Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: June 28th through July 4th

June 28, 2015 JanF Community 145

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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40 Comments

  1. Happy Tuesday Meese

    Good to see Portlaw here and on the mend!

    Have two doc appointments today so won’t be around till the afternoon

    I hope the KKK march will visibly demonstrate what that damned flag really means to those who have been excusing it or draping in in Southern “heritage”.

    • Wonkette (under the heading Civil Whites March … HA!!): KKK Throwing Totally Non-Racist Confederate Flag Party At South Carolina Capitol:

      Yr Wonkette is wholly in favor of the event, since it will be the first completely honest show of support for the treason rag. We love Bree Newsome, the woman who climbed up and pulled the flag down Saturday, but the Klan’s support may actually be far more effective at getting the flag permanently removed from the Statehouse. […]

      In fact, were we at all conspiracy-minded, we’d almost think the KKK planned the rally far enough out to give the state legislature time to pass a law to remove the flag. The Charleston Post and Courier, which has been polling legislators since the proposal to remove the flag was first introduced, found that the necessary 2/3 of members of both houses are ready to vote to bring it down. […]

      Gov. Nikki Haley issued a statement emphasizing that her office had nothing to do with approving the rally, saying, “This is our state, and they are not welcome.” The Loyal White Knights’ headquarters (presumably a really good double-wide) is located in Pelham, North Carolina.

      • I adore Wonkette – I know I’ve said it before – but it’s worth repeating :)

        • Sometimes the news from Wingnuttia is so depressing I can’t read it. But with Wonkette, I can keep up with the goings on while laughing. :)

  3. Good morning, 61, clear and breezy in Bellingham today. Seven yr olds are so much fun! She kept me company in the garden, found a tablet and wrote stories and played math games with RonK, read her books, and chattered all the while. I hope she has another good day today because she’ll be here soon.

  4. 67 when I walked in, 76 now and heading for 91 – heat index “don’t ask” :) – but hazy in Fay., AR – the sun was a huge red ball this morning. Got here early and started to read and visit but then got interrupted by a bunch of stuff. Good to see that everybody seems to be getting better – better is good, although good is best :) It’s summertime. That means I itch. Bugs seem to have feasted a ring around my knees, arms and face have contact dermatitis (yard work). Wish there was some way to get the warmth that means my hands and feet don’t hurt without the itch-causing stuff (which is only getting worse with Global Warming). Sigh.

    Things are still calming down. People are losing the rigidity of “aura” that had become the norm over the last several years. Everybody feels tired, most of them not realizing why. It takes a lot of energy to hold those “shields” up and just relaxing lets them feel just how much. In this too things are getting better. {{{HUGS}}} to all in Moosylvania.

  5. Good morning, meese! Wednesday …

    It is 58 degrees in Madison on its way up to 73. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast. Perfect weather!

    The U.S. and Cuba will open embassies, the president is going to change overtime rules that will effectively give raises to 5 million American workers, and the U.S. women won a World Cup semi-final soccer match over #1 Germany (it was very exciting).

    Black churches are burning and the American people are divided over whether or not the Confederate flag is racist. Guess what, American people, THAT is part of the problem. If you don’t see that it is racist, one of two things: you have your head buried in the sand … or … you are racist. I suppose there is a third option – that you know nothing of American history since 1861.

    Busy day … first of July! See all y’alls later!!

    • Here is a story from Vox by a woman who used to conduct tours at a Southern Plantation. Yup, people don’t know the history, don’t even understand what the word “slavery” means:

      The site I worked at most frequently had more than 100 enslaved workers associated with it— 27 people serving the household alone, outnumbering the home’s three white residents by a factor of nine. Yet many guests who visited the house and took the tour reacted with hostility to hearing a presentation that focused more on the slaves than on the owners. The first time it happened, I had just finished a tour of the home. People were filing out of their seats, and one man stayed behind to talk to me. He said, “Listen, I just wanted to say that dragging all this slavery stuff up again is bringing down America.” […]

      I’d often meet visitors who had earnest but deep misunderstandings about the nature of American slavery. These folks were usually, but not always, a little older, and almost invariably white. I was often asked if the slaves there got paid, or (less often) whether they had signed up to work there. You could tell from the questions — and, not less importantly, from the body language — that the people asking were genuinely ignorant of this part of the country’s history. […]

      “These were house slaves, so they must have had a pretty all right life, right?” is a phrase I heard again and again. Folks would ask me if members of the enslaved household staff felt “fortunate” that they “got to” sleep in the house or “got to” serve a politically powerful owner.

