Portland, Oregon that serves as a weather beacon, displaying a daily
weather prediction at noon. Designed and constructed at a cost of
$60,000 by Omen Design Group Inc., the approximately 30-foot (9 m) tall
sculpture was installed in 1988 in the northwest corner of Pioneer
Courthouse Square. Two thousand people attended its dedication, which
was broadcast live nationally from the square by Today weatherman
Willard Scott. During its daily two-minute sequence, which includes a
trumpet fanfare, mist and flashing lights, the machine displays one of
three metal symbols as a prediction of the weather for the following
24-hour period: a sun for clear and sunny weather, a blue heron for
drizzle and transitional weather, or a dragon and mist for rainy or
stormy weather. The sculpture includes two bronze wind scoops and
displays the temperature via vertical colored lights along its stem. The
air quality index is also displayed by a light system below the
stainless steel globe. Considered a tourist attraction, Weather Machine
has been called "bizarre", "playful", "unique" and "wacky".
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Machine>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1449:
The last Byzantine-Roman Emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos,
was crowned, four years before the Fall of Constantinople.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_XI_Palaiologos>
1839:
The most damaging storm in 300 years swept across Ireland, with
100-knot winds damaging or destroying more than 20% of the houses in
Dublin.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Big_Wind>
1907:
Italian educator Maria Montessori opened her first school and
day care center for working class children in Rome, employing the
philosophy of education that now bears her name.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori>
1941:
During his State of the Union Address, U.S. President Franklin
D. Roosevelt presented his Four Freedoms as fundamental freedoms humans
everywhere in the world ought to enjoy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms>
1994:
Two-time American Olympic figure skating medalist Nancy
Kerrigan was clubbed on the right leg by an assailant hired by Jeff
Gillooly, the ex-husband of her rival Tonya Harding.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonya_Harding>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
at first blush:
(idiomatic) Upon first impression or consideration; seemingly,
apparently, ostensibly.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/at_first_blush>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love.
It cannot be copied. You cannot talk yourself into it or rouse it by
straining at the emotions or by dedicating yourself solemnly to the
service of mankind. Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he
is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love
himself. This conviction will not come through condemnations, through
hating oneself, through calling self love bad names in the universe. It
comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love. 
--Alan Watts
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alan_Watts>
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