What Is A Rainbow?

Tucson Weather Today

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When a child asks, "What's a rainbow?" the responsible adult should provide an answer based upon that adult's knowledge or belief. Below are two possible sources for answers --

From The Christian Bible:

According to Genesis, after Noah's flood God put the rainbow in the sky as the sign of His promise that He would never again destroy the earth with flood (Genesis 9:13–17):

I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

From Wikipadia:

A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines on to droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. It takes the form of a multi-colored arc. Rainbows caused by sunlight always appear in the section of sky directly opposite the sun.

In a "primary rainbow", the arc shows red on the outer part, and violet on the inner side. This rainbow is caused by light being refracted while entering a droplet of water, then reflected inside on the back of the droplet and refracted again when leaving it.

Rainbows also form in mist such as that of a waterfall

If a child asks you, "What's a rainbow," what would 'you' say?

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WORD FOR TODAY

assize [uh-sahyz]
noun
1.  A session of a court.
2.  A decree or edict rendered at such a session.
Synonyms: assembly, court, decree, enactment, hearing, inquest, measure, ordinance, rule, session, trial, tribunal

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BORN ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY

Beatrice (Bea) Arthur

Born May 13, 1922
Died Apr. 25, 2009

American actress, comedienne and singer whose career spanned seven decades. Arthur achieved fame as the character Maude Findlay on the 1970s sitcoms All in the Family and Maude, and as Dorothy Zbornak on the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, winning Emmy Awards for both roles.

ALSO

Joe Louis

Born May 13, 1914
Died Apr. 12, 1981

Joseph Louis Barrow, better known as Joe Louis, was an American professional boxer and the World Heavyweight Champion from 1937 to 1949. Nicknamed the Brown Bomber he is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time.

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Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.
--Edmund Burke

Another Rainbow... and Trendy Coffee

This morning Mike, JoAnn, and I met Tim at The Buzz, a trendy coffee house in East Tucson. I had a blueberry scone and a cup of dark, flavor-filled coffee. Both were delightfully delicious.

Here, as previously promised, is another forming rainbow

. . .

And another . . .

I am 71 years old and had never before tasted a 'scone'.

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A Rainbow Within The Storm

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While walking Eva in the late evening some rain clouds began to develop in the distance. The rainstorm was small and localized, surrounded by late-evening, clear sunshine, but it was slowly moving toward us. As the moisture-laden air approached, we saw a rainbow beginning to form.

A little farther along the road...

And then a few minutes later...

Just as I snapped the last shot, a long horizontal steak of lightning flashed through the width of the cloud cover terminating at the rainbow. I had been about a nanosecond too soon. That would have made an excellent photograph.

Mike told me that he had seen some weird colors among the rainclouds here in Tucson during last year's Monsoon Season, which reportedly begins around the fourth of July. So perhaps I will be able to capture some interesting weather-related snapshots in the upcoming weeks.

As often happens with the elderly, the sight of that stormlet brought to mind the memory of some published pictures of Arizona storms in a Photography magazine back in the 1950s (or 60s) that had been taken and contributed by the late Senator Barry Goldwater.

Goldwater lost his 1964 presidential campaign against incumbent Lyndon Baines Johnson by a landslide. The Johnson campaign capitalized on Goldwater's extreme anti-Communist views and his admission in a television interview that he would consider launching a nuclear attack on Vietnam.



I have often speculated on how different might be the present-day world if (AuH2O in 64) Mister Goldwater had indeed become president back then.

So much for rainbows and other assorted promises.

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