Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: June 21st through June 27th

June 21, 2015 JanF Community 143

Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (every Sunday morning). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).

The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.

So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?

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NOTE: The comments page will now split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page and use the link.

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48 Comments

  1. 70 degrees in Saugerties NY – going up to 88 with rain.

    Good to see the Dixie Swastika discussion continuing – hope it also spills over into all things named for Confederates – like highways, streets and schools.

  2. Good morning, Meese! It’s 73 F. here under partly cloudy skies in NoVa, going up to 95 F. or worse today. Just saw a crawl on “Good Morning, Merrycar” that a council of scientists says the air will be so polluted by 2100 it will cause 50,000 deaths. It amazes me to think that all this climate change and air pollution has come about because one Supreme decided to side with Bush instead of Gore. And people vote for do-nothing Rethug Congress critters. Probably never in the history of the universe has a species been so bent on self-destruction.

    Well, now that we’ve all cheered up, what about the rest of the news? Denise, hope along with you that the rag symbolizing the losing side of a war that ended 150 years ago will be consigned to the dustbin of history.

    Today will be busy and spent largely indoors because of the heat. I hope Babylicious is over his attack of pink eye. Wishing everyone in the Pond and beyond a good day, especially our Portlaw!

    • I hope that the collective we come to our senses about climate change before it is too late to turn things around. I think about the gawdawful mess that our rivers were in before environment regulations were put in place: Lake Erie used to catch on fire, rivers were filled with toxic chemicals and effluvia and unfit to stand near, much less swim in or boat on. It took a concerted effort, some Good Government regulations and hefty fines and cleanup work but, now, some of those rivers and lakes are vacation destinations.

      The problem right now is as you point out, only one major political party cares about our planet … and they, sadly, are not in charge of much. :(

      I did find that bit of good news from, of all places, the Fifth Circuit (it got bumped to Older Comments) . Today I am going to concentrate on good news because the bad news is making me sad. The president and vice president will be traveling to Charleston on Friday for the funeral of Rev. Pinckney and while I am glad that they will be there as our representatives, I worry about the toxic atmosphere there and hope they are safe.

  3. I took today off. I couldn’t eat yesterday, and the area where I work has become cold all of a sudden (I’m not the only one who feels that, so that’s not me). I literally had 4 bites of lunch before my stomach said it was completely full. So yesterday was just miserable, and I even had a sweater with me. I had a couple of bites for dinner…. So I just figured I need a day of rest. Slept in – and I really slept. Eating some cheese & cracker so I can take my vitamins. I think the most energetic thing I’ll do is take out the trash & recycling. I have a book due tomorrow that I can’t renew because others have holds, so I’m going to read a lot.

    • Hi, another, sorry you’re under the weather still. Do you think you might have a stomach virus? M’daughter’s fiance in Austin just got over one of those. Perhaps it’s something that’s going around.

      Stay in the air conditioning, read your book, listen to music, and take a nap! Best thing in the world. :)

    • I am glad the president will be speaking at the service and I hope he can find the words to help us heal what feels like a gaping wound. Incidents like last week’s murders expose a sense of vulnerability … that the promise of America will never be met because those who want to deny it outnumber, or outmuscle, those who want to see the promise fulfilled.

  5. Happy Tuesday – low 80s heading for mid 90s and heat index hovering one side or the other of the century mark in Fay., AR – yesterday was totally crazy with Spring Class scheduling and HR issues. So far today is a little calmer but not much. I need to get on the Annual Report – which I didn’t have time to even look at yesterday – before the in-coming Chair gets here and we dive back into Spring Class scheduling and FY 15 close-out. Hope everybody’s health is either good or getting better. {{{HUGS}}}

  6. Good morning, it’s 57 and sunny in Bellingham today. I’m about half through with my annual container planting and while it’s fun and creative I’ve got to make a different plan for next year because my knees are in revolt! The flower shop has a selection of pre planted containers using plants I really like so that may be a solution. They are ready to enjoy, and better yet, cost less than buying all the individual plants and planting them myself.

    One of my flower shop friends is recovering from double knee replacement so she will be a wise consultant.

  7. Good morning, meese! Wednesday …

    It is 61 degrees in Madison on its way up to 82. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    Now that things have quieted down on the Confederate flag front (color me cynical as I suspect that the hand wringing is more for show than action), all eyes are turning again to King v Burwell, the Supreme Court case that could take health insurance from millions of Americans. I laughed (cynically!) at the subhead on one of the articles in my news feeds this morning: “Republicans face a challenge – many of their constituents receive subsidies”. HAHAHAHA!! As if the Republicans would ever pay a political price for throwing people off healthcare! They have been running on denying people healthcare for 4 years now … quite successfully, I might add. So a few of their constituents lose healthcare. That is the price of freedumb and the free and dumb will just keep voting for people who don’t give a damn about their lives.

