On October 19, 1987 the Dow Jones Industrial Average (the Dow) fell an incredible 508 points in a freefall that became known around the world as "Black Monday". The 508 point loss represented the biggest single day stock market crash in history in percentage terms as the Dow lost over 22% of its total value.

How can you put the losses of Black Monday into proper perspective? Well it helps me to think of it this way: on October 13, 2008 at the height of the recent financial crisis, the stock market had its biggest one day point loss in history; 777 points. In order for the losses that day to match what happened on Black Monday though the Dow would have had to lose 2,300 points!

A rash of possible explanations for Black Monday have been circulating for years. The most popular of these is the "program trading" theory where numerous computer sell programs began triggering each other every time the market ticked down a few more points. After a while the slide became a self generating monster no one could control. Others have pointed east and said that it was simply a reaction to what happened in Hong Kong, whose market had nosedived in the run up to the Dow opening that Monday. Still others used a word that would come back to haunt the financial world two decades later; "derivatives". In this case portfolio insurance derivatives. Most everyone agrees though that matters were made immeasurably worse by a good old-fashioned panic that swept the trading floor once the slide began and made Black Monday a day that will live in financial infamy.

Black Monday. After a while all you could do was pray.

I have to admit up front that much of Journey's music I can live without just fine but the clarity, range, subtlety and power of Steve Perry's vocal on this track caught my ear the first time I heard it and has never really let me go. On "Faithfully" Perry gives the kind of performance that separates an artist from the pack and turns what could have been just another song about how hard it is to be rich and famous into a bonafide classic that pretty much set the standard for all power ballads right to this day.

"The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover" Peter Greenaway's savage indictment of the Margaret Thatcher-led fascist takeover of Britain during the 80s is a wonder to behold. Dismissed by many as simply an exercise in excess it is, in fact, a fearlessly conceived, directed and acted declaration that "the emperor has no clothes".

To find a fitting visual style with which to tell his tale of a lost empire devouring itself Greenaway reaches back to 17th century Baroque painting. Why? Because in a work like Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" the director sees more than a masterly use of light and shadow, more than a compelling composition or innovative applications of paint, he sees the moment at which those with access to the levers of power in the Netherlands used that access to build for themselves unparalleled personal wealth while most of their compatriots struggled to put a few potatoes on the table. He sees the development of personal mythology intended to dazzle the downtrodden. He sees a formula for success for anyone with connections who's paying attention. (Even the movie's title evokes those nondescript list-titles first hung around the necks of still life paintings of the Baroque period.)

(left) Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" (right) Scene from "The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover"

Unfettered by fad Greenaway has no use for the staccato editing techniques popularized by MTV. He holds some shots so long that they can almost be considered paintings in and of themselves. But he doesn't do this simply to show off the bravura art direction he does this to force a largely unwilling public to see what's going on. The editor has always been the savior of the squeamish, the censor the tool of the power hungry but here Greenaway keeps them both at arms length. He doesn't patronize your oh-so fragile and sensitive nature by cutting away when things get "objectionable" instead he focuses in: "Of course it's bloody objectionable, that's why you HAVE to look!"

And if they look carefully what they'll see is an allegorical tale in which the Thief, (standing in for the iron lady and played with brutal authority by future Harry Potter alum Michael Gambon), imposes himself upon a largely complacent public represented in its various aspects by the Cook (standing in for the civil service), his Wife (played with courage and conviction by Helen Mirren who represents the ebbing sense of civility in public discourse) and her Lover, who fairly obviously represents for the ineffective liberal opposition who did their best Neville Chamberlain impersonations while the barbarians made off with the treasury.

It is the story of an England shorn of empire where the former ruling class decide to live out their imperial fantasies by conquering, displacing and subjugating their own: "If we can't have India we'll take the Docklands!" Greenaway looks at this "New World Order" and sees it for what it is: the old world order called feudalism. But what's worse is that he sees it being imposed upon society with the tacit deference of a cuckold public. Because of this no one is spared in "The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover". While the Thief is kept squarely in the center of the frame throughout the would-be opposition is nonetheless there to be seen at the edges, like the sycophants in "The Night Watch", on some level aware that their unwillingness to stand up for themselves will result in their marginalization yet hidebound by inertia nonetheless.

