All is Calm

A mom’s release: Ben is going backpacking tomorrow, the shortest day of the year with a long cold night, and a front is going through with possible showers and snow. My angst is from my own memories of rainy and snowy camping; his angst is anticipating a 6+-mile hike at 7000′. In church, I realized I shouldn’t try to protect him from what I learned by experience, and he has to learn whether he likes rain or not as a long-term career move decision.

I really like making decorations and giving them away. If you give women feminine things in their favorite colors, they get really happy, as men in their lives are clueless about such things.

Bush babies are nocturnal so have big eyes to see.

It Wasn’t a Woman

Yesterday I posted a letter from November 2008 where I was pleading NBC to see that their LOCALS ONLY campaign would scare viewers away, because it is like a “KEEP OUT!” sign on a gang’s hideaway or kids’ clubhouse, or the turf attitude of local surfers who pommel adventurous newcomers. It is a territorial expression that says,
“You are not welcome here: GET OUT;” and this is in all the NBC stations in the country and their websites, which I hadn’t known when I wrote this, floating around the news videos.

At the emotional level, it jeers at viewers.

This is why I was saying former NBC Co-Chair Ben Silverman’s new shows during 2008-9 did not have a chance: the overall attitude of the station and websites around the country was insulting and provoked fear and ridicule for liking them. People want to travel, not be “LOCALS ONLY.” Temperament studies show about 75% of Americans are extroverts, not introverts, which means we want to “go out,” not stay in. Would you want to live in hemmed-in Burbank the rest of your life? They don’t even know directions there because not all streets are aligned North-South-East-West: that’s why no one at NBC Universal in Universal City ever notices their own station’s weather report is completely twisted around.* It’s symbolic: they can’t see, and aren’t looking.

What the “LOCALS ONLY” campaign demonstrates is a complete absence by NBC CEO Jeff Zucker and their marketing team, of awareness of how people feel. Zero intuition.

This is exactly, exactly what NBC Burbank’s emphasis of the word “offshore” (people in L.A. know the winds are onshore), and their showing of countless needle injections in the Medsource news videos, as if health was about drug injections, communicate.

Whoever designed this A.V. system cared zero about how passengers would feel getting their headrests tapped hard on for 5-6 hour flights, or longer.

It wasn’t a woman.

* The NBC L.A. weatherman is still getting it wrong because he’s not down-to-earth, and winds reverse direction by altitude because of topographic friction, water’s high heat capacity which means its temperature does not fluctuate as air over land does, convection over the city creating lower air pressure, so the pressure gradient at sea level becomes stronger so that ocean winds are stronger in L.A. Basin and the Orange County coastal plain. NBC L.A. and NBC Universal never check, so they never noticed winds are from the West when their station is saying there is “offshore flow” (East-to-West).

It’s multiple complications from ODD, CDD, and IID, all spatial, contagious diffusion diseases (Offshore Dyslexic Dysfunction, Corporate Dyslexic Dysfunction, and In-house Ignorance Diffusion).
It’s an epidemic over the hill there, so Comcast is inheriting a mess!

So, Ben S., you did good to get out.

Dyslexics see it opposite
(the B-S Disorder, for Brain-Switching), and
they charged me with harassment and misdemeanors for loving them enough to tell them all this!
If I wrote to NBC now to encourage someone what a good job he/she was doing on air, which I often did before their “RESTRAINING ORDER,” based on hallucinatory delusions of stalking and violence, their weatherman (with an Archie Bunker-Scrooge mentality) would make sure I’m sent to jail for the holidays!

Dr. Melanie Renfrew, 12/18/09

If they turn this into a scripted reality series, I don’t want to play myself.
Been there, done that.

I found the “LOCALS ONLY” letter, warning NBC that campaign would be ratings suicide

I searched my “Sent” e-mail file and found the letter from November 2008 where I tried to convince NBC that their new marketing slogan would send viewers away: in 2008-9, they destroyed affection people had for the station. If NBC had listened to me rather than pretend their weatherman wasn’t lying, they could have prevented the ratings slide that led to the Comcast buyout. “LOCALS ONLY” has been on NBC stations and websites around the U.S.

This is copied and pasted, and I only left some repetitive stuff out:

Mr. John Wallace, NBC Local Media
Mr. Brian Buchwald, Senior VP of NBC Local Integrated Media

cc: Robert Long, Dr. Bruce Hensel, Paul Moyer, Chuck Henry, Ana Garcia

Dear Mr. Wallace and Mr. Buchwald,
…You are asking for Ratings Suicide because this “LOCALS ONLY” mentality is as racially and ethnically exclusive as you could get. You might as well say,

“NBC L.A. is the white, shallow, narrow, yuppie-wannabe station, and we’re trying to attract as many insecure, uneducated people as possible to join our cult bandwagon, members only after a hazing”…(It’s a) “cult of fear” you’re trying to suck other gullible people into following. It’s asinine, and that’s whom you’ll get, donkeys without brains who want some fake, exclusive illusion of “membership,” but “LOCALS ONLY” can only promise them more feelings of emotional insecurity, and being left out of your delusion. It’s not “4 your Health” at all!