    I personally think that King will lose “his” case and the subsidies will stay in place. The old adage is “follow the money” and never more so than for this court. The insurance industry and hospitals and doctors would be the biggest losers if the subsidies are removed – if the ACA is repealed, as a matter of fact. Roberts won’t allow it. I haz spoken!! :)

    See all y’alls later.

    • I devoutly hope you are right about “King” – you’re logic of how this Court works is good. Roberts doesn’t give a bucket of s**t for all the people who will be hurt or even die should the ACA go away, but he seriously doesn’t want the insurance companies to lose anything.

      But then I also thought Obama-hate would be enough to stop TPP – the logic of how this Congress works is good, but too many Corporate Shills of both parties seem to be getting their way. Philosophically speaking I have nothing against “fast-track” but I have a universe of stuff against “free trade agreements” (trade good jobs for corporate CEO bonuses for no taxes so “free”) and I’m afraid stopping fast track is the only way to stop the agreement.

    • I had a brilliant reply filled with links and cogent analysis … and WordPress chose that moment to decide I was not logged in and tossed it into the bit bucket!!

      So I will leave with a simply blockquote from Wonkette:

      Pop quiz: If one political party is responsible for expanding healthcare to people who previously could not afford it, despite the hyperbolic objections of another political party, are those people more or less likely to vote for the party that gave them that sweet, sweet healthcare? Yeah, you know the answer to that, and so do Republicans. Which is why they’ve been hoping Obamacare would fail, or be repealed or overturned, before it had a chance to succeed. As they well know, the Republican Party will not survive if it relies solely on cranky old white guys. Thus, the sad “outreach” in the past few years to the blacks and browns and womens, which is going GREAT so far. And if Republicans succeed in destroying Obamacare, those voters they are so desperate to reach now — the very people who have most benefited from Obamacare — are even less likely to heart the GOP in the next election.

      • And because the segue to that blockquote ended up in the bit bucket, that appears a bit disconnected.

        Simply put, King v Burwell won’t be the last attack on the Affordable Care Act. The people behind the lawsuits have declared that they will not give up until the ACA is dead. When the government is seen as helpful, even the embedded reptilian Reaganspeak of “the government is the problem, not the solution” starts losing its lockhold. For people to enjoy the benefits of Good Government is the worst nightmare for those who want to shrink and drown it.

  9. Up at my usual time, eating breakfast (yay!), drinking tea. It is freezing in this office. If it isn’t busy I may leave early; I did bring my gym bag for going to my Wednesday evening workout, though. Must get brain ready for work.

    Weather: normal for June in Austin, hot & humid

  10. Wednesday in Fay., AR same as yesterday – and pretty much will be (with occasional rain fronts moving in this wet year) until mid-September. Still cool enough at 6 a.m. to open the house and air it out but that won’t last more than another couple of weeks. The kittehs are not happy. They love their open windows.

    Things are calming down a bit at work. The Spring Class Schedule draft has been sent to the dept Chair. She’ll study it, move stuff around, and send it back in a week or so. As in-coming Chair trying to put back together a department fragmented by the out-going Chair, the first thing she’s got to do is develop a fair, open, and consistent policy for those moves. (Anybody who works in academia can figure out what’s been going on here from that statement alone.) Working on the Annual Report today unless another brush fire springs up. I’ve just sent of my “2-week work log” to HR as part of the “reassessment” of my position. I’m not holding my breath about the proposed/potential advancement and raise but the motions have to be gone through no matter what the outcome. Hope everyone has a pleasant day filled with good health and/or healing. {{{HUGS}}}

  11. Good morning, 58 and cloudy in Bellingham today. I have a busy day ahead, filled with just normal life stuff…the pool, planting a few more plants, laundry and house work, etc. The grand kids are out of school now so the summer visiting schedule is getting finalized and I’d best fill in the calendar before I lose all the random notes I’ve jotted dates on. Between the grand kids, grand puppies and the grown up kids we will soon have a full house!

  12. Does anyone have a tip about how to embed images? I am working on a diary, and I used the img button and specified the Photobucket URLs of two images that I want to upload, but when I preview the draft diary, I do not see the images. Rather, I see long white rectangular boxes with black borders. Inside each box, I see a blue square which contains a white question mark.

    I looked here:

    https://en.support.wordpress.com/links/image-links/#link-with-an-image-uploaded-from-your-computer,

    and the suggestion is to use the Add Media button above the formatting toolbar, but no such button appears on my diary-editing screen. I looked at the FAQ page, http://motleymoose.net/faq-how-to-compose-a-post-in-wordpress/, and I see an Add Media button in the screen shot, but no such button appears on my screen.

    The images that I would like to include in my draft diary are crucial to the overall content. The images reside in a Photobucket account that I just created.

    Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

    • Let me make sure you have the proper rights to include images in your posts. I think it may be turned off by default. Save what you have now and close the post. Reopen it in about 10 minutes.

      The Media Library is being reserved for Moose admin and editors so we can add featured images and headers and images for FAQs and the like. So even if it lets you put things there, don’t … continue to use your photobucket account. That would be the “img” button on the lower toolbar instead of the “Add Media”. Thanks!

      Sorry the FAQ is so thin. As with all computer projects, the documentation is the last thing on the to-do list and very often it is neglected. Later this summer, I hope to carve out some time to do some step-by-step instructions.

  13. Good evening,Meeses.Hope all is well. Pain management is a challenge Will check in later. Best to all.

    • I am sorry to hear you are in pain, Portlaw. I hope that you are able to rest.

      Healing energy heading your way …

    • Healing and soothing energy headed your way – hope you still have that Forever by the Sea music (at least it always helps me with pain management).

    • What a wonderful if sad way of putting it. The Rev Baeber is so inspirational
      Am using a phone to connect to the pond so my comments will be brief nd filled ith typos. Sorry best to th meese

      • Portlaw, we are so glad to hear from you that you could post in Greek and we’d still be happy. Sending healing vibes and good wishes to you and hoping the pain will greatly decrease, starting right now.

      • I hope you return to full blogging strength soon. I see stories about things going on internationally and think “Oh, Portlaw will have something on that to share with us!” and then I realize that you won’t for a while. :(

  15. Good morning, meese! Thursday …

    It is 65 degrees in Madison on its way up to 79. Morning clouds, afternoon sun, evening dark. :) It is the first quarter moon which, with its balance of light and dark and its waxing energy, is a good time to assess where you are and where you want to go. I have a blog post I started 3 years ago related to the first quarter that I never finished. Maybe I should!

    Bobby Jindal is in! No one is quite sure why except that it is a fact that he had to get out of Louisiana before they tarred and feathered him. Iowa seems nice.

    Word is that Chris Christie will be announcing next week. The rash of announcements triggered a Centers for Disease Control investigation

    “It might have been misplaced optimism on our part, but we had started to believe that this thing had been contained,” said the C.D.C. spokesman Dr. Harland Dorrinson. “Regrettably, it has not.”

    While scientists disagree about how running for President spreads from person to person, most epidemiologists believe that a candidacy needs an environment rich in narcissism and delusion—plus a host to feed on, ideally a sociopathic billionaire.

    And to the surprise of no one who has been paying attention, right wing attacks pose a bigger threat to us than jihadists.

    Today the Supreme Court will release some opinions as the 2014-2105 court term winds down. There are 7 cases left. Liveblog starts at 8:30 Eastern, opinions at 10:00. I will not be online when the first box is opened but will try to catch up. Opinions tomorrow (many expect the marriage equality cases that day) then they wrap up on Monday, 6/29.

    See all y’alls later!

  16. 59 here in the NYS Catskills going up to 81 with rain.

    Scanning the news:

    John Lewis: Take down Georgia’s U.S. Capitol Statue of Confederate V.P.

    WASHINGTON — As the nation debates the placement of Confederate battle flags, Atlanta Democratic U.S. Rep. and civil rights legend John Lewis said it’s high time to take a look at the statues under the U.S. Capitol dome, starting with one of Georgia’s.

    “I think it should move, be removed,” Lewis said in an interview Wednesday. “I think there will be other symbols, not just from Georgia but other parts of our country [that are removed]. … It’s the beginning of a movement that will help us move toward the realization that we’re one people, we’re one nation and we have to be sensitive to our own history.”

    The Alexander Stephens statue on display in the Capitol. (AJC/Daniel Malloy)Crawfordville native Alexander H. Stephens served in Georgia’s legislature and the U.S. Congress as a Whig, a Democrat and a Constitutional Unionist. After the state seceded, he was selected as the vice president of the Confederacy, even though he had been a staunch unionist.

    In March 1861, Stephens delivered what is known as the “Cornerstone Speech” in Savannah, laying out the reasons for secession. According to a local newspaper account, it included this ugly passage:

    “Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.”

    After the war, Stephens returned to the House and was later elected governor.

    Glad to see attention called to more than just Dixie Swastikas

    • That “Cornerstone Speech” is exactly why there is no honor in the Confederate flag, the Confederacy, or those who claim its heritage.

  17. With the news about arson at a black church in NC it reminds us that this has been going on for a long time

    NY Magazine has a list of Black Church burnings and attacks.

    July 16, 1993 — A group of eight skinheads is arrested after the FBI uncovers a plot to bomb Los Angeles’s First AME Church, kill its congregation with machine guns, and assassinate Rodney King in an attempt to ignite a race war.

