Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Oct. 4th through Oct. 10

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?

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.

20 Comments

  1. Just about at our “high” for the day of 68 – I’m afraid the rain is going north of us though. Back to the “no rain which we badly need, but lots of clouds cutting the electricity production” routine. sigh. Still P.O.d at the number of Hillary haters out there. They start from a pre-judged premise that she’s a liar controlled by the Banksters and any evidence to the contrary is either “pandering” or more “lies” – Except I don’t want to start another pie fight I’d strongly suggest they look at the anti-evidence Tea Party and then look in the mirror. But GOS is still the best place to get the Hillary news thanks especially to Lysis who posts the Hillary News and Views diary just about daily, so I’ll keep checking in over there.

    My energy and sympathy going out in all directions – especially to Diana with the downsizing and anotherdemocrat with the sleep-deprivation. {{{HUGS}}}

    • I am starting to realize that I don’t need (or want) anyone’s news and views on a daily basis. I am going to give the primary wars a rest because even when I am not actively engaged, I find myself pulled into the fray.

      My own politics have always been defined as “pragmatic”, incremental change – figuring out what can be done and working towards that. Some people prefer the Nuclear Overton Window approach: continue to espouse the most radical left of the left ideas in the hopes that the left view becomes acceptable. My concern with that is that if you are not clear that you don’t expect your ideas to get implemented, you risk scaring away those who will make common cause with you for incremental change. Smartypants had some thoughts related to that:

      President Obama: “As president, sometimes your job is just to make things work. And sometimes your task is to make incremental improvements. It’s like steering an ocean liner and making a 2 degree turn so that 10 years from now we’re suddenly in a very different place. You can’t turn 50 degrees all at once because that’s not how societies – especially democracies – work. As long as we’re turning in the right direction and we’re making progress, government is working like its supposed to.”

      The case the President made is not simply for more centrist change – as many progressives assume – but for change that creates a progressive trajectory.

      Right now, the left is fighting over whether to blow everything up and start over or make those incremental changes. As Smartypants points out, we don’t have the votes to blow things up and start over so we are left with the incremental change. I have no patience for those who tell me that we should still blow it all up even if it means self-immolation.

      I am trying to find a balance for myself where I am not caught up in the 10 minute news cycle or the latest outrage. That will probably mean more “close tab, stop reading”.

      • I only use it to get “ammunition” for when somebody IRL gives me the “Hillary warmonger, Hillary corporate shill” routine – aside from making a comment in a (relatively) safe Hillary diary like HN&V I stay out of it. Or at least try to :) – and I’ve done pretty well on that.

        I totally agree with you on the incremental changes – If you want to see the relatively immediate result of blowing things up and starting over check out the Middle East. The “Arab Spring” was the populist uprising without a governmental foundation waiting in the wings to take over. And it’s one of the (many) reasons I support Hillary. Expand on Obamacare will work. Going immediately to Medicare for All will not. (Do I have a problem with stiffing rapacious CEOs” Not hardly. Do I have a problem with throwing millions of regular joe/jill employees out of a job? Damn right!)

        Balance for yourself is very good. Auto-outrage messes up your digestion if nothing else.

  2. Good morning, 56 and partly cloudy in Bellingham today. It’s a slow news day in the PNW when the lead story in my local paper is about Stoney Ridge Farm……

    Stoney Ridge has provided family-friendly farm activities for adults and children for 25 years. The fall events offer plenty of things to see and eat, including a large pumpkin patch, corn maze, fresh apple cider, u-pick apples, pastries, farm animals as well as hay and train rides. An estimated 25,000 people visit the farm during the October events

    .

    I guess it’s good to focus on the rituals and fun of our changing seasons…helps keep our worrisome politics in perspective!

  3. Apologies for being among the missing – caught up in orange meta around the nasty attacks against John Lewis because he endorsed Hillary.

    Am exhausted.

    Hugs to all!

    • You did a very good job. Not that you reached any of the haters of varying persuasions, but you gave the rest of us a solid definition and a firmer foundation for what constitutes an activist. As a Hillary supporter I have no problem with “Hillary is not a Civil Rights Activist” by that definition.

      Sorry you got the flak but I don’t know what else you could have done to get that definition and foundation out there.

  4. Morning all! It’s warmer here this morning than it has been, in the 70’s headed to mid-80’s, but still not stultifying so I have no complaints. About the weather, anyway!

    What bothers me about GOS particularly – and it’s been this way with every election since I started going there in 2004 – is that people feel compelled to tear down their preferred candidate’s primary opposition, rather than just touting their own guy. This time it’s particularly true of the Sanders supporters – well, some of them anyway. I look at the list of hit diaries on Hillary and I think I’m at a right wing site sometimes. sigh.