It’s like Nazis, who wanted to kill everyone who was non-Aryan.
…
(This section was from a blog I’d written that day, and included as part of the letter):
NBC advertises “It’s about the truth,” and “The only thing we leave out is the fiction,” but if they say several coastal areas are getting E winds when we are really getting W winds, several hundred times in my hearing over the years (as sadly, it’s my favorite station), then it’s not really “the truth,” is it? They ask for viewer input, but last week changed their website slogan to “LOCALS ONLY,” which clearly means,
“We choose which viewers will confirm our local Burbank myopia.”

It’s a “white trash” mentality, and I’ve been switching to see which other channels have a global outlook, not a local, restrictive one. It has to do with eyesight, like taking your glasses off and living with a blur. No wonder they can’t understand how multi-racial, international people perceive the word “offshore.”

They don’t want to know what Ph.D.’s in Geography think…
It’s a lie of the station to say, “We want to hear from you.”

Melanie Patton Renfrew, Ph.D.
Professor of Geography
Los Angeles Harbor College
1111 Figueroa Place
Wilmington, CA 90744
www.lahc.edu/earthscience/geography/

Note: part of my anger here is how I’d been lied about by the weatherman. You’d be angry, too.
Dr. Melanie Renfrew, 12/19/09

Temperament Differences and Mating

I co-taught a course once on temperament, and think it helps you understand people. I’m not an expert, but have a cross-cultural view, and feel close to a lot of people. I wanted to offer a comment about online matches because I was saying I like romance in movies.

There are different types of matches, and when e-harmony couples spout success, it’s because both people really want it to work. They may or may not have complementary temperaments, but the desire and will are there to succeed.

Many arranged marriages have worked in human history because the couple expects it to. “Soul mates” are not pre-determined at all: people have to make an effort to give and be known.

The “opposites attract” chemistry happens when a couple meets, which is why “love at first sight” marriages are not uncommon. It’s visceral.

Sometimes a man and woman become best friends and they’re alike, but find comfort in being together, more than a chemical opposites match.

The reason I write about this is I see students and people in all age groups who won’t listen to their own biology or common sense, and think some power is going to come on them and “make it happen.”
“Everything happens for a reason,” and
“Maybe it was meant to be”
are 2 mindsets that rob people of choice and “will” to act. I’m so tired of hearing these 2 explanations, they make me want to barf.

Intuitive and cerebral are not opposite terms

Intuition is not an emotional thing. Scientists use intuition to frame hypotheses and think of solutions, and doctors use it in diagnoses.

I use the term “cerebral” to refer to thinking that is more intellectual and devoid of emotion. I’m an emotional person and like being this way, with freedom.

The smartest people on Earth are full of feeling, and don’t hesitate to express it.

L.A. Microclimates

For those of you interested in the weather, here are some links to demonstrate the actual science, not myth of it. L.A. has mountains and valleys, and some of the onshore-offshore confusion is not just up in the satellite view and elevation changes as I’ve discussed, but differences in how topography affects air flow.

Today’s weather is another good example of how L.A. Basin and coastal plain weather are much different from San Fernando Valley and Malibu, which have mountain winds and gusts from sinking High pressure. The air needs to go somewhere, so flows down and out; but near the ocean in L.A., ocean/onshore winds are stronger.

Here are some links from National Weather Service:
Los Angeles center (USC/”downtown”) usually has Calm readings, as Ladera Heights/Baldwin Hills blocks some of the sea breezes. The center of L.A. is where some of the air flow from different directions meets and “settles” (gusts are usually in mountains and valleys).

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=lox&sid=KCQT&num=48&raw=0&dbn=m

San Fernando Valley center (Van Nuys): http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=lox&sid=KVNY&num=168&raw=0&dbn=m

LAX almost always has stronger West winds during the day, and sometimes East winds at night. It’s rare for the planes to reverse their flight pattern, usually during strong East winds or rain, they’ll take off going East. http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=lox&sid=KLAX&num=168&raw=0&dbn=m

San Pedro shows the eddy circulation: http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=lox&sid=C5520&num=168&raw=0&dbn=m

Malibu (note population is rich but not densely settled here): http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=lox&sid=MBUC1&num=72

Thousand Oaks has a lot of NE winds and gusts, but has no “shore”: These are mountain winds, not offshore winds, and this should not dominate L.A.’s forecasts. http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=lox&sid=THDC1&num=168&raw=0&dbn=m

I like to teach outdoors because it’s so obvious what’s happening, when you see trees and clouds moving, and what times of day the West winds pick up. I write from the perspective of L.A. Basin and coastal plain, and Orange County, but I know L.A.’s mountains from > 100 field trips, working in Burbank and Malibu (at Pepperdine and in SMM’s).

If you live in L.A. and drive through the city, watch your car’s thermometer change in proximity to the ocean. Inland sites have “higher highs, lower lows” of temperature. You can become smart if you watch the patterns, and can lead a more comfortable life if you adapt to them. Science is about prediction.

Dr. Melanie Renfrew, 12/17/09

Another song for the musical

Here’s a weatherman soliloquy:

Up in the clouds, I remain
I really prefer it up here
No one to correct me
No one to see me
Up in the clouds, I remain.

