• Summer Solstice begins on Jun 21 2010
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  • Summer Solistice 2010 Fun Facts

    Sol + stice derives from a combination of Latin words meaning "sun" + "to stand still." As the days lengthen, the sun rises higher and higher until it seems to stand still in the sky. As a major celestial event, the Summer Solstice results in the longest day and the shortest night of the year. The Northern Hemisphere celebrates in June, but the people on the Southern half of the earth have their longest summer day in December.

    Early Celebrations

    Awed by the great power of the sun, civilizations have for centuries celebrated the first day of summer otherwise known as the Summer Solstice, Midsummer St. John's Day, or the Wiccan Litha.

    The Celts & Slavs celebrated the first day of summer with dancing & bonfires to help increase the sun's energy. The Chinese marked the day by honoring Li, the Chinese Goddess of Light.

    Perhaps the most enduring modern ties with Summer Solstice were the Druids' celebration of the day as the "wedding of Heaven and Earth", resulting in the present day belief of a "lucky" wedding in June.

    Today, the day is still celebrated around the world - most notably in England at Stonehenge and Avebury, where thousands gather to welcome the sunrise on the Summer Solstice.

    Pagan spirit gatherings or festivals are also common in June, when groups assemble to light a sacred fire, and stay up all night to welcome the dawn.

    Summer Solstice Fun Facts • Pagans called the Midsummer moon the "Honey Moon" for the mead made from fermented honey that was part of wedding ceremonies performed at the Summer Solstice.
    • Ancient Pagans celebrated Midsummer with bonfires, when couples would leap through the flames, believing their crops would grow as high as the couples were able to jump.
    • Midsummer was thought to be a time of magic, when evil spirits were said to appear. To thwart them, Pagans often wore protective garlands of herbs and flowers. One of the most powerful of them was a plant called 'chase-devil', which is known today as St. John's Wort and still used by modern herbalists as a mood stabilizer.
  • America’s Most Desirable Cities-Affordable, Jobs, and Low Crime

    In these affordable metros, jobs are plentiful, crime is low and there are myriad entertainment options.
    Each year Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business attracts some of the brightest master's degree candidates in the country. But the admissions staff occasionally has to sway prospective students with their choice of top schools who wonder why they should relocate to Pittsburgh, Pa.
    "Pittsburgh has a really great cultural scene. We have a great ballet and a great symphony that travels the world and performs to packed houses, and there's a restaurant scene that's much more diverse than it ever was when I was growing up," says Wendy Hermann, director of student services for master's programs and a Pittsburgh native. "And it's an easier sell, now that the Steelers and Penguins won their respective titles."
    Indeed, Pittsburgh's art scene, job prospects, safety and affordability make it the most livable city in the country, according to measures studied. The city has rebounded from its manufacturing past. Disused steel mills have been repurposed into multimedia art centers, and amid a struggling national economy, Google Pittsburgh, a test site for the company's new high-speed broadband network, has expanded its offices to accommodate more hires.
    Pittsburgh's strong university presence--the city has over a dozen colleges or campuses--helps bolster its livability. In fact, the key to finding the easiest places to live may be to follow the students. Most of the metros on our list - including Ann Arbor, Mich., Provo, Utah, and Manchester, N.H. - are college towns.
    "Universities are large employers in their cities," says Alexander Von Hoffman, senior fellow at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. "In the long term, not only do you have that employment, but you have an educated population, and you have a large youthful population which tends to be a consuming population."


    Behind the Numbers
    In compiling our list, we measured five data points in the country's 200 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas: unemployment, crime, income growth, the cost of living, and artistic and cultural opportunities.
    To find out where jobs were available and incomes were steadily growing, we ranked cities both by their rate of income growth over the past five years and the current unemployment rate, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The stronger the income growth trend and the lower the unemployment, the higher each city ranked. Jobs don't mean everything, though: A city is more livable if a family's income goes further. Using cost of living data from Moody's Economy.com, we ranked cities higher that had lower costs for everyday goods.
    Some places are inexpensive, but still not desirable, so we included a measure for crime, using the Federal Bureau of Investigation's and Sperling's Best Places reports on the number of crimes per 100,000 residents, ranking low-crime cities higher. We also considered a thriving local culture crucial to livability, so we gave higher rankings to cities that scored highly on the Arts & Leisure index created by Sperling's Best Places. We averaged the rankings for each of these metrics to arrive at a final score.

    The College Bump
    Ogden, Utah, No. 2 on our list, is home to Weber State University. Unemployment in the metro is below average, and incomes have increased by 3.4% over the last five years. Provo, Utah, a city 80 miles away and our No. 3 most livable, is home to Brigham Young University, the country's largest private college. The metro has the highest five-year income growth, 5.2%, of all the cities measured. Lincoln, Neb., (No. 9), home to the University of Nebraska's main campus, boasts the lowest unemployment rate , 4.9%, of all the metros we surveyed. Unemployment is also at a low 5.9% in Omaha, Neb. (No. 5) home to a University of Nebraska campus and roughly a dozen other colleges.

    Rust Belt Renaissance
    Cities once driven by jobs in steel manufacturing, railroads and textile mills suffered as those industries dried up in the 1970s. But it's a mistake to write off places like Pittsburgh, Pa., Harrisburg, Pa., and Manchester, N.H., Nos. one, five and seven on our list, respectively.
    Manchester, once dominated by textile mills, is revitalizing itself, converting its maze of mills and foundries into medical centers, museums and apartment buildings that now drive the local economy. The city has the second-lowest crime rate of all the metros we surveyed, incomes have grown 3% in five years, and at 7.7%, its unemployment rate is below the national average.

