, Illinois, Tennessee, and Texas each have three.
8.  There have only been five presidents who have been shorter than my average height. The last one was Benjamin Harrison in 1888.  (This Slate article also points out a weird connection based on height and my Constitution.)
9.  I've had eighteen republican presidents, fourteen democrat presidents, and one independent (Washington).
10.  Ranker.com has my three best presidents as Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson.  My three worst are A. Johnson, Buchanon, and Wilson.

What do you think?
DiaryOfAmerica@gmail.com

Ten Crazy Numbers About the Super Bowl

Another NFL season has come and gone.  Before the big game kicks off for the 49th time, let's take a quick look at some crazy numbers.

1.  The last five Super Bowls has been the five most watched telecasts in my history.  (And more females watch the Super Bowl than the total number of people that watch the Oscars.)
2.  The average ticket price this year is $6,500 (110% higher than last year).  A ticket to Super Bowl I cost six bucks.
3.  A 30 second commercial this year costs $4.5 million (or $150,000 a second)!
4.  The owner of the Seahawks (Paul Allen) and Patriots (Robert Kraft) have a combined net worth of $21 billion.
5.  On Super Bowl Sunday Americans will eat 1.25 billion chicken wings, 158 million avocados, 3.8 million pounds of popcorn, 11.2 million pounds of potato chips, 8.2 million pounds of tortilla chips, 325 million gallons of beer and over $2 million of soda....It adds up to about 2400 snack calories per person (second only to Thanksgiving).
6.  About 43 million Americans will host a Super Bowl party and over $14.3 billion will be spent on food, drink, decorations, and apparel.  (The average party will have 17 people.)
7.  The University of Wisconsin (aka JJ Watt's old school) has more players playing in this year's Super Bowl than any other college: James White and Jonathan Casillas of the Patriots and O'Brien Schofield, Russell Wilson, David Gilreath and Mike Taylor of the Seahawks.
8.  About 36% of fans are rooting for the Seahawks, 31% for the Patriots, and 33% don't care.
9.  Brady and Belichick are 1-4 against the spread in the Super Bowl.  This year's game is a pick 'em.
10.  After 50,000 computer simulations of the game, the most likely score is Seattle 24, Patriots 20.

Interestingly, it is estimated that about $3.8 billion dollars will be bet illegally on the game--38 times more than what's bet legally.  May the best team win!

DiaryOfAmerica@gmail.com

Ten Interesting Things About Twitter

Well, last week Seth Rogan made people lose their minds with his a tweet about the movie American Sniper.  So, it seemed like as good a time as any to look at some amazing numbers about Twitter.  Created on a playground, this company that allows users to communicate in 140 characters or less is now worth $30 billion.

1.  Over a billion people have tried Twitter (but only a fourth of them log in once a month).
2.  The average Twitter account has only one follower.  The average active user has 61.
3.  There are 9,100 tweets sent every second...58 million a day.
4.  About 55% of Twitter users are over 35, and the average age is 37.3.
5.  When speaking, the average person throws in a swear word every 150 words.  The average swear rate for tweets is twice that...and 1 in 13 tweets has a curse word.
6.  The most followed people on Twitter are:  1.  Katy Perry (64 mil), 2. Justin Beiber (60 mil), 3. Barack Obama (54 mil), and 4. Taylor Swift (51 mil). 
7.  PC Magazine has their own list of people you should follow based on category.
8.  The three most popular tweets of all time are: 1. a selfie by Ellen Degeneres and other celebs at the Oscars (retweeted 3.4 million times), 2. A One DIrection guy saying another One Direction guy is always in his heart (retweeted 775,000 times), and 3. Obama announcing he's running the show for four more years (retweeted slightly less than 775,000 times).
9.  Because of their following, celebs can get paid 5 figures for a single sponsored tweet.  Two years ago, Khloe Khardashian was getting 13K per tweet.
10.  Some of the most effective Twitter campaigns last year were run by the White House, Domino's, Doritos, Samsung, and Pepsi.

DiaryOfAmerica@gmail.com

Ten Reasons MLK Was The Man

Few people have done more to change me than non-violent protester, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.   How was he able to do it?  Let's look at some amazing numbers.