    Diana, that is a HUGE job to get done in 2 weeks – as I said, it took my mother 2 YEARS to get rid of most of her stuff so she could move, so I’m glad you’ve got the professional downsizer in there to do all she’s doing.

    The Republican disarray is amusing indeed, but if it leads to another government shutdown, which I think is what the TeaPartyCaucus really wants, it will get less amusing real fast.

    Have a great day everyone!

    • What is interesting is that neither candidate, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton, has chosen to rip each other apart by name. Not true of Martin O’Malley and maybe it is because he needs something, anything, to get people talking about him.

      All that will likely change during the debate next week: it will be different when the policy you are questioning is what just came out of the mouth of the person standing next to you!

      When I was reading the “Republicans in Disarray” stories yesterday, I was really struck by the reports of Republican congresscritters crying as they realized that the gridlock that they intentionally created is turning us into a “banana republic”. We are a year away from being able to vote to change Congress. That is a long time to run without a functioning government. What if they shut it down and never opened it up again?

      • I don’t think Hillary will try to rip Bernie apart although I know she will stand up for her programs/policies. There’s a very big difference between “I disagree with your policies” and “you’re an idiot/evil tool/whatever” and I don’t think either Hillary or Bernie is going to go with the latter, no matter how much some people want them to.

        As to the Rs and the “shut it down and never open it up again” – I’m not sure they can. In that very bad situation I think the “magic trillion dollar coin” and executive action will come into play. It will be nasty and create a precedent only idiot Tea Partiers want created – and will probably be ruled unconstitutional eventually – but I don’t see this president or anybody sane allowing the government to go down for an unlimited amount of time.

  5. What a depressing day. John Lennon should be 75. It’s so wrong. 3 school shootings in 1 day (unless there’s been another since I left work). And I’m stuck on Michael Hutchence’s death.

    And Geoff Marcy, the 1st American who found an exoplanet, is a serial sexual harasser. (warning, the story in the link has some awful stories in it):
    http://www.buzzfeed.com/azeenghorayshi/famous-astronomer-allegedly-sexually-harassed-students

    I want to go live somewhere where people are good to each other. Where people die of old age – really old age, like, over 100. Where profs don’t tell sex stories to undergrads, and certainly don’t touch them. Where even if there are idiots, that isn’t fatal. And where guns don’t freaking exist.

    Thank FSM that The Princess Bride is on tonight. I need something fun & distracting. With a happy ending. Bad guys punished. Good guys — all of them, happy.

  6. Good morning, meese! Saturday …

    It is 43 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 67. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    The House leadership train wreck is difficult to avert one’s eyes from and I admit to reading more than I should have about the wonkish details. The thing is that we can’t ignore it: we need a Speaker of the House, permanent or pro tem, to advance legislation to keep our government running. The real problem is that the speakership had become a partisan position … they see themselves as the leader of the majority party in the House, not the House itself and refuse to govern in any other way. And right now, there is no majority party in the House which means that we have no one able to win 218 votes from their party alone. The House Freedumb Caucus holds 40 votes and their agenda is the total destruction of governmental institutions. So we have about 207 “normal” Republicans, 40 HFC Republicans and 188 Democrats. We will not have a bipartisan Speaker (the 30 Republicans who would vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker would lose their seats in the next election) and the 40 HFC Republicans are from such conservative districts that they cannot be dislodged electorally (their constituents approve of their nihilism!). So the only solution for the short term is for Boehner to stay on (the 40 are not powerful enough to “fire” him) and create governing coalitions on House business with Democrats. In 2016, the American people can decide if they want gridlock or government and they can vote accordingly. If we get to January 3, 2017 with no clear majority, then we have a constitutional crisis. And you know darn well that if the next president is someone just as despised by the GOP base as President Obama is (ie, any Democrat), there will be no one acceptable as Speaker and no incumbent.

    The president was in Oregon yesterday and then Washington State. He was “greeted” in Roseburg OR by rifle wielding, Confederate Flag waving (“it’s not about racism, its about the heritage!!”) protesters. Sigh.

    See all y’alls later!!

    • Jan, did you read Booman’s post….How to Fix the House of Representatives

      I know this can seem dull to go over this so repetitively, but it’s essential to understanding the point we’ve reached in Congress.

      It’s true that the people elected vastly more Republicans than Democrats to serve in the House of Representatives, but the Republicans are not the majority where it counts. The majority that counts is the majority that provides the votes to fund the government and pay our bills. Period.

      The Democrats have enabled the Republicans to badmouth Washington DC and Congress and pretend that they can do things like default on our debts and keep the government shut down. This has only led the Republicans to grow a bigger and bigger tolerance for resisting basic reality. Finally, something snapped and broke. Basically, the GOP overdosed on their own bullshit and now they have no idea how to dig out of the hole they spent so much time digging.

