You are right about your train ride in the morning

While announcing that scheduled service improvements to the subway system, MTA Transit President Howard Roberts admitted that riders should have 'at least 3 square feet of space during rush hour'.

“That’s less than the U.S. Department of Agriculture guarantees for shipping cattle,” said rider advocate Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign. “Everybody knows they’re violating their loading guidelines. If you can’t get on a train, there’s not 3 square feet per passenger.”

So remember while you're riding to work on the Uptown Eastside Express - cattle on their way to the slaughterhouse have it better than you.

It's Midsummer day throughout most of Europe.



Here's Your Today In History -

June 24, 1374 -
In a sudden outbreak of Dancing Mania (aka "St. John's Dance"), people in the streets of Aix-la-Chapelle, Prussia experience terrible hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion. Many of the sufferers are afflicted with
frothing at the mouth, diabolical screaming, and sexual frenzy. The phenomenon lasts well into the month of July. Nowadays, ergot madness is suspected as being the ultimate cause of the disorder.



June 24, 1947 -
Businessman pilot Kenneth Arnold encounters a formation of nine flying saucers near Mt. Ranier, Washington, exhibiting unusual movements and velocities of 1,700 mph. No explanation is found for this first report of flying saucers in the recent era, but it does earn Mr. Arnold legions of skeptics and an eventual IRS tax audit.



June 24, 1948 -
East Germany blockades the city of West Berlin.



June 24, 1957 -
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment, though a dissenting opinion included with the ruling notes the issue of prior restraint renders this a terrible decision.

June 24, 1993 -
Yale computer science professor Dr. David Gelernter opens a padded envelope in his office when it suddenly explodes. Gelernter loses the sight in one eye, the hearing in one ear, and part of his right hand. In this condition he manages to walk down five flights of stairs and over to the university hospital a block away. It is the handiwork of the Unabomber.

And so it goes.