1.  Martin graduated high school at age 15, college at 19, and had his doctorate at 25.
2.  Martin led eight revolutionary peaceful protests.
3.  Martin traveled more than 6 million miles and gave over 2500 speeches.
4.  Martin went to jail 29 times.
5.  Martin wrote eight different books.
6.  At age 35, Martin became the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.  He donated the money to help civil rights causes.
7.  Martin was wiretapped 8 times, bugged 16, and called "the most dangerous Negro" in America by the FBI.8.  Martin essentially helped make racial discrimination illegal (with Congress's 1964 passage of the Civil Rights Act and 1965's Voting Rights Act).
9.  Martin was assassinated at 39 but worked so hard he had the heart of a "60 year old man."
10.  Martin's death was so tragic, it led to riots in 130 cities...which I guess is also ironical.

So...what are you doing to change me?

DiaryOfAmerica@gmail.com

Ten Things About College in America

This week President Obama threw out a proposal that would provide two years of free community college to an estimated 9 million Americans to the tune of $70 billion.  As with most things, it's complicated.  So let's look at some interesting numbers.

1.  My government already spends more than $550 billion a year on public elementary and secondary education.  Of that, about 12%--or $79 billion--is federal money.  (Local and state governments kick in about 44% each.)
2.  In 2015, my governments (federal, state, and local) will spend about $1,000,000,000,000 on all education, including colleges.  That's 15% of my total budget--$200 billion more than defense.
3.  In 2010, I spent $11,826 per elementary/secondary student--39% higher than the OECD average of $8,501.  (College was twice as high as the OECD average.)
4.  In an international test taken by 65 countries (and nearly half a million of my 15 year-olds), 22 countries did better than me in science and 29 did better in math.
5.  The cost of college went up 80% from 2003 to 2013.  (That's twice the rate that medical costs increased.)
6.  The average cost of a four year college in 2012-2013 was $22,261.  At the current rate, in 2029, tuition and fees for four years at a private college (not including room and board, books, etc.) will be $355,900.
7.  In 2013, 69% of college seniors had student loan debt.  The average amount was $28,400.  Even 38% of community college students had debt.
8.  Students from high-income families who enter college are six times more likely than students from low-income families to get a bachelor's degree by the age of 25.
9.  While college graduates on average will earn $500,000 more than high school graduates , 48% of employed college graduates are now in jobs that require less than a four year college education.
10.  Currently, my five highest earning degrees are:  1. Petroleum Engineering, 2. Actuarial Mathematics, 3. Nuclear Engineering, 4. Chemical Engineering, and 5. Aerospace Engineering.

DiaryOfAmerica@gmail.com

Ten Interesting Things About America in 2014

Let's look at some interesting numbers from the past 365 days.

1.  With a birth every 8 seconds, a death every 11 seconds, and an international migrant (net) every 33 seconds, I got a new person every 16 seconds and my population climbed up past 320,000,000 (third in the world).
2.  My median age rose to 37.6...tied for the 61st oldest in the world.
3.  There were almost as many abortions as there were deaths by heart disease and cancer combined.
4.  5.  My most popular movie was Guardians of the Galaxy.  My most popular song was Happy.  My most popular TV show was NCIS.  And my most popular YouTube video was of a mutant spider.
6.  Google's top 5 searches were:  1.  Robin Williams, 2.  World Cup, 3.  Ebola, 4.  Malaysia Airlines, and 5.  Flappy Bird.  Its top 5 searched people were:  1. Robin Williams, 2.  Jennifer Lawrence, 3. Kim Kardashian, 4. Tracy Morgan, and 5. Ray Rice.  (This fun map shows what each state googled more than any other state.)
7.  The average American spent 40 minutes a day--243 hours in 2014--on Facebook.
8.  My number of homeless children hit an all-time high--2,500,000
9.  My national debt passed $18,000,000,000,000...or more than $56,000 per person.
10. And Pharmaceuticals/Health Products were my biggest lobbyists by far, handing politicians over $177,000,000.  The top five lobbying industries spent over $600,000,000 on their boys in Washington in 2014.