    Low-key Livability
    In only a few of our most livable cities does population growth match prospects for employment and inexpensive living. Provo saw an 8% population boom between 2000 and 2006, and the head count in Omaha rose by 7.2% over the same period. In most of the cities on the list, however, the population has shrunk, or grown only by meager percentages, suggesting that word about the quality of life there hasn't yet gotten out. Being a well-kept secret is just fine for some residents.
    "I'm a big proponent of Pittsburgh," says Hermann. "But I don't want to spread the message too much."

  • Cut Your Gas Bill This Summer
    By Hilary Meyer

    This summer, like most, gas prices are expected to rise. The cost per regular-grade gallon is likely to average $2.92 from April 1 to Sept. 30, up 48 cents from $2.44 per gallon last summer--and higher than the $2.83 current national average, according to the Energy Information Administration's 2010 Short-Term Energy and Summer Fuels Outlook.

    Oil industry analysts say British Petroleum's ( BP - news - people ) 46,000-square-mile oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico won't inevitably affect pump prices in June, although it could interfere with crude prices later this summer if oil deliveries to Gulf coast refineries are disrupted, or if the spill leads to increased drilling restrictions in the Gulf.

    Crude prices play the biggest role in determining gas prices: They typically make up between 65% and 70% of the total cost of one gallon of regular gasoline. State and federal taxes contribute about 15% of the cost, distribution and marketing contribute 10%, and refining contributes about 6%.

    It's also a question of supply and demand. Summer weather means people drive more (according to AAA's annual Memorial Day forecast, 32 million Americans will travel away from home that weekend, with 87% of them driving a vehicle to reach their destination, up 5.8% over 2009), and higher demand for gas leads to higher prices.

    Tropical storms can also affect prices because they disrupt distribution channels and drilling conditions.
    "Hurricane season has been playing a toll on gasoline prices just since hurricane Katrina," says Patrick DeHaan, the senior petroleum analyst and lead blogger for GasBuddy.com. "In the last five years we've seen a lot of storms that have done quite a bit of damage to the oil industry, so it's something to keep an eye on now."
    But there are plenty of things drivers can do to reduce how much they spend at the pump this summer. Using cruise control on the highway, babying the engine and driving smartly can all add multiple miles to a single tank of gas--and save hundreds of dollars over a year of driving.

    Choosing Wisely
    We consulted Gas Buddy's DeHaan and reports produced by the United States Department of Energy in compiling ways to save this summer. All fuel-economy benefit data and equivalent gasoline savings estimates are from www.fueleconomy.gov. We talked with Porsche ( PSEPF.PK - news - people ) spokesman Dave Engelman about what the Stuttgart, Germany-based company is doing to improve efficiency in their racecars. We also consulted Christie Hyde, a spokeswoman for AAA, about how fuel efficiency affects depreciation rates and the best way to increase gas mileage during summer driving.

    The biggest gain in fuel economy is a one-time decision with far-reaching consequences: it involves the type and size of the engine in the car itself.

    Smaller engines 4-cylinders need less fuel than larger engines (V6s and V8s), which can mean a 20% difference in the amount of miles sucked from one tank of gas. Assuming a year of 15,000 miles, on fuel that costs $2.86 per gallon, the difference between getting 20 miles per gallon on the highway and one that gets 30 mpg is more than $700.

    According to a AAA depreciation report released last month, the prospect of saving money at the pump--or not--affects not just what vehicles people choose, but the depreciation of the cars themselves. Last year small sedans were the only auto segment that decreased the amount they depreciated.

    Hyde knows why: "We really believe it is being driven by this desire for more fuel-efficient vehicles. Even though gas prices had dipped for awhile, they're starting to come back up, and people are starting to look for more fuel-efficient vehicles and realizing--whether for financial reasons or environmental reasons or both--the benefit of those."

    Certain types of engines also get better mileage than others. Diesel-powered vehicles offer a fuel-economy benefit of 40% better mileage than gasoline-powered engines. They do cost a bit more up front, but they save money in the long run: the $22,830 Jetta TDI gets a whopping 42 miles to the gallon on the highway and costs less to own over the long run than the base $17,735 Jetta, which gets 30 mpg on the highway ($35,021 over five years, versus $36,220).

    Details Matter
    After that initial purchase decision, it's the little things that add up to cheap driving. Shedding ski racks, tow apparatus and old luggage is one of them.
    Even the pro racers do it: "We're spending lots of money trying to reduce the weight everywhere we can, every place that we can," says Engelman, who heads communications for Porsche's racing team. It's one reason why the company developed a unique flywheel system for its 911 GT3 R Hybrid racecar, rather than using a heavier hybrid-battery system. (A power generator fitted inside the car, next to the driver, delivers energy to electric motors near the wheels.)
    But even something as simple as using the correct motor oil affects gas mileage. It's a small gain (about 2%, or $0.6 cents per gallon on the highway) but, combined with everything else, it'll add up.

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  • "Easy Rider" was released in 1969. On the first night Wyatt, Billy and George set up camp, George took a drink from a bottle. After George had swallowed the alcohol, what did George say?
    Last month's answer was Chrysler 300.
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