The film's conclusion implies something most historians know in their bones: that tyranny contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction and that if you push the people far enough their patience will reach an end and you'll wind up with a French revolution where the Marie Antoinettes of the world get theirs at the hands of the mob. I don't think even Greenaway would promote such a result though. I believe his movie was intended to embolden dormant voices of opposition to speak out before things got to that point. It is a plea for civic resistance, for the opposition to push back before its too late.

History, (especially the events of the last few years), unfortunately demonstrate that his pleas went largely ignored.

Though Talking Heads came out of the 70s punk scene in New York they were anything but slash and burn Sex Pistols types. From the beginning there was something different about them. Unlike a lot of punk-rock types David Byrne looked like he couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag and probably spent his Sunday's at the library. For some reason though the contradictory image worked to Talking Heads advantage as a lot of people who appreciated punks desire to wipe the slate clean but couldn't embrace its "any day's a good day to overdose" ethos found refuge in the band's somewhat nerdy public image and experimental musicality.

By the time of the release of 1983's "Speaking in Tongues" Talking Heads had become firmly established as America's favorite alternative band. If you were in college at the time owning several Talking Heads albums was practically required. Still, they lacked that breakthrough hit that would deliver them the mountaintop. That situation finally changed with the release of the single "Burning Down the House". The song, buttressed by an appropriately quirky video in heavy rotation on MTV, reached the top 10 in both the US and Canada. The song evolved from a studio jam which, when it reached a satisfactory point, was given over to Byrne to write lyrics for. He employed the tactic of finding phrasal rhythms that matched the song's structure and then finding words that fit the phrasing. The result is a song that is hard to pin down. What exactly is it about? There is no 'subject' really. It's about music, kind of like the way that dreaming is about life.

For two days in October of 1987 the world was transfixed by the fate of Jessica McClure, an 18 month old toddler from Midland Texas who'd fallen to the bottom of a 22 foot deep, 8 inch wide well near her home. The world's media descended on the small town with the then upstart CNN network delivering live, round the clock coverage of the rescue attempt. Everyone had an opinion of what needed to be done to pull "baby Jessica" to safety but at first there was no consensus. A backhoe was tried but after digging only a few feet it hit solid rock and was taken away. It was then decided to dig a parallel shaft using equipment similar to that used in oil drilling. This yielded better results but everyone was still flying blind on what they'd do once they reached her.

Finally David Lilly of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration was brought in to lead the rescue efforts. He'd had extensive experience rescuing trapped miners and could see that if adjustments weren't made to the drilling Jessica might be killed by her rescue. Finally, after 58 hours of work that included lowering men into the parallel shaft with jackhammers to remove the last remaining rock, the rescuers broke through and lifted her to the surface injured but basically okay.

So what is "baby Jessica" up to these days?

Today 25 year old Jessica McClure-Morales is married with two children of her own and lives a relatively quiet life near Midland. She still carries the scar on her forehead from her 1987 ordeal though she has no memory of it. Donations made in her name at the time of her ordeal were put in trust and on turning 25 she was able to collect some $800,000 from that fund which enabled her and her husband to buy a house and set aside money for their children's education. All-in-all a pretty happy ending to what could have been a tragic situation.

"Baby Jessica" at the moment of her rescue in 1987 and today, still carrying the scar on her forehead.

J.R. slumps to the floor after being shot.

