A Time for Gratitude; Several Concerning Stories About Bird Flu–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Nov. 25, 2024

Indy Digest: Nov. 25, 2024

Since today marks the release of the results of our 11th annual Best of Coachella Valley readers’ poll, and this is the final Indy Digest scheduled before Thanksgiving, indulge me as I use this space to express some graditude.

• I am thankful that I live in Palm Springs, where city leaders do their best to create a place that’s safe for everyone.

A LOT of Americans right now live in places where they don’t feel safe, because they’re transgender, or gay/lesbian, or a person of color, or a woman. I don’t have that problem, thanks to the work of the Palm Springs City Council, City Manager Scott Stiles and Police Chief Andy Mills. This city is not perfect—far from it. But it’s safe and welcoming. I am lucky.

• I am thankful for Acrisure Arena. I’ll admit I was a little skeptical at first, but the arena has not only made the Coachella Valley a legit professional team sports “city” (go Firebirds!); it’s also made it possible for locals, finances permitting, to see amazing shows by stars including Madonna, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey and, last night, the incredible Cyndi Lauper.

• I am thankful Acrisure was built where it was built, and not in downtown Palm Springs as originally planned. My god, that would have been a traffic nightmare.

• I am grateful for the Independent’s staff and contributors. The pay here isn’t great, and there are far larger publications, yet I am fortunate to work with amazingly talented people every day—and you, dear reader, are fortunate to enjoy their work on a regular basis. To Haleemon Anderson, Dennis Wodzisz, Matt King, Katie Finn, Brett Newton, Melissa Daniels, Cat Makino, Charles Drabkin, Theresa Sama, Terry Huber, Greg Niemann, Eleanor Whitney and others I don’t have the space to mention: Thanks for helping make this one of the best publications in the state, regardless of size.

• A super-duper special shoutout to Kevin Fitzgerald, Bonnie Gilgallon, Valerie Jean Hume, Bob Victor and Bob Grimm, who have all been with the Independent from the start, or close to it. We’re all about to start our 13th year of working together. Unbelievable.

• Finally, I am grateful to my family, both biological and chosen, for supporting me. I don’t know what I did in a past life to karmically deserve y’all, but whatever it was, I am glad I did it. I won’t name names—you all know who you are—except for one: my husband, Garrett. If he hadn’t turned to me back in 2012 during a drive from Phoenix to Tucson and asked, “So are we ever going to do this newspaper thing in Palm Springs, or what?” I would not be here, and neither would the Independent. For supporting me in every way possible now for 22-plus years: Thanks, hon.

—Jimmy Boegle

Schedule note

This week’s second Indy Digest, which is normally published and sent on Thursday, will be delayed until Friday, because, y’know, Thanksgiving. I hope you have an amazing holiday—and a lot for which to be thankful!

More News

• Bird flu has been in the news a fair amount regularly … a fact I REALLY don’t like. The Associated Press reports: “Health officials on Friday confirmed bird flu in a California child — the first reported case in a U.S. minor. The child had mild symptoms, was treated with antiviral medication and is recovering, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in announcing the test results. State officials have said the child attends day care and lives in Alameda County, which includes Oakland and surrounding communities, but released no other details. The infection brings the reported number of U.S. bird flu cases this year to 55, including 29 in California, the CDC said. Most were farmworkers who tested positive with mild symptoms.”

• Next, we’ll turn to The Washington Post: “Bird flu, a virus that can also affect humans, has been discovered in a batch of raw milk sold in California store refrigerators, state regulators said Sunday. While there have been no reported illnesses in this most recent case, it comes just a few days after a child tested positive for bird flu for the first time in U.S. history. A batch of whole raw milk from Raw Farm that has a ‘best by’ date of Nov. 27, 2024, has been recalled after Santa Clara County health officials detected bird flu in a sample purchased for testing, the California Department of Public Health said in a news release. The farm is in Fresno County. Retailers have been notified to pull the product from their refrigerator racks, the state health department said. Consumers who may have it in their homes are advised not to drink it.”