      So, really, the GOP has no choice but to extend a hand and ask for help. And the Democrats have no reason to reach out their hands in return, especially until they’re damn sure that the Republicans realize that they hit rock bottom and need to change basically everything about their lives.

      • I did not! Thank you for sharing that. This is the truth: “the Republicans are not the majority where it counts” but it is really the non-HFC Republicans that we are talking about. The HFC Republicans are their own party … a permanent part of the House that cannot be reasoned with or bypassed.

        I have seen a few other articles about whose fault this is and Booman would not be the first to say that the Democrats are partially to blame. Charlie Pierce said we should not have been so quiet about how insane the Republicans are. JHC on a popsicle stick!!! We have been screaming it … but the lazy press and their bs “both sides do it” has ignored that since 2008 one party has gone completely insane. I lay most of the blame at the feet of the press. When the Republicans realized that they could essentially make stuff up (starting in Summer 2009 with the “Hands Off Our Medicare!” rallies) and never get called out on it, what incentive did they have to change? Now the Republicans nutzos are gerrymandered into districts that are ironclad for Nutzoness.

        I hope Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer and the Democrats in the House do not help the Republicans with their leadership crisis. It is fine to vote for bills that raise the debt limit and keep the government open but they should not vote for any Republican leader … ever. If the 40 Republicans who defied their leadership and signed the discharge petition to reauthorize the ExIm bank want to create a coalition with Democrats, they can declare themselves Independents as cover and elect Nancy Pelosi.

  7. Good morning, Meese, it’s 6:10 a.m. on Saturday morning; 57 F. now, on its way up to 65 F. Going to make Shrimp Creole and corn muffins for dinner tonight.

    Woke up at 3:25 this morning but only now out of bed. Once I wake up in the middle of the night I can’t get back to sleep—bummer. There’s a lot to do today, as always. The realtors stopped by yesterday to give us a pep rally and decided that the house won’t go on the market for another week. There’s just too much to be done. Interior painting begins next week.

    Nothing intelligent to add about the news, except that the Rethugs are hastening the demise of this country. “We must destroy America in order to save it”—is that what they’re thinking? Depressing to hear about Obama’s reception in Roseburg. These addled people and their clinging to the Confederacy! Have they nothing else in life but a discredited history? They can’t invent something, explore somewhere, spend their lives saving the forest or building houses for the poor? They disgust me, they’re the people that “Idiocracy” was about.

    Hope all the Meese ignore the news and have a great weekend!

  8. up for ungodly hour workout, back later — will be parked on the couch for a while, watching Ironman Kona on the ‘puter (it isn’t televised till they do that package thing in December)

  9. Morning all! Diana, glad you got another week to work on the house, sounds like it’s necessary and hopefully will give you a bit of breathing room so you don’t drive yourselves crazy. At least, not as much!

    The notion of a bipartisan Speaker sounds attractive, but I don’t think it’s ever worked that way, at least not as far as I can remember. I worked for the House Ways and Means Committee for 7 years during the 80’s, mostly when Tip O’Neill was Speaker (I think Jim Wright took over my last year and half on the Hill, maybe, can’t remember the dates exactly), and he was most definitely the head of the Democrats in the House, and really, on the Hill since the Republicans had the Senate after the 1980 election, for the first time in decades then. The big difference then was that the Republicans actually were invested in making government work, and were not governed by crazies – the Republican leadership I worked with (people like Barber Conable) were big business, big money, establishment Republicans and the Kochs were not yet a force on the scene. All that is gone now – and I think it’s absolutely correct to say we don’t have a majority party in the House at all. We are a nation governed by lunatics.

    On a cheerier note, I’ll be off in a bit to celebrate a friend’s 60th birthday – a few of us are taking her to lunch, and I am pledged not to talk politics, as one of the other people who will be there is an ardent Sanders supporter! Everyone have a great day!

  10. Good morning, 59 and partly cloudy in Bellingham this breezy morning. This has been a frustrating week but as I think back I have made progress ……my desk mess is relatively safe to ignore for a few days, the insulation project will start on Monday morning, the hedges are pruned and the fall garden clean up is underway, I’ve got the information together to meet with a local auction firm re my MIL’s estate, a sewing project for my daughter’s new etsy site is planned and underway, the carpet layout is finally ready to deliver, and I’ve ordered the canvas so I can recover my sewing table. Whew……no wonder I feel slightly overwhelmed!

    We’re cooking dinner for the Bellingham family tomorrow so today I’m going to enjoy some prep cooking and make a few fall arrangements. I might even bake a cake.

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