"Dallas" was a pioneering prime time big budget TV series that ruled the airwaves in the late 70s and 80s. At the end of the '79-'80 season J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) was shot by an unseen assailant and CBS spent the summer playing up the mystery of who could have shot down the head of the powerful Ewing clan. The suspense was only heightened by the fact that the start of the '80-'81 season was delayed by two months due to an actors strike in Hollywood. Bookies all over the world were taking bets on who did it. "Who shot JR?" became the catch phrase of the year. Jimmy Carter joked that if he knew who shot JR he'd have had no problem raising money for his presidential re-election campaign.

The suspense finally ended on November 21, 1980 when it was revealed J.R.'s black-hearted mistress Kristin Shepard (Mary Crosby) was the one who pulled the trigger, driven to her crime of passion during a fit of rage. The show became the highest rated TV episode in history to that time drawing an estimated 83,000,000 viewers in the US alone.

"Late Night with David Letterman" debuted on NBC February 1, 1982 and represented a kind of blood transfusion into the moldering carcass of after hours television. Created by Johnny Carson's production company at the urging of then NBC boss Fred Silverman, Late Night's mandate was to give young men who had little or no interest in Carson's parade of old-school superstars something to watch in the wee hours. Carson, through his production company, made it clear that Letterman's new show had to break new ground; he didn't want it to be seen as simply the second hour of "The Tonight Show". To that end a representative of Carson's production company was a given the task of keeping an eye on the new show to make sure there wasn't any conceptual overlap. There wasn't.

Offbeat, irreverent, unpredictable and occasionally (though not intentionally) confrontational Late Night soon became must see viewing for young adults (especially college students) and grabbed itself a much larger audience share for NBC than they had had with its predecessor; "Tom Snyder Coast to Coast".

Though in his first monologue Letterman was obviously nervous and played down his prospects in time he'd become a fixture in the moonlit television landscape nearly rivaling his mentor Carson.

Here's the opening of the very first "Late Night with David Letterman Show" from February 1, 1982.

If you've ever seen Blade Runner one of the most indelible images from that amazing film is that of the building-sized electronic-billboard geisha seductively puffing away on a cigarette or popping happy pills (at least I assume they're happy pills). Ever wonder who that Japanese actress was? Well, in fact, she wasn't Japanese at all. She was/is Korean-American actress Alexis Rhee.

So what is everyone's favorite unknown cyber-noir icon doing these days?

After appearing in Blade Runner she waited almost six years for her next movie gig; a small part in the underwhelming 1988 film "Silent Assassins" which starred Linda Blair. A few other B-movies followed with tantalizing titles like "Gang Justice" and "The Visit" but nothing substantial. Then, 22 years after leaving her anonymous imprint on pop culture in Blade Runner, Ms Rhee found herself cast as Kim Lee in 2004's Academy Award winning film "Crash" and won herself a Screen Actor's Guild award for "Outstanding performance by a cast member". The recognition seems to have sparked interest in her from the powers-that-be in Hollywood as since then she's been working much more steadily and in higher visibility projects like the 2007 Eddie Murphy comedy "Norbit".

Not one to simply sit around and wait for the calls to come in from casting agents though, away from the movie set Ms Rhee is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, a classically trained violinist, a registered hypnotherapist and a certified Microsoft Systems Engineer.

(left) Alexis Rhee as iconic geisha in Blade Runner 1982 and (right) as Kim Lee about to go medieval in Crash 2004.

Released in 1987 "Tunnel of Love" was Bruce Springsteen's second solo album (though various members of the E-Street band did play on some of the tracks) and is, in my opinion, the second best album he ever made (the best being 1973's "The Wild, The Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle"). It's also a problematic record for me to listen to because as good as the B-side is the A-side of Tunnel of Love seems strangely unfinished. For this reason it didn't make my list of "10 best albums of the 80's".

Still, if you didn't give up on the record halfway through the A-side the wonders of the B-side were there to be discovered. From the first track to the last it's one of the great 24 minute listening experiences available in popular music. Springsteen's music has always tended to waiver between the poles of over-the-top production on the one hand and bare bones, dust dry minimalism on the other but with the B-side of Tunnel of Love he finally found that sweet equatorial zone in between.

