LAHC geography instructor blasts unfair conviction in email, blogs
JURISPRUDENCE: Melanie Renfrew, recovering from brain surgery, claims weatherman is no friend of education and that she was victim of gender discrimination
Robert Fausett
Posted in: News on 9/17/09 at 3:03 PM PST
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She also recently posted on her blog what appeared to be a series of rambling statements defending her position. Among other things, she declared in a Sept. 17 post "people can falsely accuse me and try to slug me out, bash teachers, and unleash pent-up resentment at their moms, but I'm not letting them in my soul."
She also said she was being singled out for punishment as a woman and that no man would be put in this position.
Renfrew, an LAHC Geography Professor, just had surgery to remove a tumor, and says, "I'm doing great! The carcinoma didn't even show up on the pre-surgery X-ray because I 'attacked it' with anti-cancer food, cranberry pills, and Detox teas made from Chinese herbs. God designed a pharmacoepia of cleansing and healing herbs in many ecosystems for us to discover. I heard a Chinese scientist is studying an Artemisia plant's anti-cancer properties, and our Southern California chaparral and coastal sage scrub vegetation are full of it. Artemisia is "California sagebrush," also called "cowboy cologne" because of the way cowboys rubbed it on themselves to mask other odors." Renfrew said.
Renfrew is still recovering from brain surgery and is currently taking the fall semester off to re cooperate. She recently declared herself doing better than she expected and said "I feel great without pain meds: that is answer to prayer, so thanks! I have big scars from the incisions, but no pain, so I guess God is my Anesthetist, as He was with Adam in Genesis 2." [SIC]
Renfrew went on to write: "They couldn't find any tumor on the X-ray. The surgeon dug out what was there from where it was. The pathologist couldn't find any cancerous cells at all so far (still looking, find out tomorrow)." [SIC]
The blog appears at http://drmrenfrew.wordpress.com/
At least one colleague wished her well and also questioned some of the validity of the charges. Writing in an email, political science instructor Jim Stanbery wrote: "the important thing, as you know, is to put your physical health first, and I know everyone at Harbor wishes you all the best."
Renfrew, 54, contested in the email to staff that published reports detailing that she pleaded no contest on Aug. 7 in a Burbank courtroom and they did not tell the entire truth. The reports also said she was originally convinced of harassment and later violated a restraining order that came from her writing emails to Coleman. In her statement, Renfrew called the charges "bogus."
According to published reports, local authorities said that if Renfrew leaves Coleman alone charges will be dismissed. She could face up to a maximum of six months in jail and receive a possible $1,000 fine if she doesn't comply.
"I don't plan on going to jail, and that shows how ridiculous the whole thing is. This is the U.S., not North Korea. NBC Burbank studio is like 'The Haunted Mansion': Jay Leno's writers were right." Renfrew said in a separate email to the Harbor Tides staff.
"I am not a criminal, and the Daily Breeze once again got their journalism wrong because the reporter hurried off before he understood what happened. I've been lied about a lot to try to silence me, but I'm trying to teach about weather and health to alleviate suffering. I was trying to make NBC laugh, but it was too threatening, so they lied to try to justify why they wanted me silenced. I'll never regret trying, even if they don't want to understand the world as it really is." Renfrew said.
"I'm supposed to be healing from cancer, not harassed by reporters for lies coming from that end. "It's damages" because it hurts." Renfrew said on Sept. 13 blog post.
In her email to LAHC faculty and staff, Renfrew said she met Coleman at an American Meteorological Society conference back in 2007 and claimed she only spoke to him a couple of times after that. But she complained that she is being singled out because she is a woman.
"I believe the whole thing is a huge gender crime against me," she wrote in the email. "Men can joke around with men with impunity, but if a woman sends in humor and correct facts, the fastest way to discredit her is call her a sexual predator. The Daily Breeze choice of headlines and wording reveals your gender bias as well. I'm as innocent as they come. Men side with men, and even in your article, you were happy to call Dr. Hensel with his title, but never mentioned that I'm Dr. Renfrew. It's prejudice against women and prejudice against professors."
"Our constitution guarantees that people are innocent until proven guilty, but everyone has treated me as "guilty until proven innocent," and that's what has caused me so much pain. I only conceded to an abbreviated plea on the 8th trip to the Burbank courthouse because I was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor, and do not have time to keep addressing this idiocy. I believe the pain of being falsely accused and slandered wore down my immune system, and I could no longer fight off the cancerous cells."
Renfrew contended that Coleman's reporting was inaccurate.
"For a whole generation, no one at NBC L.A. or NBC Universal noticed that their station was reporting East winds ("offshore") when the winds in L.A. Basin were repeatedly coming from the West. Accuweather's meteorologists didn't, either. The Weather Central meteorologists who write for the L.A. Times finally agreed to eliminate the word "offshore" when I sent them records repeatedly that showed the onshore winds are stronger in the afternoon than offshore ones at night."
"If NBC has to make a criminal out of a hard-working Geography Professor who is trying to educate the people of Los Angeles how to understand shifts in wind direction, humidity, and air pressure, it shows they have never understood it. They are not supporters of education, genuine health education for people who work outdoors, and it is quite clear why they are in last place of the major networks: they do not want input, truth, or humor from viewers." Renfrew said.
"I am a servant of the people of L.A.: I've had 4-5000 students at Harbor College, and since 1997, I've led 330+ nature walks and field trips to teach geography outdoors in beautiful locations, including 200+ in our Harbor wetlands around Machado Lake. I train teachers in geography for UCLA, CSUDH and CSULB, L.A. and Orange County Departments of Education. I taught teachers 3 summers in Egypt and Palau. I do not harangue people about environmental problems: I want them to fall in love with Earth's beauty, and want to take care of it. I see faces all the time outdoors, and when it is hot and dry, people feel sick. When I've urged them to drink water to combat it, they return with joy and tell me their pain went away when they began drinking water. I stopped needing ibuprofen when I realized I could drink more water."
"By silencing and slandering me as a criminal, Fritz Coleman and NBC are not friends of education, nor friends of people in L.A. Basin or any of the beach communities: if they were, just one NBC employee could have come to the beach even one time, and watched the way our West winds pick up between 11 and 1 on sunny days, when he was predicting "offshore winds." Your paper is named after this "daily breeze." I was trying to help. Flags and trees start blowing West to East, not East to West. Satellite photos show progressive evaporation of high-altitude cirrus clouds and advection from East to West, but on the ground where people live, we have West to East winds." [SIC-all]
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Michael Chartrand
posted 10/09/09 @ 12:25 AM PST
i think she should just go away and not talk about the whole thing she only makes it worse by trying to play the gender card, i didn't understand what she was saying, i think she should be fired she i a dangerous stalker. (Continued…)
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