Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Oct. 11th through Oct. 17th

October 11, 2015 JanF Community 132

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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28 Comments

  1. Good morning, Meese! It’s another gorgeous Freya’s Day here, 50 F. now, going up to 67 F. later. This is our last relatively warm weather before the cold front hits this weekend.

    All I do here is whine, nowadays. Let me just say that besides the eczema on my left hand and the sandpaper rash on the left side of face and neck, this morning I had a nosebleed. Lovely. Today I’m going to play hooky by having coffee with a friend from Freecycle at Starbucks, then hastening on to lunch with two Circle sisters. This afternoon Dearly and I have to buy lots of chrysanthemums and pansies (orders from the realtor) so Jose the Gardener can plant them tomorrow. Yesterday we DID get new closet doors installed for the downstairs family room, good.

    Also, yesterday, when six-year-old Miss Pink Cheeks and I visited the fish counter at the market, she said, “Now that I’m a little older, I like raw fish.” Blenching, I asked if her father makes sushi for her and she replied, “Sometimes.” I can’t believe the way she talks! :)

    Task for Friday and Saturday is to clear the garage some more, move the boxes destined to move with us to the empty space in the garage, and see that the rooms are clear or ready for staging on Sunday. Either Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning the photographer will arrive.

    Enjoyed hearing that Scotty is $1 million in debt, Jebby’s fundraising is faltering, and that 60 percent of Secretary Clinton’s donations are from women. I’m one of the women. Just learned that as a young woman, Clinton went to Texas to register Latino voters. I hadn’t known that! Also, if she gets the nom., I think Julian Castro would be a great running mate.

    Wishing a good Friday to all, and hope everyone who needs sleep will catch some winks on the weekend!

    • You’re not whining, you’re telling friends what’s going on in your life right now and thereby relieving a little of the stress. Glad you’re “playing hooky” today as that will relieve some more of the stress. Since your skin problems are caused by stress, relieving the stress is the only way to get rid of them.

      And yes, Hillary was down in the Rio Grande Valley in the summer time registering “stoop” workers to vote as part of her support of the 1972 McGovern campaign. I think Julian Castro would be great, I’m just not sure America is ready to vote for anyone named Castro at the federal level. It may take another generation for that.

    • I’ve been talking about her long term ties to the Tejano community for a while. Loved the speech and the crown enthusiasm.

      • Here’s the video of her speech yesterday:

        From HillarySpeeches.com (where I found the video) is the writeup on picking up Secretary Castro’s endorsement:

        On Thursday, Hillary Rodham Clinton began her first trip to Texas as a presidential candidate with a Q&A session in San Antonio. The session was hosted by Javier Palomarez, the president of the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Clinton was asked a number of questions about her immigration and business plans, but she was also asked about the possibility of Housing and Urban Development Secretary, and former mayor of San Antonio, Julián Castro as a running mate. Clinton responded coyly saying, “I am going to really look hard at him for anything because that’s how good he is, and he deserves the accolades he’s receiving.”

        Clinton then attended a Latinos for Hillary event in San Antonio where she was endorsed by Castro. The two appeared on stage together at Sunset Station where thousands turned out to listen hear Clinton speak. She focused heavily on immigration reform saying that she would defend the executive orders that have been enacted by President Barack Obama, and she would stand up against Congress if they passed legislation that led to the deportation of DREAMers. Clinton told the crowd, which consisted primarily of Latinos, “You’re not strangers, you’re not intruders. You’re our neighbors, you’re our friends, you’re our families.”

        • Love this speech – it’s just a fact that Republicans only win nationwide if they keep people from voting. It’s shameful.

        • Hillary Clinton is wise to mention President Obama in a positive light whenever she speaks. He is extremely popular with Democrats, 83% of them approve of the job the president is doing. Running away from him didn’t work in 2010 and didn’t work in 2014 and calling him a failed president won’t work in 2016.

          p.s. did you notice the “burn” on guns:

          No matter what anyone says, this isn’t an “urban” problem. It’s a problem in small towns … suburbs … out in the country … across America.

          You know, I’ve been told by some to quit talking about this … to quit SHOUTIN’ about this … well, I’ll tell you right now, I will not be silenced and we will not be silenced … we must continue to speak out.

          Hmm, let me think. Who just said she shouldn’t shout about guns? ;)

  2. Still hot & dry. A “cool” front will come through this afternoon, but there’s no rain & barely any cooling. We’ll go from the mid-90s to just 90. Where’s that rain & cool weather El Nino was supposed to bring?

