|
| |||||
| Get Info On: | Government | WC RR | Links |
| |
| History | Ward 6 News | Index to articles | Email WCJim | ||
[Posted February 6, 2010 ] While the "storm of the century" rages outside, WCJIM has found a way to postpone shoveling snow. That's because he has already experienced another "storm of the century" just over a month ago in England. Here's the tale ... Read the complete story or go to the news archive
[Posted February 5, 2010 ] In anticipation of this weekend's big storm, the Borough of West Chester has declared a snow emergency starting at 2am on Saturday, Feb. 6 until noon on Sunday. That means two things -- parking garages on S. High Street, Sharpless Street, and between S. High and Matlack Streets south of Rosedale Avenue will all be open and free. That's so you can park your cars there, instead of on Borough streets, to give the plow crews a chance to clear out the snow. So get your car off the street and get ready for some plow action.
[Posted February 5, 2010 ] The agendas for Borough Council's committee meetings on Monday, February 8 and Tuesday, Febuary 9, have been posted. View agendas or go to the news archive
[Posted January 26, 2010 ] The ultimate weapon in the war over parking is a tow truck. Learn more about when and how they are used. Read the complete story or go to the news archive
|
courtesy of WCHE 1520-AM.
Monday, Feb. 8 -- Fitz-n-Jim "Talk About West
Chester" on WCHE radio 1520AM, 3-4pm.
Monday, Feb. 8 -- Zoning Hearing Board, Borough
Hall, 401 E. Gay St., Room #240, 5:30pm. [See agenda.]
Monday, Feb. 8 -- Borough Council committee
meetings (Public Works; Parks, Recreation & Environmental
Protection; Parking), Borough Hall, 401 E. Gay St.,
5:30pm. [See agendas.]
Monday, Feb. 8 -- Faculty recital featuring Kimberly
Reighley on flute in WCU's Adler Theatre, 7:30pm.
Tuesday, Feb. 9 -- Faculty recital featuring Haim
Avitsur, trombone in WCU's Adler Theatre, 7:30pm.
Tuesday, Feb. 9 -- Borough Council committee
meetings (Public Safety; Finance; Planning, Zoning, Business &
Industrial Development), Borough Hall, 401 E. Gay St.,
5:30pm. [See agendas.]
Wednesday, Feb.10 -- Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta
Sigma Musicale in WCU's Adler Theatre, 8:15pm.
Thursday, Feb. 11 -- Noon concert series directed by
Sylvia Ahramjian in WCU's Adler Theatre Lobby, 12pm.
Thursday, Feb. 11 -- New music concert is directed by
Van Stiefel and Adam Silverman, in WCU's Gates Family Recital
Hall, Performing Arts Center, 8:15pm.
Friday, Feb. 12 -- Performance of Rachel Harris,
One Woman over the Line, a multimedia presentation about the
Underground Railroad, at WCU's Asplundh Concert Hall,
7:30pm. Tickets $12 for the general public, $8 for WCU
faculty and staff, and $5 for seniors and students. Call
610-436-2266 or 610-692-3398 for more info.
Saturday, Feb. 13 -- AAUW Brunch at the Melton
Center, 505 E. Miner Street, 9am. Tickets $5 at the
door, but reservations required by phone at 610-594-0625 or email.
Saturday, Feb. 13 -- Improv comedy troupe Chicago
City Limits at WCU's Adler Theatre in the Performing Arts Center,
7:30pm. Tickets are $20, $15 for seniors and students.
Call 610-436-2266 or visit www.westchesteruniversityculturalaffairs.ticketleap.com
.
Saturday, Feb. 13 -- Student recital featuring Bill
Schultz on piano in WCU's Gates Family Recital Hall, 8pm.
|
One thought was prompted by seeing the Borough snow plow go past my house. Although I couldn't see who was driving, I knew that whoever it was, he had his own house somewhere. That made me wonder who was shoveling out his driveway while he was plowing my street. Was he going to have to shovel his own snow after he got home, by which time it would be getting dark and colder? The question was not merely academic. Once upon a time WCJIM was a bus driver and designated as "essential personnel" during big snow storms. The reasoning was that buses could travel on snow covered streets better than cars, and in the event of a major blizzard, providing public transport was a means to keep cars off the streets so that snow plows could do their work. The catch was that bus drivers had to get to work somehow. Although they drove the rest of the community to work during snow storms, there was nobody to drive bus drivers to work. In the same way, the people who plow our streets enable the rest of us go somewhere once we've shovelled our driveways, but there's no one to help snow plowers get their cars out to the road. Another thought occurred to me while heaving snow towards the back of my property. (No, not "it's time to move to Arizona" -- that thought occurred to me as soon as I heard the first snow warning.) This was my second "storm of the century" in a month. Exactly one month earlier, I was marooned at an airport in England by a blizzard that the BBC called the worst in more than 120 years. After surviving that experience, I returned to the USA and what happened next? Another blizzard! Now I'm not a superstitious person, so it didn't occur to me that I might be the cause, and in fact, since I reached England on a plane from Philadelphia, I'd be willing to bet that there are dozens of other people who experienced both storms. The cause, in my opinion, is much more likely to be due to something going on in the atmosphere. Can you spell klymet chainje? Yes, I'm afraid it's true. The global warming deniers have lost the battle to convince me that the unlimited consumption of fossil fuels has no impact on the environment. Sure, it has to be cold to snow, and it wasn't warmer in West Chester this past week or in England a month ago, but arguing that more snow means more cold and therefore less warming is niave. It's like putting a pot of boiling water in a refrigerator and claiming that it makes no difference to the food inside because the outside of the box feels the same. The difference is in how hard the compressor works to remove the additional heat, and how much more the air moves around inside of the refrigerator as heat rises and cold sinks. As someone from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ecently observed, this year's record snowfalls in upstate New York was caused by higher-than-normal water temperatures in the Great Lakes, because that meant they evaporated more water vapor into the cold air that blew out of the Arctic in December. More water vapor meeting cold air means more snow, as the folks driving snow plows in New York state have observed. I'm not sure what caused the heavy snowfall that hit West Chester this past weekend, but I am sure of one thing. Storms of the century are getting a lot more common these days. | |||
|
| |||||
| Copyright 2010 by Jim Jones | |||||