My favorite song from the album is the one featured here and it's a perfect example of this stripped down but not naked approach. The lyrics are spare yet eloquent and to the point ("I met a girl and we ran away, I swore I'd make her happy every day. But how I made her cry. Two faces have I."). The instrumentation starts off with a solo acoustic guitar finding its way and then, with the advent of the second verse, bass and drums are added in the background. Springsteen's vocals are way up front in the mix, his voice clear, his phrasing revealing his decidedly mixed feelings about the dissolution of his relationship: he's accepted it, but he's not at all happy about it. After the third verse there's a short, scratchy guitar solo and the final verse contains one of rocks great unheralded threats, tacked on in what almost seems like an afterthought: referring to the unnamed third party's intention to "take your love away from me" the singer, in a subdued but determined voice states flatly "Well go ahead and let him try".

What follows that menacing line is maybe the most soaring, beautiful Hammond organ solo ever recorded. It's a breathtaking tribute to the facility of the late Danny Federici and all he brought to the table in the service of Springsteen's songs over all the many years.

No video was ever recorded for "Two Faces" and to me the live versions simply don't measure up. So here's the original album version of the song, music only. Enjoy.

After exploding into the public consciousness playing the virtually indestructible cyborg assassin in James Cameron's breakout 1984 film "The Terminator" Arnold Schwarzenegger retreated to his comfort zone, playing the hero in such 80s yawners as "Red Sonja" and "Raw Deal". But just when it seemed safe to deposit him squarely into the 'one hit wonder' category along came 1987's "Predator".

It has to be noted that while all male-buddy action flicks have their share of gay undertones, Predator may be the most overtly gay action movie ever made (not that there's anything wrong with that). Still, if you can look past its bulging homoerotic musculature (if you want or need to look past it) and concentrate solely on the window dressing the film can be enjoyed as a taut, intense sci-fi thriller with an unlikely and truly menacing baddie who's cleverly introduced and gradually takes over the narrative, sending the film in an unexpected and gratifying direction.

If you blink you'll miss the alien setup at the start of the picture where we're given about 10 seconds of outer space shots as a craft of some sort enters earth's atmosphere. (It might be better if you do miss it as it serves only to undermine the suspense later on.) After that we're introduced to Ahnuld's character "Dutch" along with his crew of ultimate bad-asses and after the Gov and Carl Weathers finish admiring each others sweaty biceps we're told that Dutch and Co are being sent on a mission to the central American jungles to extract a diplomat who's been captured by rebels. Of course there is no diplomat and they're actually there to clean up the mess created by the failure of an earlier black ops team, but that's inconsequential because as Dutch's team attempt to extricate themselves from the unpleasantness around them they begin to realize that a bunch of peasants with guns are the least of their problems.

Because a movie with only hunky guys might seem a bit too gay a female character is introduced in the very agreeable (though not to our heroes of course) form of Elpidia Carrillo. She's the only one without a gun (literally, physically and symbolically) and is therefore of no interest to our alien either. Her role is to give young male viewers who might become a bit squeamish (or aroused) by seeing Sonny Landham's character "Billy" sucking on a milk-filled vine something to hang their heterosexual identities on and she fulfills that role admirably.

As they make their way "to the chopper" the boys are picked off one at a time by their phantom pursuer with each incident serving to also reveal a few more details about our bad guy. As the film moves squarely from "Rambo" into "Alien" territory the hackneyed dialogue and jokes about women's anatomy mercifully come to an end and what we're left with is a pretty well done cat and mouse in the jungle picture.

Since Predator's stage is a real jungle it doesn't suffer from being dated by its technological accoutrement. The special effects are limited to Stan Winston's rasta-cyborg and they stand up well, even when viewed today. The supporting cast all do their jobs of playing victims in waiting effectively and John Alpine's cinematography creates a sense of claustrophobic isolation and dread that separate it from your standard guy-flick.

