The People Who Really Make the Coachella Valley Great; Efforts to Ban Cell Phones on School Campuses–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: June 20, 2024

Indy Digest: June 20, 2024

Palm Springs makes a prominent appearance in a recent episode of HBO Max’s fabulous comedy series Hacks.

The show’s central character is legendary standup comedian Deborah Vance (played by Jean Smart), who again becomes a huge star when she’s forced to reinvent herself after her Las Vegas residency suddenly comes to an end. On the aforementioned episode, she’s supposed to come to Palm Springs for a “House of Vance” event at Pride—but she gets delayed while she’s in Berkeley to receive an honorary doctorate, leaving her company’s pissed-off chief operating officer, Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins), to deal with the gay men disappointed due to her absence.

This is just one of many prominent appearances the Coachella Valley has made in the country’s zeitgeist as of late. Kelly Ripa and her husband, Mark Consuelos, can’t stop talking about their love of Palm Springs on their syndicated Live With Kelly and Mark talk show; in fact, Visit Greater Palm Springs has reportedly set aside $1 million in an effort to get the show to tape a few episodes here this fall.

Entertainment Tonight is reporting on what Kim Kardashian wore to Janet Jackson’s concert at Acrisure Arena. The words “Coachella Valley” are relevant in the team-sports world thanks to the Coachella Valley Firebirds’ second-consecutive run to the American Hockey League’s Calder Cup finals, and Acrisure Arena’s hosting of both Los Angeles Lakers pre-season games and top-notch NCAA basketball teams in the late-November Acrisure Series.

Finally, Palm Springs is the setting for a possible new Hulu series inspired by The Golden Girls (!) called Mid-Century Modern, produced by six-time Emmy Award winner Ryan Murphy, and starring Matt Bomer, Nathan Lane and Linda Lavin.

Yep. Our li’l Coachella Valley is becoming incredibly popular. The folks behind big events, like Modernism Week and the Palm Springs International Film Festival, deserve a lot of credit for this; so do the people at the Oak View Group, the company that built Acrisure Arena.

But they’re not the only ones.

The Coachella Valley is chock-full of people who work hard every day to make this a better place—and a number of them are being covered by the Independent.

Earlier this week, in her Civic Solutions column, Melissa Daniels wrote about the efforts of the Joslyn Center to better serve the aging population of autistic adults. Earlier today, we published Haleemon Anderson piece about Shoes for Students, a program of the Foundation for Palm Springs Unified School District that provides kids in need with new shoes—in a school district where more than 97 percent of the kids are considered “socioeconomically disadvantaged.” (No, that’s not a typo.)

In the coming days, we’ll be shining a light on some of the people, such as those on DAP Health’s harm-reduction team, working to decrease local fentanyl-related drug-overdose deaths; and we’ll explain how the LGBTQ Community Center of the Desert has partnered with a local chef to develop recipes so clients at the Center’s food bank can properly prepare the food they receive.

Without these amazing individuals and organizations, the Coachella Valley would not be a place where—just to use one example—Kelly Ripa dreams of living.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• AT&T asked for permission to eliminate landlines in much of California. The state told them no. Our partners at Calmatters report: “California’s Public Utilities Commission today rejected AT&T’s application to stop providing landlines and other services in areas where there is no other option. Its 4-0 vote came after a judge determined the application by AT&T California was ‘fatally flawed.’ AT&T is the ‘carrier of last resort’ for California, an official designation that means it covers most major cities, rural communities, and the land of more than 100 tribal governments. … AT&T has argued that the people its landlines are now serving in the areas in question can turn to voice over internet service offered by cable providers or to mobile phone service offered by wireless providers like Verizon.“

• LA Unified School district is restricting cellphone use on its campuses—and other state schools may follow suit. The Los Angeles Times says: “The Los Angeles school board Tuesday set in motion a plan to ban cellphones all day on campus, saying the devices distract students from learning, lead to anxiety and allow cyberbullying. The ban would take effect in January after details are approved in a future meeting by the Board of Education, with the goal of enforcing it across a student’s entire time at school, including lunch and other breaks. … State leaders are moving in the same direction as L.A. Unified. California Assembly Bill 3216, introduced in February, would require school districts to adopt a policy to limit or prohibit student use of smartphones while at school or under the supervision of a school employee. The law would go into effect July 1, 2026. The measure has the support of Gov. Gavin Newsom.”

