Harbor College professor explains what happened with Fritz Coleman
6/10/09 I want to discuss what happened and clear my name because Fritz Coleman the weathercaster and NBC have delayed apologizing for 2 years: he put in court papers that I, Melanie Renfrew, had been "stalking him for several years," and it is completely delusional. He has no facts to base this on. I just thought it was a big joke that he thought I was stalking him: it is as delusional as if I went around saying, "Fritz Coleman is stalking me." People are put in psych. wards for evaluation if they get that seriously off in their reason. Judges were lied to, LAPD threat detectives were lied to, Burbank police and city attorneys were lied to, all libeling and slandering my name.
Two years ago I met him at an AMS L.A. Banquet. I am a member of AMS nationally, and one of the leaders of AMS L.A., Dr. Steve LaDochy, and I have been friends for about 20 years since we shared an office together when I was teaching part-time at Cal State L.A. I see Steve and other geography friends sometimes at conferences and AMS meetings, and I wanted to go see them.
Fritz Coleman was friendly with me and made conversation in a collegial way, so I started emailing him to try to help him see that people in L.A. think "offshore winds come from offshore." He and meteorologists mean they are blowing from the land to the sea, East to West in L.A., off the shore; but it is confusing to the majority because that is a marine term, the point of view of being in a boat: winds are called from their source region around the world. From the point of view of most L.A. residents, an "offshore wind" means West to East, not East to West.
I was being friendly, and knowing he's a "celebrity" and gets lots of mail, I wrote a lot, sort of as a challenge, to see if I could get through. He was a comedian, so I tried to make him laugh. I wanted him to get it right so when he eventually retires, it would be with joy. Instead, he accused me of "harassment," and began acting mentally disturbed on TV, and I was worried: he started saying "offshore" more than ever, but I live close to the center of L.A. Basin not far from the "shore," and we were having "onshore" winds whenever he was saying "offshore" on TV. The more I wrote in trying to explain, the more he said "offshore," never bothering to check that all along the coast, we were having onshore winds, even on the afternoons of Santa Ana days. It's all in the National Weather Service records, and NBC owns the Weather Channel now, so they should have their own records to check, too!
I have written about this exhaustedly in Dr. Melanie Renfrew's Geography Blog and for classroom handouts that have been posted on the L.A. Harbor College website, because on TV, when confused weather announcers report the opposite of what is happening outside, it confuses students and the public. I get exhausted trying to constantly explain to everyone how dry weather works, and thought it would save me energy if the public got it right from a TV source. People suffer widely from dehydration ailments: it's rampant.
It was a comedy of errors gone sour, but he has hurt me far worse in return by putting so many lies about me into the criminal record, and charging me with misdemeanors for still trying to help the station get the wind direction right in 2007-2008, even if he would not listen. I volunteered about 2000 hours trying this, and his stubbornness caused me a lot of pain, and the way he slandered my character. I have had to go back to the Burbank courthouse 5 times declaring "NOT GUILTY," and there may be a court trial because he is so belligerent in his error.
Once this spring semester has settled out, I need to get a good First Amendment lawyer and figure out just how many laws have been broken against me. Do you know any? I committed no crime and was trying to help him, and meant no harm at all! The main reason I did not expose this before is because it is so embarrassing for NBC L.A. to be so irrational and wrong. NBC Universal is headquartered there by the Cahuenga Pass, and whenever I've gone on the 101, I've seen flags blowing from West to East there. Not one of them looked out their window and noticed the flags blow the opposite of their nightly report, or maybe they think "offshore winds" are West to East like the public does, or maybe they don't know directions, either.
In the blogs on the college website, what I've written is true, except for some joking around. I've been worried for 2 years about NBC's cult-like mentality and pathological phobias, as well as getting wind direction opposite for a generation on High pressure days. The Burbank NBC building has proved to be a bastion of impenetrability for something as obvious as how air is really flowing in L.A., and not one person cared or wanted to know. I don't blame (anchors) Paul Moyer and Furnell Chatman for not wanting to come back: it must be insanity instead of reason inside. (These two anchors took vacations and retired.) Even the "Science Editor" refused to be the voice of science in an incredulous way, as if they are all demonized by fearful delusions.
When they used Charles Manson's face as their banner photo for the "KNBC" 60-year anniversary show, I thought, "That explains it: they can't see past their traumas."
We don't live in a police state where people are handcuffed and silenced because someone else has delusional fears, or a temper tantrum based on too much caffeine and an empty stomach. That is against the law, celebrity or not. Besides all the lies told, slander and libel, besides violating my First Amendment free speech rights, my mail was confiscated and opened (also a federal crime), and innocent Christmas presents I'd sent to reward the hard-working were boxed up as criminal evidence, as if 1 of my 2 World Baseball Maps sent to a baseball fan was a threat to the people of Burbank.
Is this worth court time, and interrupting a hard-working professor? Fritz Coleman has become the criminal against me because he refuses to apologize. If people can't make amends for their errors, they never learned the most basic of social skills. Being a "celebrity" doesn't make you a private king where you can behead people who know directions. He, the "Science Editor," and others at NBC care zero about the feelings of a scholar who tried to help them: "It's about the truth."
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Larry Altman has covered crime in the South Bay since 1990. He's seen it all - the missing model who turned up dead in the desert, the wives found dead in trunks, the high-school coaches who get a little too close to their players. He drives his young colleagues nuts with his "I remember when" stories. He welcomes your tips and observations about the present, and you can mix in a little Lakers basketball talk if you like.
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Say what?
Wow, is this woman really this crazy of a nutbag or does she just play one on TV?