At the end of the reel Predator is a fun, funny, well constructed sci-fi action flick that introduces us to one of the most compelling movie creatures of the past quarter century. Not bad for what could easily have been just another B-movie about sweaty guys admiring each others guns.

In the 80s the F-117 Stealth Fighter changed the way people thought of fighter aircraft forever. Looking like either a flying hat box or a flying Hershey Kiss it didn't really look like it could do much flying at all. It was the end product of a process that began with the 1964 publication of a paper by Soviet mathemetician Pyotr Ufimtsev in which he proved that the strength of a radar return was directly related to the edge configuration of the object and not its mass. At the time no country possessed the technological know-how to build on Ufimtsev's idea but in time that would change.

The F-117 was designated a fighter aircraft (hence the "F") but it was not capable of engaging other airplanes or dogfighting. Its job was to sneak in through a country's radar and drop bombs or launch missles at targets on the ground. The F-117 made its first flight in the Nevada desert on June 18, 1981. The following year the first planes were delivered and the plane was declared operational in October 1983. It was still a "black program" however and the air force vehemently denied its very existence for a further 5 years, until November of 1988.

In all 49 F-117s were built and saw service in Panama in 1989, the first Gulf War in 1991 (where it flew with impunity over an otherwise heavily defended Baghdad), Serbia in 1999 (where the first and only of its kind was shot down with the wreckage sold to the Chinese), the Afghan war and the Iraq war.

In 2005 the decision was made to incrementally retire the F-117 in favor of the new, sleeker F-22 and on April 22, 2008 the last of the Stealth Fighters was decomissioned. But though its gone now it will not soon to be forgotten for something about the war plane captured the public imagination and, for better or worse, became part of the new, hi-tech image the country was formulating for itself in the 80s.

The F-117 Stealth Fighter on the ground and in the air. Who knew Hershey's Kisses could fly?

Remember the days before tamper-proof packaging? Neither do I. Seems like it's been around my whole life. But there was a time when protection from whack-jobs was not the primary purpose of putting a cap on something. That all changed in 1982 however following the still unsolved Chicago Tylenol murders. Between September 29 and October 1, 1982 seven people in the Chicago area died after taking Tylenol capsules for various reasons. It quickly became evident that it was not a manufacturing problem but that someone had removed Tylenol packages from shelves in various stores, introduced cyanide into the capsules themselves and then returned the poisoned products back to store shelves where the victims eventually bought them. Once it became clear what was going on Tylenol's maker, Johnson and Johnson, ordered a nationwide recall of all Tylenol products, a move that is said to have cost them some $100 million.

While law enforcement has had plenty of suspects over the years (including Ted Kazcynski aka: the unabomber) no one has ever been charged with the murders. At the time a man claiming to be responsible sent a letter to authorities demanding $1 million to stop the attacks. He was caught, identified as one James Lewis, and served 13 years in prison for his attempted extortion. Though he began denying he was involved the minute he was arrested the fact is that at the time he did claim in writing to be the killer and he remains a suspect to this day (though no solid evidence against him other than his extortion letter has surfaced).

It's impossible to say if anyone will ever be convicted of this crime but the lasting legacy of the Tylenol murders is with us every time we go to the store pretty much anywhere in the world in the form of the aforementioned tamper-proof packaging that we now take for granted on everything from prescription drugs to bottled water.

The seven victims of the unsolved Chicago Tylenol murders.

Update: RIP Moses Malone. A true basketball legend. 

He came right out of high school to become one of the most dominant big men in NBA history. A rebounding machine he once grabbed 37 boards in a single game and holds the league record for offensive rebounds in a career. In 1981 he averaged 31 points and nearly 15 rebounds a game, led the Houston Rockets to the NBA finals and was declared the league MVP for the second time. Following the 1982 season the Rockets traded him to the Philadelphia 76ers and Moses Malone finally found a place where all the pieces came together.

