Please Prepare for the Huge Storm Heading Our Way; a Wisconsin News Outlet Needs Your Support–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Aug. 17, 2023

Indy Digest: Aug. 17, 2023

I was really hoping I could get through a week without harping on the OMG-they’re-here-now effects of climate change … but then the weather forecasters announced that a tropical storm could be dead-heading for the Coachella Valley this weekend.

No, I didn’t mean to type “remnants of a tropical storm.” I meant tropical storm.

This is the National Hurricane Center’s “forecast cone,” as of this writing, for what is now Hurricane Hilary.

“M” means a major hurricane, with winds 110 mph-plus. “H” means hurricane, with winds between 74 and 110 mph. “D” means a tropical depression, with winds less than 39 mph. Not pictured: The “S,” meaning tropical storm, which is what Hilary could be when its center passes over the Coachella Valley late Sunday or early Monday.

The last paragraph of this ABC News story is revealing: “If Hilary makes landfall in California, it would be the first tropical storm to do so in the state since 1939. The ocean water off the Mexican coast, where Hilary is currently churning, is much warmer than normal.”

Back to the Coachella Valley: The National Weather Service’s San Diego office, as of this writing, is predicting 5 to 7 inches of rainfall from Saturday through Monday. in Palm Springs. That’s more rain than we often get in a whole year.

In other words: Even if Hilary is no longer a tropical storm if/when it arrives in the valley, it could be a very dangerous storm for our nine desert cities and beyond.

Be alert. Be prepared. Watch the National Weather Service forecasts for updates. And please, stay safe.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• This story was going to be the topic of my intro … and then the hurricane warnings came. This New York Times piece shows how someone with money can threaten the existence of a valued local news source—even when that news source did nothing wrong—a trend that some GOP politicians seem to be pushing: “Acting on a tip from a reader, The Wausau Pilot & Review reported that during (a county board meeting), the owner of a shredding and recycling company, Cory Tomczyk, called a 13-year-old boy a ‘fag.’ Mr. Tomczyk, who is now a Republican state senator, denied using the slur and demanded a retraction. When The Pilot & Review stood by its article, Mr. Tomczyk sued. Three additional people who attended the meeting later gave sworn statements that they had heard Mr. Tomczyk use the word. And during a deposition, he admitted having said it on other occasions. In late April 2023, a judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that Mr. Tomczyk had not met the legal standard for proving that the report defamed him. But that was not the end of the matter for the small and financially pinched Pilot & Review, a nonprofit that has already racked up close to $150,000 in legal bills from the case. Mr. Tomczyk has filed an appeal. And the publication’s founder and editor, Shereen Siewert, said she has no idea how she can continue paying both her lawyers and her staff of four.” (It’s worth noting that Tomczyk continues to deny using the slur at the meeting.)

• Related: Here’s a GoFundMe page for the Wausau Pilot & Review Legal Defense Fund, if you have a few bucks to spare.

• If you’ve ever wanted to watch me yammer about public relations, this is your lucky day! Explanation: Indy Digest reader (and Cathedral City resident) Paul Wilke, CEO of Upright Position Communications, enjoyed the July 27 Digest, in which I sort of went off on recent shenanigans by some music PR people. Turns out he hosts a podcast with David Oro, principal of Oro Group, called “The Embargoed,” “the only podcast delivering the unvarnished truth about the madcap sector of public relations.” Paul invited me on the show; I said yes; the episode dropped today. Here’s the YouTube version. Check it out if you dare!

• Our partners at Calmatters have unveiled a new California wildfire tracker. It’s very useful and kinda sobering. It reveals that right now, at least seven fires larger than 300 acres are burning in the state. Check it out and bookmark it!

• From the “WTF is Facebook Doing?” file comes this CNN piece, headlined “Meta criticized for making reproductive health an R-rated issue.” A snippet: “Female reproductive health experts are calling on Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to rethink its restrictions on reproductive health content. The company has long faced criticism for removing and restricting female reproductive health information, with a prominent report from the Center for Intimacy Justice early last year accusing Meta of systematically rejecting many female and gender diverse reproductive health ads. The CIJ report also accused Meta of having bias algorithms, stating that male reproductive health ads were found to be permitted, including ads that referenced male sexual pleasure. In bid to combat those concerns, Meta tweaked its ‘adult products or services’ advertising policy last October to include clearer guidelines about reproductive health. … However, female reproductive experts tell CNN that the advertising policy is still too restrictive and is creating barriers for how younger people around the world access information about female reproductive health issues, including the menstrual cycle, which can start as early as 8 years old.”

• No product is safe from a potential recall, it seems … not even cookie dough?! Sigh. CBS News has the details: “Nestlé has recalled its Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bar because the snacks may contain wood fragments. The recall, announced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday, is limited to two batches of the Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ‘break and bake’ Bar produced on April 24 and 25. The FDA has not received any reports of illnesses or deaths related to the product but decided to recall the product ‘out of an abundance of caution’ following ‘a small number’ of calls from consumers, according to the notice.”

• And finally … a labor kerfuffle involving Grindr—a gay, uh, “dating” app—a unionization effort, and a demand for employees to return to the office has caught the attention of The New York Times: “Quinn McGee learned last week that to keep their job as a product manager at Grindr, the gay dating app, they would have to move to California from New York by October under the company’s new return-to-office rules. ‘It’s difficult to even fathom how I would be able to be living in California in seven weeks,’ said Mx. McGee, 41, who uses gender-neutral pronouns. They were hired in 2021 and have been working remotely from Brooklyn. … Grindr sent workers its return-to-office plan in an Aug. 3 memo, a copy of which was reviewed by The New York Times. The company asked them to pledge by next week that they’ll report to their assigned offices and show up two days a week, or leave the company. Anxiety rippled through the staff of roughly 180 people, as some weighed whether to move or lose their jobs. The plan was unveiled two weeks after employees filed a petition to unionize. A complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board the next day by the Communications Workers of America, the union that Grindr employees hope to join, argued that the company’s new office rules were meant to retaliate against workers for their union organizing efforts.” Good luck to the Grindr employees with both their unionization efforts—and their continued ability to work from home.

Support Independent Local Journalism!

Normally I ask you, our readers, to support the Independent in this space … but today, I am asking you to support the Wausau Pilot & Review instead. We can’t let rich people stomp all over vital news sources just because they don’t like something that was reported. Click the button below, please, and give to their legal fund, if you can. Stay safe, folks. And as always, thanks for reading.

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