And that is me.  Right now.  I hope you had a nice 2014.  Have a great New Year!
DiaryOfAmerica@gmail.com

Ten Interesting Things About Christmas in America

Merry Christmas, everybody!  It's that wonderful time where we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior and pump $465 billion into my economy.  Let's look at the numbers.

1.  For the first three centuries after Christ's death, Christmas was not celebrated.  Constantine, the first Christian Roman Emperor, made December 25th a thing in 336 A.D..  Pope Julius made it official a couple years later.
2.  St. Nicholas was an actual dude around 300 A.D. in modern-day Turkey.  Around the Renaissance, he was the most popular saint in Europe.  But our modern version of Santa Claus 
wasn't shaped until Episcopal minister, Clement Clarke Moore, wrote "An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas" in 1822.
3.  Christmas is now celebrated in over 160 countries with a variety of interesting traditions.
4.  About 78% of American households (94 million of 'em)  will have a Christmas tree this year, and 81% of them will be fake.
5.  Real trees take an average of 7 years to grow.  Eighty percent of artificial trees are imported from China.  And the Christmas tree industry employs nearly 100,000 people and takes in nearly $2,000,000,000 annually.
6.  If each of us spent just $64 on American products during the holiday season, it would create 200,000 new jobs.  (If we spent ALL of our holiday money on American products, it would create 4.6 million jobs.)
7.  The average household will spend about $10.78 this season in electricity on their holiday lights ($1.63 if they have LED)...Wired magazine estimates Clark Griswold would have an electric bill of $11/day for his lights.  Not bad.
8.  The ten most requested presents 100 years ago were:  1. Candy, 2. Nuts, 3. Rocking horse,  4. Doll, 5. Mittens/gloves, 6. Toy train, 7. Oranges, 8. Books, 9. Handkerchiefs, and 10. Skates.  The top two most requested gifts on Amazon this year are 1. Cards Against Humanity & 2. Cards Against Humanity expansion edition.
9.  The world's largest gingerbread house was built in the great state of Texas.  It was over 2500 square feet and contained nearly 36,000,000 calories.  (The world's largest snowman was built in Maine and was 122 feet tall.)
10.  The ten highest grossing Christmas movies of all time are:  1.  How the Grinch Stole Christmas ($260 mil), 2. The Polar Express ($183), 3. Elf ($173), 4.  The Santa Clause ($145), 5. The Santa Clause 2 ($139), 6. A Christmas Carol ($138), 7. Four Christmases ($120), 8. The Santa Clause 3 ($85), 9. The Nightmare Before Christmas ($75) 10. Christmas with the Kranks ($74).

DiaryOfAmerica@gmail.com

Ten Interesting Things About Marriage in America

Single Americans now make up more than half of my population--the highest rate since it became a statistic in 1976--and the number of Americans who have never been married is up over 30%, also an all time high.  Sounds like a good topic to look at some numbers...

1.  Each year I have just over 2 million weddings.
2.  The average marrying age for my ladies is 26.9 and for my fellas is 29.8.  (The average age for childbearing, 25, is now younger than the average age for marriage, with 48% of first births being to unwed mothers.)
3.  About 41% of first marriages end in divorce (60% of second marriages and 73% of third marriages).  That's about 100 divorces per hour.
4.  Washington D.C. has my lowest marriage rate...by far.
5.  Women drink more alcohol after they get married, and men drink less.
6.  The average married couple is intimate 58 times per year.
7.  Less than 50% of those polled felt that society is better off if marriage and children are a priority while 50% said society is just as well off if people have other priorities.
8.  A Harvard study of over 125,000 men found that married men are healthier and live longer than single men...another study found single men are six times more likely to be incarcerated.
9.  Only 12% of children with two parents live in poverty while 50% of those living with a single mother do.  (In addition, children with two parents are less likely statistically to be asthmatic, have behavior problems, fall behind in school, or suffer abuse.)
10.  My top ten grossing wedding movies are:  1.  My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 2. Wedding Crashers, 3.  Bridesmaids, 4. Runaway Bride, 5. Mama Mia!, 6. Sweet Home Alabama, 7. My Best Friend's Wedding, 8. American Wedding, 9. Father of the Bride. and 10. The Wedding Singer.

DiaryOfAmerica@gmail.com