Teamed with the legendary Dr J and all-stars Maurice Cheeks, Andrew Tony and Bobby Jones the Sixers tore through the regular season like a blender through mango winding up with 65 wins and Malone won his third MVP award. He predicted the Sixers would go "four, four, four" in the playoffs (meaning they'd sweep each of the series they'd play in) and win it all. He wasn't far off as the team lost only one game in the second round to go "four, five, four". It was one of the most dominating seasons in NBA history and none of it would have been possible without Moses, who would go on to play another 12 years in the league and ultimately be named one of the NBA's 50 greatest players.

As much as he was a part of the daily sports discourse during the 80's Malone pretty effective disappeared after retiring. So what's he doing these days?

Well, unlike a lot of sports stars who squander the riches that come their way and wind up hard luck stories on the news, Malone lives happily and quite comfortably these days just outside of Houston Texas. "What am I doing? I'm doing nothing, just relaxing and enjoying life. I did 21 years of hard labor in the NBA, invested my money right, so I'm set. I earned the right to relax and enjoy, you know?" He isn't without his opinion of current NBA players either "I bet if I came out (of retirement) I could still be one of the top five centers in the league ain't that something? There are just so few centers left!" Amen.

Left: Moses Malone and Dr J hold the 1983 NBA championship trophy. Right: Moses today.

The first time I heard this beautiful song I knew it was Barbra Streisand with that distinctive voice but I also thought "It sounds an awful lot like somebody else". Well that someone else is of course the Bee Gees who were at the height of their creative power when they wrote and produced this incredible ballad for Barbra. The brother's breathy chorus played off against Streisand's dramatic soprano climaxes is almost too much of a good thing. Almost. The song spent 3 weeks at number one in the U.S. and became Streisand's most popular single ever.

In 1982 the father/son team of Alan and Randy Miller had the idea of marketing an all-natural (ie no preservatives) soda to the masses. "Original New York Seltzer" was born in, of all places, Walnut California and within three years of launching secured a distribution deal that allowed it to take off. Suddenly everyone in the soda-know was trading in their New Coke for this upstart retro-bev. Obsessively peeling off the styrofoam labels became the thing to do for young people with excess nervous energy from coast to coast. Sales peaked at around $100 million in the late 80s and Randy Miller became a sort of new age corporate guru, even making an appearance on "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous".

Unfortunately Original New York Seltzer began to fizzle out as the decade turned and by 1993 the company was seeking bankruptcy protection. In 1994 Miller walked away from the company and it was left to the courts to decide it's fate. After leaving ONYS he turned his attention to raising and training wild cats of the large variety (lions and tigers etc). "I wasn't cut out to head a major corporation" he said at the time "I'm really good at this."

Precious little is available anywhere that adequately explains exactly when and how the company was dissolved. Some people claim they can still buy ONYS at Big Lots while most others insist it has been relagated to the dustbin of business history.

The 80s were a great time to be a Batman fan. After being lost in the creative wilderness for years 1986 saw the release of "The Dark Knight Returns" which aggressively yanked Batman out of the kid-friendly universe and set him down squarely in the world of thinking adults where actions had consequences, people got hurt and everyone was prone to moral and ethical compromises. Following the earthquake that was TDKR came 1987's "Batman: Year One" and right on the heels of that "Batman: The Killing Joke".

Alan Moore's story delves more deeply into the origins of the Joker recounting his days as an engineer and his subsequent attempt to become a standup comedian. Failing miserably at that and desperate to support his pregnant wife he agrees to help a couple of crooks in their plan to rob a card company next door to the plant where he used to work. But when Batman intervenes he attempts to flee the scene by escaping down the company's toxic waste pipeline, only to discover when he emerges that the chemicals have irrevocably altered his appearance, and the Joker is born. Throughout the story we're shown how Batman and the Joker's personalities tend to mirror each other in subtle yet disturbing ways and in the end the Caped Crusader himself seems to come to a deeper understanding of his long time nemesis.