I think the former.
Kind of like the crying girl at the party or the below average looking girl at the end of the bar just DYING for guys to pay attention to her. I will bet money she owns multiple cats and cries herself to sleep each night over a heaping bowl of Chunky Monkey.
Whatever her lifestyle, I think her professional reputation (or whats left of it) just evaporated into a brisk offshore flow.
Fritz is now lowered in my view. She has the doctorate. Since when is email stalking. Just list her as spam Fritz and she won't bother you ok sonny.
I agree with Dr. Renfrew...the news media should be responsible for getting the correct information to viewers. However, how often does that really happen? I only question the fact that when she ran into a brick wall she kept going until she was battered by it. Very sad. Maybe she should have just given up...sometimes ignorant people/corporations just don't care about the truth.
This woman is a nutcase. Obsessive to the max. Delusional. Paranoid. Good grief! Poor Fritz and NBC. Imagine - to have to drag her to court in order to get her to stop the madness and STILL she continues with this letter. She needs to take some medication before she gets worse!
sending one email is OK. but she admits to sending multiple emails which is harassment. there are plenty of "Docs" that are borderline psychos. get over it. like my dad's wife says, "its over".
NBC is owned by GE, which is about as far to the left as you can get.
They are all loyal discophiles of the Obama cult, which why I’ll bet that Paul Moyers and Furnell Chatman left.
I think that they are obviously out to try and destroy your reputation, which is probably just a normal way of doing business for them. You obviously represent no harm to anyone.
Best of luck to you!
After reading this I can't help but think you have some major issues you need work out. Let it go. It should have been obvious years ago that you weren't going to get anywhere with this. YOU are the reason this has gone so far, and yet you continue your rantings. Any rational person would have ended this long ago.
2000 "volunteer" hours spent on wind direction.
Enough said.
Holding the media accountable (especially the news) to report on accurate data, or at least make the corrections when they were wrong, is the right thing to do. Fritz is an actor. He was not the correct person to address to begin with. He wants to be a celeb, so finding a stalker comes with that. But there is definitely a point where you have to re-think your strategy if it isnt working. To continue to e-mail Fritz after a court order just proves his point, whether or not it was true to begin with.
It appears more common than not that very little if any fact-checking takes place on tv. Weather reports are a joke and the news is even worse. Take it all as Hearsay until you confirm it independently and move on. Better yet, spend time getting laws, enforcement and fines for not performing reasonable due diligence.
you may think shes a nut case but if you read her stuff carefully, you'll see some amazingly valid points...clearly a genius, but also a bit eccentric, it is quite possible that she became obsessed with Fritz getting it right...Misuse of terminology drives me NUTS as well, especially when its being proffered by a supposed "expert"...Kinda like an English Professor insisting the point is "mute" not "MOOT"! AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!
As a one-time news director/anchor/reporter and current university instructor of physical geography, may I attempt to inject a note of rationality here?
I firmly believe that if you're going to be in the public eye and ear, there's a certain duty to make clear the distinctions between scientific terms often used and/or misused by the public (rainforests and jungles, for instance, are markedly different ecosystems). I learned then and go bonkers now whenever a rip current is called a "rip tide" (there ain't no such thing) or seismic sea waves (tsunami) are referred to as the equally nonexistent "tidal waves." There are times when I have to fight the urge to gnaw my own ears off to escape the idiocy.
BUT - I'm not certain I understand who's saying what here. Is the TV dude erroneously calling coastal California's onshore (westerly) winds "offshore," or is he merely employing a term that, while correct, the good professor believes is confusing to the general public? An example of the latter case would be if I were to refer to the earth's motion on its axis as rotation and path around the sun as revolution, while you think it less confusing to employ the terms "spin" and "orbit."
It almost sounds as if it began as a relatively innocuous disagreement and degenerated to the point that the TV dude either became hopelessly confused or deliberately defiant.
Regardless of how this tempest on a trireme began, each side has a clear duty here: Mr. Coleman, get it right! If an expert in a scientific discipline suggests you may be making an error, get off your high horse and hie thee to a textbook. If there's even a slight chance the public will be confused, explain what the term means and why it's used. Believe me, they'll love you for it.
Dr. Renfrew, while as near as I can tell you're correct and I wholeheartedly sympathize with your frustration, it also couldn't hurt to remember a truism typically credited to Albert Einstein: insanity is when you keep on doing the same thing while expecting different results.
And to both of you? Regardless of who's right, who's wrong, and to what degree, let it go! Whether it's a heckler in the audience or an idiot on the tube, at some point you just gotta tune 'em out.
If this minor disagreement about the proper naming for wind directions cannot be addressed, why on earth would we suppose that weighty matters like physics, medicine and origins would receive balanced treatment at the hands of expert presenters and academics? Is not listening to reason an important part of some worldview here?
And she was teaching young impressionable minds all the while
She is disliked at school by a student.
ASSHOLE!!!
Dr. Renfrew is a passionate and knowledgeable teacher. I had the pleasure of taking one of her classes and it was a great experience. I was personally touched by her and inspired by her enthusiasm for geography. I think that she is quite a lovely person. I am sorry for her troubles with FC, he sounds like a real ignorant douche.
P.S. I left the last post and did not mean to leave it as anonymous.
Fritz Coleman is a narcissistic sociopath. He encourages all kinds of attention from anyone/everyone to fuel his narcissism. I am acquainted by some of his family members who are anything but enamored with him. Professor Renfrew may have a few issues also, she is not alone. Unfortunately, FC is protected by the NBC umbrella, and Prof. Renfrew isn't.