Does the governor of Arkansas know something we don't? Or does she just need to read a guide to eclipses written by a Bostonian back in the day?

Seems Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee declared a state of emergency in advance of today's eclipse - and it runs through Wednesday, because who knows what demons the eclipse will unleash, no doubt with claps of thunder and the fiery odor of brimstone?

OK, she claims it's because all the visitors to the state will so badly clog roads that she has to throw money at truckers, which, well, might not be a more cogent explanation - Arkansas might not be Vermont (or New Hampshire or Maine), but it has its share of tourist-drawing events and destinations, so it's not like it shouldn't know how to deal with some extra traffic on the roads.

In any case, we'd suggest a calming few minutes with Darkness at Noon: or the Great Solar Eclipse of the 16th of June, 1806. It's attributed to Andrew Newell and is a guide to what to expect from the first solar eclipse in Boston since its founding nearly a couple centuries earlier.

It explains the science behind eclipses, includes a timeline (the eclipse would start around 9:58:45 a.m., reach "total disappearance of the sun behind the moon" at 11:22:15 and then end completely at 12:46:15 a.m.), cautions readers who want to look at the eclipse to use smoked glass and adds:

In the less enlightened ages of the world, the eclipses of the sun and moon were regarded with surprize and consternation, and as intimations of divine displeasure. Amongst many of the ancients, they were considered as the harbingers of disastrous events, and as indications of some revolution in the physical system of things. But thanks to the progression of science, that whilst we are exempted from the slavery of superstition, we are enabled to predict them with certainty, point out the causes of their aspects and the period of their return.