While Moore has almost offhandedly stated that to him "The Killing Joke" was "just another bat comic" artist Brian Bolland worked long and hard to make TKJ something special. Though Moore's casual casting aside of the project hurt Bolland to an extent it wasn't until he viewed the published pages that his heart sank completely into this stomach. He had envisioned a palette of "November" colors and was horrified to find what he called "hideous glowing purples and pinks" throughout. 2008 finally saw that affront rectified as DC published a 20th anniversary edition of TKJ with coloring by Bolland himself that restored his original vision for the piece.

The image below shows the 1988 version of Batman: The Killing Joke with its original coloring (left) and the same page from the 2008 version that restored Brian Bollands intended color scheme (right). 

copyright DC comics

January 13, 1982 began as just another frigid winter's day for most people in the metro D.C. area. At Washington National Airport passengers and crew aboard Air Florida Flight 90 waited nearly an hour on the runway in heavy snow for their flight to take off. The plane had been de-iced while sitting at the gate but as it waited on the taxiway in heavy snow fresh ice began to accumulate on the wings. When they finally began their takeoff run the co-pilot recognized that things weren't right and alerted the captain, who dismissed his concerns and proceeded down the runway. He should have listened because only 30 seconds after barely getting airborne Flight 90 fell from the sky clipping the 14th Street Bridge before plunging into the ice-covered Potomac river. What followed was a human drama of extraordinary proportions.

As the accident occurred at the beginning of afternoon rush hour in Washington the bridge was packed with cars and there were hundreds of on-the-scene witnesses to the calamity. (4 people on the bridge lost their lives when their vehicles were struck by the falling aircraft.) Horrified onlookers could hear the cries of survivors coming from the water where only the tail section of the plane was visible above the ice. Someone had to do something.

First into the water was Roger Olian, a worker at a local hospital who had been on the bridge when the plane came down. He made two attempts to swim to the survivors near the tail section, aborting his second attempt just yards short when a Park Service Police helicopter manned by Donald Usher and Melvin Windsor arrived on the scene. (When Olian returned to shore he was unable to stand and verging on hypothermia, though he would make a full recovery.) The chopper's pilot, Usher, dropped their bird low over the river and Windsor dropped a rescue line toward the group clinging to the tail section wreckage. After successfully retrieving passenger Bert Hamilton they went back and attempted to drop a line to Arland Williams, who motioned for them to pass it on to the others instead. Flight attendant Kelly Duncan would eventually grab it and was lifted to the shore. After dropping Duncan the chopper returned and again attempted to drop a line to Williams, who again passed it on to someone else; this time to passenger Joe Stiley who grabbed hold of fellow passenger Priscilla Tirado with his broken arm. A second line was dropped and grabbed by Patricia Felch. On the way to shore both women lost their grip and fell back into the water. After depositing Stiley on the shore the chopper returned to pick up Tirado, now blinded by jet fuel and losing her battle to stay afloat in the sub-freezing water. When the chopper returned for her she was too numb to hold onto the life line and dropped back into water repeatedly. Finally, as Tirado began to sink below the surface some 20 yards from the shore, bystander Lenny Skutnik could take no more. He took off his coat and plunged into the river saving Tirado's life. Perhaps emboldened by witnessing Skutnik's heroics the chopper crew went back out for Felch and this time pushed things to the limit, dropping the chopper so close to the water that the landing skids were actually submerged. Windsor walked out onto one of the skids without protection, reached down and physically plucked Felch from the water. Moments later Felch, the fifth and final survivor of Flight 90, was dropped safely on the shore. When the chopper returned for Arland Williams he had gone under along with the tail section. The story of his unselfishness would not emerge until some time later when the chopper crew and survivors recalled events of that day.

