Month: December 2014

OBceans are needed as volunteers for this week, one of the busiest in OB – the Holiday Parade.

The OB Town Council needs volunteers –

For Parade volunteers, please contact them at info@obtowncouncil.org – or fill out this – http://obtowncouncil.org/ob-for-the-holidays/volunteers/

OB Planners Need You for the Community Plan Contingent

And OB planners invite you to join the OB Community Plan contingent at the front of the Parade, wear you blue T-shirt and carry a one word sign.

by Kelly April Tyrrell / UM-Madison News

It was fishermen off the coast of Peru who first recognized the anomaly, hundreds of years ago. Every so often, their usually cold, nutrient-rich water would turn warm and the fish they depended on would disappear. Then there was the ceaseless rain.

They called it “El Niño” — The Boy, or Christmas Boy — because of its timing near the holiday each time it returned, every three to seven years.

El Niño is not a contemporary phenomenon; it’s long been the Earth’s dominant source of year-to-year climate fluctuation. But as the climate warms and the feedbacks that drive the cycle change, researchers want to know how El Niño will respond. …

By Rob Greenfield

You may have already heard a few appalling facts about food waste but just in case you haven’t, here are a few tidbits of information to catch you up on the issue.

-We throw away 165 billion dollars worth of food per year in America. That’s more than the budgets for America’s national parks, public libraries, federal prisons, veteran’s health care, the FBI, and the FDA combined.

The results are in for the OB Rag’s latest poll on round-abouts. We asked our readers if they supported a round-about or traffic circle at the intersection of West Pt Loma and Bacon Street. We have raised the issue, as the OB Planning Board and the City are thinking about doing a feasibility study for one at that location.

A majority of the respondents answered that they do support a round-about at that site, the intersection of West Pt Loma and Bacon – 52%. In contrast, just 12% were opposed to a round-about there. There were a total of 67 respondents.

By Jim Miller

Along with so many people last week, I watched the events in Ferguson, Missouri unfold with profound dismay and anger while fighting a sense of despair over the intractable nature of American racism. We all knew it was coming, but that didn’t soften the blow.

On the social media, one might also have predicted the outpouring of callousness and hate toward Michael Brown and those protesting the Grand Jury verdict, but it made it no less loathsome. Even the subsequent torching of Michael Brown’s family church was not a shock, just eerily resonant.