      Relatedly, many guests seemed to think that the only reason to seek liberation from household slavery was if you were being beaten or abused. A large part of the house tours I gave was narratives of men and women who dared to attempt escape from it, and so many museum visitors asked me, in all earnestness and surprise, why those men and women tried to escape: “They lived in a nice house here, and they weren’t being beaten. Do we know why they wanted to leave?” These folks were seeing the evil of slavery primarily as a function of the physical environment and the behavior of individual slaveowners, not as inherent to the system itself.

      There is more at the link.

      She can be followed on Twitter here: @AfAmHistFail

  6. very bad thunderstorm here and lightning – power keeps going on and off – pouring rain and flood watch – will be back later

  7. Good morning, Moosekind! 66 F. under clearing skies at the moment, going to 87 F. later. We had a tremendous thunderstorm at 1:30 this morning, with lots of thunder, lightning, wind, and rain. I heard it but didn’t want to get up to investigate. Luckily, the power didn’t go off.

    We watched the U.S. women defeat top-ranked Germany last night and it was so exciting! Tonight we’ll watch England versus Japan. If England wins we won’t know whom to cheer for, Dearly Beloved having been born and brought up in Britain. ;)

    The seventh black church has been burned down! On “Good Morning Merrycar,” old George Step-in-Awfulness was saying, “we don’t know why.” Yes, we do, you dork! It’s racism, pure and simple. Do these Kluxxer creeps really think their god approves of burning down churches?

    On the illness front, Cousin in Connecticut is not doing very well. Won’t go into details, but she has had a setback and is still in the ICU. After all the encouraging news, this is sobering to hear. Will redouble my prayers for her.

    Wishing all at the Pond a good first day of July! (Do you realize the year is now half over?)

    • Ha!! “George Step-in-Awfulness”! What a clueless nitwit. Let’s see … white supremacist shoots and kills 9 African-Americans in a black church and calls for a race war … 7 black churches burned. Nope, no idea what could have precipitated that!

      That game last night was amazing. The bad thing about soccer is that there are no breaks … it is bad enough for me sitting on my couch holding my breath for 45 minutes, can you imagine playing at that pace for that long?

      I hope your cousin’s setback is only temporary. :(

  8. Eating breakfast, drinking tea. Good to see that the story about black churches burning has finally started to get attention. And Greece — how awful, cancer patients haven’t been able to get their meds?!?!? Banksters need to burn in hell. asap.

    Trading work duties for next week. Must remember groceries. Oh — and the Tour de France starts. 3 weeks of cute boys in spandex.

    at least 3 different songs in my head this morning — sometimes it is very loud in there

  9. Good morning, 64 and sunny in Bellingham today. We were outside until after 10:00 last night so it’s a quiet morning. RonK was experimenting with night time photo making and I finally finished planting my flower pots. Planting in the dark was interesting……hope I like what I see in the daylight!

    Our daughter and her family arrive today for a weeks visit, our other daughter and her family will be here on the weekend, and our grandson will be here all next week. So the out door living/ eating spaces will be busy. Now that the flowers are in place I’d best focus on food :)

  10. 87 feels like 97 at lunchtime in Fay., AR this 1st of July – the new Chair just got clobbered by the new funding methods – as in starting today, her first official day on the job, we no longer have ANY flexible/discretionary funding for hiring instructors to cover classes. If the position wasn’t hard funded when they finalized the budget last month sux to be u – find a way to cover it without paying for it. Absolutely nothing her predecessor told her about staffing is valid any longer. And until she got clobbered with it this morning, I didn’t realize she didn’t know already. Been an interesting morning.

    Hope everybody’s feeling better. {{{HUGS}}}

    • The bailouts went to the banks and the people were left holding the bag. It sounds like “Yes, accept the new terms” is winning so Tsipras may be on his way out. He said he would not govern under the new rules … his country can’t take more austerity.

  12. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 50 degrees in Madison on its way up to 75. Sunny skies in the forecast. Perfect weather.

    The President will be in La Crosse Wisconsin this afternoon to talk about the rule changes going into effect next year related to overtime. The change will give a raise to about 5 million people who have been “designated” management by employers gaming the system. Expect right-wing heads to asplode. Another reminder of the power of the executive branch to make people’s lives suck less even as the Congress is determined to make their lives more miserable.

    In World Cup action, England suffered a heartbreaking loss in the 92nd minute via an “own goal”. For those who don’t follow soccer, this is one of the saddest things … it is when the ball comes off one of your own players and into the goal. The defender was trying to clear the shot and it did not go wide enough and got past her own goalkeeper. :( The English team had overcome the odds to get to the semi-final match and can hold their heads up. I hope that they have success in the 3rd place game to take the sting out of that loss. Diana, you will not have to choose sides in Sunday’s championship game … good news for us as our USA team will be glad to have your energy!