    August 13, 1993 — Three men use a burning cross to set on fire a Fort Dodge, Iowa, church with a mixed-race congregation.

    February, 1995 — Three men in Sumter County, Alabama, get drunk and take sledgehammers to the pews, windows, and kitchens of three black churches.

    January 8, 1996 — The Inner City Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, is hit with 18 Molotov cocktails in the middle of the night. Painted on the church’s back door were the words “Die N—– Die!” and “White Is Right.”

    January 11, 1996 — Little Zion Baptist Church and Mount Zoar Baptist Church, two black churches within six miles of each other in rural Alabama, are turned to ashes on the same night.

    February 8, 1996 — The Justice Department begins investigating a rash of fires at black churches in rural Alabama and Tennessee.

    June 7, 1996 — The Matthews-Murkland Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Caroline, is set on fire. It’s part of an 18-month long string of intentional fires set at southern black churches.

    March 22, 1997 — Two men in Ferris, Texas, burn down the Macedonia Baptist Church “”cause it was a ni**er church.”

    March 26, 1997 — A 23-year-old man is the nation’s first arsonist prosecuted under the federal Church Arson Prevention Act after he burnt down a black church in Henderson, Nevada.

    June 30, 1997 — Five white men and women between the ages of 18 and 21 burn down a 21-member church in Little River, Alabama.

    January 12, 2004 — Two white men break into a black church in Roanoke, Virginia, and cause $77,000 in damage.

    July 11, 2006 — A cross is burnt outside a black church in Richmond, Virginia.

    November 4, 2008 — Hours after President Obama’s first inauguration, three white men in Springfield, Massachusetts, doused the partially constructed Macedonia Church of God in Christ in gas and set it ablaze.

    December 28, 2010 — A white man attempting to “gain status” with a white-supremacist gang firebombs a black church in Crane, Texas.

    June 17, 2015 — Dylann Roof kills nine people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

    Not all of them were in the South.

  18. Good morning, Moosekind! 64 F. with low humidity on a fair morning, going up to 86 F. with violent thunderstorms later. The good part is that I don’t have to water the garden now that Goddess is doing the honors. Jan, will look out for the new moon tonight.

    The ugly core of racism in this country makes me feel sick. Don’t know what to do about it except elect more Democrats and even then I’m not sure it’ll do any good.

    Miss Pink Cheeks has a cold and Babylicious has had pink eye. Such are the joys of summer! I wish Miss PC wouldn’t run around in bare feet, but she’s six—what can we do?

    Hope everyone will have a good day—will check the SCOTUS blog. I’ll be positively ill if the Supremes overturn the ACA. Wishing all Meese a good day and hope that those in pain will experience great relief starting today.

    • I read a very interesting article about the ACA and how even an adverse ruling in King won’t kill it. It will simply make life miserable for everyone in the states that did not build their own exchanges. It won’t just make it awful for those who can’t afford insurance without the subsidies, it will destroy the private insurance market in those states. And 14 states passed poison pill legislation after Chief Justice Roberts saved the law, saying that their legislatures cannot EVER create an exchange. So they will have some fancy tap dancing to do to claim that it is President Obama’s fault that insurance companies refuse to do business in their states.

      That said, I think it would take a big leap for SCOTUS to declare the subsidies unconstitutional. Why would Chief Justice Roberts save the law only to kill it a few years later when it will impact millions more?

    • First quarter moon, not new! Half light, half dark … waxing. I was walking through the neighborhood with my daughter last night and I pointed it out to her. She asked why it was called a quarter when it was obviously half! I explained the four quarters to her. That is what made me think of it this morning.

  19. My friend with ALS has passed on. It’s good that he’s no longer suffering, what a cruel disease to take your body from you & leave your mind. But he was one of the good guys, the world is so much less without him in it.

    Trying to drive the cheerful U2 song in my head out, I don’t want happy music right now. But if I have to talk to people all day & sound cheerful, I suppose it is helpful. Maybe I should just go.

    • {{{anotherdemocrat}}} – always hurts when a friend Crosses The Bridge to a place we can’t reach no matter how sophisticated our communications technology gets.

    • It is a cruel disease anotherdem. My condolences to you and to your friend’s family.

    • So sorry about his passing, another. As you say, ALS is one of the cruelest of diseases. Hope his passing was peaceful. May he be held in the Light.

  20. Was already 80 when I walked in – left the house at 6:45 – and doing nothing but getting hotter (yesterday’s heat index when I left at 4:30 was 102). Happy Summer. Things sort of calming down in the office. Just heard the breaking news – ACA is good to go on a 6-3 decision! (Thank you Pope Francis – I blame most of Kennedy’s adverse rulings on Benedict, now the Pope is xtian rather than nazi youth grown up, Kennedy is coming back from the Dark Side.) Gotta go. It may be quieter but not quiet. {{{HUGS}}}

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