How to Watch the Perseid Meteor Shower

Most of us hear about meteor showers the next day, over the water cooler. Well, you have no excuse now -- here's advance notice, with six steps to enhance the experience, PLUS video, thanks to wikiHow (not wikiLeaks!)

How to Watch the Perseid Meteor Shower: 6 steps (with video) - wikiHow

The Jersey Turnpike -- Classic blacktop!**

In contemporary poetry and music, the New Jersey Turnpike has been reflective of its times. In the 1950's, the Turnpike represented the efficiency and freedom brought by fast automobiles. These feelings were depicted in the Chuck Berry song "You Can't Catch Me," in which the singer decides to take his new Cadillac out for a ride on the New Jersey Turnpike. In the 1960's and 1970's, sentiment toward the turnpike turned negative, as the turnpike was represented as the spoiler of the environment and the cause of national malaise. This was best described in the line, "counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, and they've all gone to look for America," written by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. By the 1980's, there was a coming to terms with the turnpike, as evidenced by songs written by Bruce Springsteen that have a nightmarish, survivalist vision of life in New Jersey. When the NJT was featured in the opening credits of the HBO hit series, 'The Sopranos,' the legend continued.



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Rainbow Warrior -- R.I.P.

The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior | Greenpeace International

Today in History -- Bomber crashes into Empire State Building

At 9:40 a.m. on Saturday, July 28, 1945,  a B-25 Mitchell bomber piloted in thick fog by Lieutenant Colonel William F. Smith, Jr., accidentally crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building, between the 79th and 80th floors, where the offices of the National Catholic Welfare Council were located. One engine shot through the side opposite the impact and fell on a nearby building; the other plummeted down an elevator shaft. The resulting fire was extinguished in 40 minutes. Fourteen people were killed in the incident. Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a plunge of 75 stories inside an elevator, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded. Despite the damage and loss of life, the building was open for business on many floors on the following Monday.