• Today’s recall news involves … portable battery chargers! CBS News reports: “A Michigan company is recalling about 567,000 portable battery chargers sold at Costco nationwide after 120 reports of the product overheating while charging, with the devices linked to two residential fires. The recall involves myCharge POWER HUB All-In-One 10,000mAh portable chargers with model numbers AO10FK-A, AO10FK-B, and AO10FK-C. The chargers were sold at Costco stores and online from January 2022 through November 2023 for about $40. … Birmingham, Mich.-based myCharge said it had received five reports of the made-in-China charges overheating, including the two home fires. Costco also received 115 returns of the chargers, with customers mentioning melting, expanding, smoking, fire, burning, exploding or sparking.”

• Next up: blenders! CNN says: “Parts of a pricey blender that can cost up to $990 can cause deep cuts, Vitamix announced in an expanded recall Thursday—but don’t expect a refund. After dozens of reports of lacerations from exposed blades, Vitamix announced a recall of about 569,000 blending containers and blade bases for its high-powered blenders. It expands on an extensive recall already issued in 2018 for some of the most expensive and well-known blenders on the market. The recall said that the container can separate from the blade base and can expose the blades. Twenty-seven people have reported lacerations to Vitamix, which includes 11 reports from a 2018 recall that affected more than 100,000 units. Vitamix is not offering replacements or a refund. All affected customers should immediately stop using the recalled parts, the company said, and contact Vitamix for a repair kit. The repair kit includes a protective plastic shroud to put over the blade base as well as additional instructions.”

• The CNN headline is: “Arizona is sending taxpayer money to religious schools — and billionaires see it as a model for the US.” Sigh. A tidbit: “Arizona was the first state in the country to enact a universal ‘education savings account’ program—a form of voucher that allows any family to take tax dollars that would have gone to their child’s public education and spend the money instead on private schooling. A CNN investigation found that the program has cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than anticipated, disproportionately benefited richer areas, and funneled taxpayer funds to unregulated private schools that don’t face the same educational standards and antidiscrimination protections that public schools do. Since Arizona’s expanded program took effect in 2022, according to state data, it has sent nearly $2 million to (megachurch, pro-Trump) Dream City (Christian School) and likely sapped millions of dollars from Paradise Valley’s budget.”

• And finally … the Los Angeles Times reports on a San Francisco bookstore that’s battling censorship by sending free books to red states: “Lots of out-of-town visitors to Fabulosa Books in San Francisco react emotionally when they see what Becka Robbins calls the ‘Big Gay Wall’—which features a stack of shelves brimming with LGBTQ+ titles. But Robbins, the store’s events manager, remembers the response of a 15-year-old Ohio boy the best. ‘Wait a minute! Is every single book on this whole wall gay?’ the teen asked after walking in from Castro Street last year. When Robbins said they were, the boy went quiet, then smiled back at her. ‘Can I hug you?’ he asked. … Robbins said she still thinks about the exchange when she’s packing up boxes of LGBTQ+ books for shipment to Alabama or Idaho, Oklahoma or South Carolina, Texas or Florida as part of a grassroots effort she launched from Fabulosa last year called ‘Books Not Bans.’ The initiative is a West Coast counterpunch to the well-organized and rapidly growing effort by anti-LGBTQ+ activists and lawmakers in more conservative parts of the country to ban queer-friendly books from public schools and libraries.” Bravo!

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