    A few anti-gay deadenders are still refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples even though the 5th Circuit has dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s related to the court cases in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. People resigning rather than doing their jobs is just fine with me. People getting sued … good. It is eye-opening in a way; I suspect that the hand-wringing is not much different than when those same states were forced to extend civil rights to African-Americans and issue marriage licenses to mixed race couples. Being on the wrong side of history … again … maybe they should reflect on why that seems to happen with regularity. The Episcopal Church, by the way, voted to approve religious weddings for same-sex couples. Each clergyman can choose for themselves if they want to officiate. Very sensible.

    See all y’all later!

  13. Good morning, Meese. Gray skies prevail this second day of July. My elder son is 45 today. He’s delighted with his impending fatherhood and constantly says, “At LAST, I’ll be a grown-up!”

    It’s 69 F. in NoVa with rain expected, high today of 81 F. It was almost 100 F. in England yesterday—the fans there must have been sweating as they watched their team lose. As Jan says, it was heartbreaking to watch. That poor girl!

    My Web guy is driving me crazy as usual. I wish there were a bone-simple way for one to do one’s own Web site. This guy is either stupid or careless, can’t figure out which. He screwed up the updates I sent on 30 June; I asked him to please correct it, and after a while, he did. The home page still looks awful but at least the short story is now correctly placed in the Fiction Cafe.

    However, with the iffy news from Connecticut my own worries seem very small indeed. My poor cousin seems to take one step forward, two steps back. She’s not breathing well, can’t talk, and is not mentally alert. We are all praying as hard as we can.

    Hope our Portlaw is recovering well. Bfitz, your department sounds worse than ever—is it just the new management? Princesspat, enjoy the visit!

    • Thanks Diana…..best wishes to your son and his family. Our oldest son is 45 as well and would love to be a father. I don’t know if he ever will, but I keep hoping.

  14. Good morning Meese, 65 damp and cloudy here

    Spent the morning listening to Loretta Lynch at North Carolina Central (an HBCU)
    She talked about the history of domestic terrorism and hate crimes in the US.

    “While we cannot guarantee the absence of hate, we can guarantee the presence of justice. We can do that,” she said. “I am committed as attorney general to making good on that guarantee.”

    Read more at http://www.wral.com/ag-lynch-tackles-human-trafficking-civil-rights-in-triangle-stops/14749804/#uYmckfYB1Cy9WSPH.99

    Video here
    http://www.wral.com/news/video/14747665/

    She also talked about a commitment to voting rights, and school to prison pipeline, and the impact of the SCOTUS decision on housing

    • Thanks for those links! I want to hear more from our new Attorney General … it is a difficult job in a difficult political climate. I put them up in a tab to read later.

      I am still trying to get my head around the big topic of Civil War revisionist history and the glorification of the Confederacy. It seems so plain to those of us who grew up in the North what the war was about and the Confederate flags seen on TV and occasionally on a pickup truck or motorcycle did not really suggest that there was an entire region of the country whose culture and norms revolved around a lie.

      Here is another (longish) article I read about how this came about: False history marginalizes African Americans and makes us all dumber.:

      As soon as Confederates laid down their arms, some picked up their pens and began to distort what they had done, and why. Their resulting mythology went national a generation later and persists — which is why a presidential candidate can suggest that slavery was somehow pro-family, and the public believes that the war was mainly fought over states’ rights.

      The Confederates won with the pen (and the noose) what they could not win on the battlefield: the cause of white supremacy and the dominant understanding of what the war was all about. We are still digging ourselves out from under the misinformation that they spread, which has manifested in both our history books and our public monuments.

      Even sadder is this: Thousands Of Black Students Attend Schools Honoring Racist Leaders.

      At least 189 public schools around the country have names that memorialize Confederate soldiers, leaders or politicians.

      We also looked at the demographics of the over 118,000 students in these schools, which includes a disproportionately high number of nonwhite students. More than half of students who attend schools named after Confederate leaders are black or Hispanic.

      It isn’t just the history … young people of color are forced to live with it in the present.

      • One of the main things that allowed white Southerners to achieve their goals even though they lost the war is/was totally political. It started with a tradeoff to not inquire too particularly about what happened to some ballot boxes resulting in Rutherford B. Hayes getting elected president in return for pulling the U.S. Army out of the defeated but unrepentant rebel states, then the said rebel states rewrote their state constitutions (from the ones more or less forced on them by “Reconstruction”), so that no matter who had the right to vote only white males would actually vote, and finally the seniority system in Congress put the Southern White Supremacists in charge of just about every committee in both Houses by 1900.

        • Reading about the Reconstruction (which was an era I was pretty unfamiliar with) reminded me of what happened to Germany following World War I. The rise of a demagogue who promised a better life for those being penalized for losing a war was almost inevitable. Sometimes the winners need to be more gracious but maybe we were too gracious.