In the end the NTSB concluded the accident was the result of numerous pilot errors; though it must be stressed that the co-pilot did attempt to warn his pilot of problems and was rebuffed. Had his warnings been heeded the accident probably never would have happened. The 14th Street Bridge was renamed "The Arland D. Williams Memorial Bridge" and Williams posthumously received the Coast Guard's Gold Lifesaving Medal in a White House ceremony. Roger Olian and Lenny Skutnik received the same honor and Skutnik was on hand to receive a standing ovation from a joint session of Congress two weeks later during the President's nationally televised State of the Union address. Donald Usher and Melvin Williams who were instrumental in the rescue of all of Flight 90's survivors received Silver Lifesaving medals from the Coast Guard, the Interior Department's Valor Award as well as the Carnegie Hero Fund Medal.

Lenny Skutnik swims toward Priscilla Felch before rescuing her from the freezing Potomac

"With or Without You" was the first single released by U2 from their 1987 album The Joshua Tree. It became their first #1 song in the US and topped the charts in several other countries as well. Originally written during The Unforgettable Fire tour the song was taken out and dusted off in 1986 when the band sat down and began to plan their next album. Several rough versions were recorded but none met with the band's satisfaction. At one point producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois abandoned the song but Bono felt there was something there that could be saved. In the end it was The Edge's experiments with a device called "infinite guitar" which allowed for practically endless sustain to be created that proved to be the breakthrough everyone had been looking for. The resulting song begins slowly as though rising from an early morning fog and then builds to a huge, landscape-crossing, church-bell-ringing climax before disappearing again into the mist. The final minute, with The Edge's chiming guitar notes playing off Larry Mullen's priapic back beat, is enough to send shivers down my spine even today.

The song can be taken many ways; Bono himself has often spoken of it as being about the difficulties in trying to balance a rock and roll life with family but it can also be heard as a song about spiritual conflict or, in the context of the album in general (whose working title was "The Two America's"), as an outsider's view of the US.

At the time he launched his second White House bid Gary Hart was the presumed frontrunner for the 1988 Democratic nomination. In spite of some troubling details about his personal life that had surfaced toward the end of his unsuccessful 1984 run he was confident that this time, with better organization and increased visibility, he'd get over the top. Some of the rumors that were swirling around in 1984 had to do with the state of his marriage (he and his wife had been separated twice) but, because the couple stayed together despite their difficulties the press generally backed off.

Such was not the case the second time around. Almost immediately after announcing his candidacy in April of '87 the whispers began and allegations surfaced that he was not exactly the ideal husband. Hart, unexpectedly on the defensive right out of the campaign gate, lost his composure and issued a dare to the media in an attempt to kill the story before it overtook his campaign: "Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'll be very bored." Little did the former Senator from Colorado know that the Miami Herald had already done just that. On May 3, the same day his 'dare' hit the media, so did the Herald's story that they had witnessed a young woman leaving his D.C. townhouse the night before. The young woman's name was Donna Rice. The Hart campaign went into crisis mode issuing denials and long-winded excuses that sounded insincere and desperate. Hart's wife, Lee, stood by her man but it didn't matter, the damage was done.

Hart's poll numbers took a nosedive though he vowed to slog on. But on May 5 the Herald learned that Hart had taken a recent overnight sojourn to Bimini with a woman that was not his wife. They also came into possession of a photograph that would allegedly confirm it all. Hart, apparently able to finally see the writing on the wall, dropped out of the race on May 8 blaming everything on the media. On June 2, 1987 the National Enquirer published the now infamous photo of Hart in Bimini with Rice draped over him. They were there it seems to spend the night on a luxury yacht named, of all things, "Monkey Business" (you couldn't make this stuff up). Indeed, in the photo Hart is seen wearing a T-shirt with the words "Monkey Business Crew" on it.

Just like that the political landscape changed dramatically. Democrats scrambled to find another candidate they could rally behind with Michael Dukakis eventually claiming the mantle. For his part, Hart re-entered the race after laying low for about six months hoping it would all blow over. It didn't, and he withdrew again for a second and final time on March 8, 1988.

Hart's meteoric downfall would provide valuable lessons in how not to handle allegations of marital infidelity four years later to a similarly inclined Democrat presidential hopeful named Bill Clinton.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.