Define your terms, Fritz Coleman! That's more or less what L.A. Harbor College geography instructor Melanie Patton Renfrew has been hectoring the Channel 4 weatherman to do for more than a year through letters and emails. What's been particularly bugging her is Coleman's alleged ambiguity. According to the Associated Press, Renfrew has wanted Coleman “to change references to onshore and offshore winds.

She says the terms are confusing because people don't know which are coming and which are going.”

Now, however, the wind has definitely blown against Renfrew, as Burbank's city attorney recently charged her with violating a restraining order that KNBC got against her in March, 2008.

Renfrew's blog
notes the smackdown by calling it an attack on free speech:

“People with a drive to communicate liberating truth take risks, journalists imprisoned. Because of lies in court papers to muzzle me, I am now forbidden for a year to communicate anything with 'LOCALS ONLY' NBC (presumably around the world), OR I WILL GO TO JAIL, the judge instructed sternly!”

Her blog also announces she is taking the fall term off to battle the cancer for which she was recently diagnosed.

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.