• And since it’s Thanksgiving week, we’ll turn to The Sacramento Bee, with some news regarding the bird flu and, yikes, turkey. But in this case, the news is not as bad as it could be: “‘Consumers can safely enjoy turkey this holiday season,’ the U.S. Food and Drug Administration wrote in an email to The Bee, noting that food safety inspectors examine turkeys for disease ‘before and after slaughter.’ That includes your Thanksgiving bird. ‘The turkeys from farms with confirmed avian influenza don’t even get sent to slaughter,’ (U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesperson María) Soledad said. ‘They are destroyed on premises.’ During an avian flu outbreak, ‘The chance of infected poultry or eggs entering the food chain is low,’ the FDA said on its website in April.’ ‘When food is properly prepared and stored, the risk of consumers becoming infected with HPAI is reduced even further,’ the FDA said.”

• From the increasingly large “What in the heck is Gavin Newsom doing?” file comes this story from our partners at Calmatters: “Despite pledging to be the first California governor to release his tax returns every year while in office, Gov. Gavin Newsom has yet to make any additional filings public during his second term. Newsom last disclosed a tax return nearly three years ago, in March 2022, as he was running for re-election. Under a state law, signed by Newsom himself, that requires gubernatorial candidates to release their five most recent income tax returns, the governor shared filings through 2020, when he and wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom earned nearly $1.5 million and paid about $480,000 in taxes. A spokesperson for Newsom declined to provide CalMatters with any of his tax returns since then. Nathan Click said the governor’s team would organize an opportunity for reporters to review the documents in a controlled setting, as it has in the past, but did not provide a date or respond to any follow-up questions.”

• The president-elect is promising mass deportations. We have two stories on the possibility. The first, headlined “‘What’s going to happen to my kids’: California prepares to resist Trump deportations,” comes from Calmatters. A snippet: “Immigration experts warn of an indiscriminate dragnet that could put almost anyone at risk, but some are in more immediate jeopardy than others. Those include non-citizens who have had contact with the criminal justice system; some 1.3 million people nationwide who have already received final orders of removal, and undocumented people who may live or work in close proximity to the other two groups. ‘Folks who have had contact with the criminal legal system will be of high priority,’ said Nayna Gupta, the policy director at the left-leaning Washington think tank American Immigration Council. ‘Under current immigration law, that includes people who might have convictions from decades prior. There’s no statute of limitations on when the government can remove someone.’ Communities closer to the border may be at greater risk early in the next Trump administration because that’s where more Customs and Border Protection agents and Border Patrol officials are located. Trump has said he plans to use those agencies to carry out his mass deportation plan.”

• Next, Capital and Main examines the cost to the economy and society. And it’s a LOT: “Jamshid Damooei, executive director of the Center for Economics of Social Issues at California Lutheran University, has been studying the economic impact of undocumented immigrants in the state for years. To Damooei, the numbers tell the story. According to the center’s analysis, undocumented immigrants are the source of more than half a trillion dollars of products in California, either by direct, indirect or induced production levels. Their work adds up to nearly 5% of the state’s gross domestic product, or GDP. And while 46% of the state’s agricultural workforce is undocumented, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. For example, the center’s report found that in Los Angeles County, 28.7% of the construction workforce is undocumented, along with 17.5% in manufacturing, 16% in wholesale trade and more than 15% in retail trade. ‘How could L.A. County function with a significant share of its vital workforce being deported?’ Damooei said. ‘In my county, Ventura, 70% of farmworkers are undocumented. In Santa Barbara it’s closer to 80%. Then there is construction, manufacturing, transportation. … Look, this is just incredibly powerful.’”

• And finally … on a lighter note, I came across this Associated Press headline last night, and it’s perfect, 10/10, no notes: “Stolen shoe mystery solved at Japanese kindergarten when security camera catches weasel in the act.” If you think that says it, all, well, you are incorrect. A snippet: “‘It’s great it turned out not to be a human being,’ Deputy Police Chief Hiroaki Inada told The Associated Press Sunday. Teachers and parents had feared it could be a disturbed person with a shoe fetish.”

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