saperlipopette

Bits of information gleaned from Harper’s “Index” and “Findings”:

— Number of states where it is currently legal for schools to use corporal punishment on disabled students : 20

— Chances that an American child currently held in an urban juvenile detention center has a mental illness : 2 in 3

— Last year that the U.S. divorce rate was as high as in 2008 : 1970

— Percentage of U.S. women today who are “always, frequently or sometimes” embarrassed by their feet : 57

— Percentage of all U.S. health-care spending that goes to treating conditions caused by obesity : 9

— Biologists concluded that dogs arose, 16,000 years ago, among several hundred tame wolves living south of the Yangtze River, and that these original dogs likely were bred to be eaten.

— East Asians, in observing the faces of Western Caucasians, frequently mistake disgust for anger.

— Circadian-rhythm disruption was reported among binge-drinking hamsters.

— Physicians were afraid to ask the mentally ill to stop smoking.

— … scientists found that lobsters are repelled by the stench of their own dead.

— Titus the Gorilla King died in Rwanda.