          I think that there were probably mistakes made in the response to the pushback against Reconstruction. There was obviously no one brave enough, until nearly a century later, to demand that the former Confederate states accept their black citizens as equals under the law. And because of the loss of the presidency in 1968 (and a loss that was based on the success of the Southern Strategy), progress has been stymied. Rev. William Barber II is calling for a Third Reconstruction with his Moral Mondays movement.

          We need this new conversation about the Confederacy after what happened in Charleston to jump start this Reconstruction.

          • Mine too! He is so great at explaining things.

            As I was pondering the 2016 primary, I was thinking about your sigline (which we need to find a way to include here!):

            “If you’re in a coalition and you’re comfortable, you know it’s not a broad enough coalition”
            ~ Bernice Johnson Reagon

            It is crucial that our nominee works to broaden, or at least retain, the Obama coalition. I am seeing some disheartening things on Twitter where people were suggesting that it is time for white Democrats to have a president. JHC on a popsicle stick!! I hope they were joking. That sort of mindset would be more than Democrats in Disarray, that would be Democrats Committing Electoral Suicide.

  15. Thrus/Fri-day. We’re closed tomorrow, then I work Monday then have Tues & Wed off. Tomorrow I’m going to sleep till I wake up on my own. My rain sounds thing on my phone will play for 10 hours, which is way longer than I could sleep, but I want to find out. This morning: really strong tea & breakfast. And playing Beautiful Day in my head because I need energy.

  16. 76 when I walked in – supposed to be slightly cooler than yesterday – slightly – I had/have my A/C back on. Things are starting to calm down for real. We still have the issues of how to get the instructional staffing to cover all our classes under the new system, but the Chair and I have meetings with the Dean’s office financial people this morning and that should help. With their help I found a funded line I could put the new needed part-time person into , so killed the original request that was attached to an unfunded position and re-entered for the funded position. Sigh. But most of my irritations/troubles are not department-related any longer. As with every other staff person at the University, I’ve got 6 layers of added superfluous steps – each one of which has to go through an approval chain of mostly the same approvers – for every HR thing I do (and at least 3 more layers for anything else I do) – but that’s due to the University Head Honchos trying to prove how on top of everything they are, not the department or even the college.

    Got tomorrow off and may or may not check in from home (I mostly don’t log in from home) until Sunday and next week’s diary. Sending healing energy to Portlaw and Diana’s cousin and RonK and anybody else who needs to partake of same. (Healing energy goes out in all directions like light from the sun. You actually have to block it to not get any.) Have the good Friday on Thursday. {{{HUGS}}}

    • Thanks for the healing hugs Bfitz! As I read your words the sun lit up a branch on my old maple trees. It was quite magical :)

  17. Good morning, 62 and sunny in Bellingham today, with a high of 85 predicted. That’s really warm for Bellingham, so we’ll be outdoors again this evening. With fans and open windows the evening breeze from the bay does cool the house. It’s fun to see the family enjoy being here and being together, and now that they are here I can stop the work of “getting ready” and just relax and visit.

    And right now I am enjoying the quiet house because everyone is still asleep, including Penelope, the grand puppy. She’s a little Shitzu with a big dog attitude!

  19. Greetings,Recovery is slow and Bout to take a nap. Hope all is well for pon denizens

  20. Good morning, meese! Friday …

    It is 52 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 79. Partly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    So today is a federal holiday: Independence Day Observed. I wonder when they changed that … probably when everyone took the Friday off anyway when the holiday fell on a Saturday. My googles tell me that there will be mail delivery today and many state banks are open so it won’t feel like a holiday.

    Jim Webb is in!! The Tweet responses to his announcement pretty much summed it up in one word – Why? Apparently he feels that none of the current Democratic Party candidates is appealing to the butthurt Southern male Confederate flag waving voter. Well, he is right about that.

    Rick Perry is going after the black vote using the Charles Murray/Paul Ryan appeal: black voters have been bamboozled by the Democrats and their policies of providing a safety net — food, shelter, health care — when what they really need is tough love. And he is the guy to provide it! And no fair looking at his actual record … or the name of his vacation estate.

    The president was in La Crosse WI and was in a feisty mood, going right after Scott Walker’s failed trickle-down policies and the Republican presidential field (transcript will be posted when it becomes available later today — I watched it live). The GOP in Wisconsin is governing like a party that knows the keg is empty. Last night they snuck a provision into the omnibus budget (up or down vote) repealing our open records law. If the people are complaining about how the budget is put together, just make it sekrit!! Problem solved.

    Catch up day! See all y’all later!!

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