The satellite view is so great
I can stay inside wthout hate
No one to annoy me
No one to see me
The satellite view is so great.

It gets rather lonely up here
Oh, how I wish for a beer
I can’t go to a store
Without hearing, “ONSHORE!”
The clouds are my safety from fear.

Washed Ashore on Chanukkah Night 7: “Moon of Pandora”?

Sometimes we become imbalanced in our perceptions

Many people think having less blood will improve circulation, and others think having an acidic system is the best way to fight germs (Vitamin C).

My parents and the older generation all seem to be on blood pressure medicine to thin out the blood by taking water out (it’s diuretic, like caffeine and alcohol). They also often have arthritis (joints are almost all water), chest coughs (lung tissue is mostly water), get headaches and very forgetful and scatter-brained (the brain is mostly made of water, and sinuses are designed to lubricate and filter our breathing, like lungs). Headaches are commonly caused by dehydration.

Take the water out, have coffee and nightly drinks, and you find hunched-over people with lost balance (from shrunken tissues in the inner and middle ear), bone fractures having difficulty healing (water is necessary to assimilate and circulate calcium), and digestive and colon problems: when our bodies are dry, water is sucked from our intestines, so we can’t eliminate harmful stuff.

For years, my own imbalanced perception from being exposed to so many germs (4+ years working overseas, travel, 100s of students yearly), was to keep my system slightly acidic with milky tea, Vitamin C, tomatoes, lemon juice on foreign food; and it kept me from viruses, but it took (alkaline) Calcium out of my bones to balance the pH, so now I’m building them back.

I don’t own any high heels, so that’s not a problem.

Recommended reading: Water, For Health, For Healing, For Life; You’re Not Sick, You’re Thirsty, Dr. F. Batmanhelidj. www.watercure.com. This is why I was trying to help NBC L.A. get the weather right, but he permanently refused and emphasizes the error nightly, as if saying,
“Fire me so I can collect unemployment.” That’s what is communicated; watch yourself out of intellectual curiosity: I don’t own the rights to parody this. Go for it.
We like writers here, and honest meteorologists, girls who like crafts, shy producers, sheepish types, and everyone who likes nature, travel, and beauty. My main instincts in life are to serve God and have fun.

Dr. Melanie Renfrew, 12/17/09

Avatar; It’s what I’ve been saying

Welcome new readers! I write for an L.A. audience and beyond, so others can laugh at us here in this “dyslexic windy city.” Just watch the flags and you’ll see what I mean. I am writing a book, What It Took To Convince NBC The Winds Are Coming From The West, and “Offshore Winds, The Musical.” (The winds are really onshore: just watch, and you’ll see.:-))

I am not an M.D. but Ph.D. in Geography, so am intuitive, global, and integrative rather than physiological in my understanding of the insides of the human body. I read faces and know how people feel; but I’m not judgmental, I’m a mom, so my chemical urge is to fix sadness. I want people to be well fed and happy like all moms chemically do, the way men want to make love with all attractive women, or almost. It’s an instinct, but women don’t sin when we feed people; and that’s why men are angry at us for their attraction to us: they can’t shake it off or solve their urges so easily.

Last night on Jay Leno, Sigourney Weaver said she was the one who first asked her husband to dance, have dinner, and to marry him:
Guys, don’t wait for this. It’s not the least bit romantic for us, or the guys. Men are programmed genetically to hunt, court, persist, and compete, not wait around. It’s survival of the fittest, and passive males die childless and ‘wifeless’ in the animal world.

Einstein said, “If you watch nature, everything will become more clear.”
If you’ve watched male birds do courtship dances, the girl birds usually can’t be bothered.
In all classic romantic movies, love triangles have 2 men.
In the animal world, females who court are crocodiles, carnivores.
Just think about it.

In the most expensive movie ever made, Avatar at $310 million, Sigourney Weaver said special effects may bring people, but what they’ll remember is “the very traditional use of archetype and romance that give the sweeping alien epic its very human heart. I think it’s an astonishing movie to look at, but what I love…is it is a great, old-fashioned love story.”
(Geoff Boucher, “Weaver is at home out of this world, L.A. Times, 12/17/09, D1.)

Maybe it didn’t need all those millions.
During the holidays, I know of no one’s emotional needs which are genuinely met, and that’s why I like to ask people’s favorite colors, and give them a decoration in that color. They only cost $2-5 to make, and you should see all the delighted reactions.

TV shows red and green and beautiful warmth at this time of year, and everyone’s “inner child” feels like “the other kids are getting better toys,” better romances, more homemade cooking, more travel, more loving families.

The truth is, those things don’t “happen”: we make the adventure, we create the loving families. If you don’t cook, all around us are establishments where people pray night and day that people like us will come by and buy what they toiled to prepare. Just enjoy it, buy extra and give some away.

Giving releases more happy chemicals in our body than getting. Ask people’s favorite colors, or give them something to eat or something red, or ask if they want to go walk and see Christmas lights, or on the beach or a park. Shucks, let it snow.