    Listened to Disappear driving in to work (it’s the last song in my marathon day mix). The Goddess Herself must have though “wow” when She saw him, he really was gorgeous.

    Geoff Marcy resigned from UC Berkley yesterday. So sad to see someone who did great work also was a horrifying creep. And as the astronomers I follow are pointing out — how many great women were driven from his program or even the field altogether, because of harassment? How much energy was spent dealing with that that should have gone to research? Just makes me sad.

    Ok, back to playing music in my head. And I can also see the video in my head, too.

    • NPR did a (surprisingly) informative piece on the Marcy issue:

      Ballard says she was afraid to report Marcy. She didn’t want to hurt her chances of going to graduate school. It’s a common and very real conundrum for many women hoping to pursue university research career, says Katie Hinde, a biologist at Arizona State University.

      “Academia has a particular climate that allows sexual harassment, sexual assault and sexual abuses to persist,” Hinde tells NPR. Last year, she co-authored one of the few studies aimed at figuring out how common sexual harassment is in science.

      Hinde and her colleagues surveyed roughly 500 women doing fieldwork in a range of scientific disciplines. Seventy percent of those women told the researchers they have experienced sexual harassment, often from their mentors or supervisors —”people who had power over their career, who had power over their research,” Hinde says.

      In science, letters of recommendation from mentors are particularly crucial to obtaining a coveted faculty position, Hinde says. When a mentor sexually harasses or assaults a woman, it backs her into corner: She can either report the offense, and possibly hurt her career. Or she can try to ignore it.

      In fact, most harassment is never reported, says Heather Metcalf, research director of the Association for Women in Science.

      Women are often told to keep quiet about lewd comments, touching and leering, she says. “There is a bit of a norm for those behaviors to sort of be brushed off, rather than be taken seriously.”

      It is like being assaulted twice.

      • yeah, a lot of the astronomers I follow on Twitter are wondering how many women just left the field – because you don’t want to be off in the isolated places observations are done with creeps

  3. Front came through in the wee hours this morning – we got a whole .22″ of rain between 0200 and 0430 – and the temps, while not actually dropping, aren’t going to get above 70 today. I’ve got the fire laid for tonight :) – need to get my coat out for the Farmers’ Market tomorrow as it’s not going to get out of the 40s until after I’ve done my shopping. Definitely Winter is coming. (Need to bring in my hoses – thanks for the reminder Jan.)

    Glad to hear at least some of the slimeballs are losing their donors. And yes, I’m one of Hillary’s 60% – a fact I pointlessly/pointedly point out when one of the bots hops up and down about how she’s “corporate funded”. The debates are also pointless as far as changing minds of us political animals – they are valuable for getting messages out to the vast majority of America who really aren’t paying attention even yet – and why should they? Back when the media did it’s job instead of hunting for ratings nobody would have even declared yet, much less be campaigning and having “debates” and crap. sigh

    Hope everybody has a good Friday and a pleasant weekend. {{{HUGS}}}

  4. Good morning, 53 and mostly clear in Bellingham. Today’s main task will be spreading a layer of new gravel on the upper parking area and my potting benches by the garage. We should have done this last year but life interfered, so now we’ll appreciate a less muddy area even more!

    My “simple” sewing project has evolved as my projects tend to do. Yes, a sewn on linen border looks very nice, and yes, doing so for 50 napkins will be more work……oh well. Gives me more time to listen to music while I sew.

  5. Morning all – another beautiful cool day here in north Florida. Thanks for all the election and fundraising news and the video of Sec. Clinton – I actually went over to GOS and checked out a couple of diaries. I watched the video there of her concession in the primary in 2008, it was terrific – and the contrast between our Dem candidates and the Repugs, on all dimensions from speaking to fundraising, is very heartening. I didn’t know about Hillary’s history of working with the Latino voters in Texas when she was a young woman – really great stuff.

    Now I’m waiting for a callback from SSA about my Medicare premium which I will start paying in December – I can see now that from now on I’m going to have more communications with the government than I’ve had since I left the Hill in 1987! lol

    Diana, I hope the end is in sight for your downsizing project – and hope everyone will have a great day!

    • There is a lot of stuff that people don’t know about Hillary Clinton. They see her in one of her previous incarnations: as the First Lady of Arkansas or the First Lady of the United States or Senator Clinton, duking it out in the primaries battles of 2007/2008, as President Obama’s Secretary of State. They don’t see her work in Arkansas on legal projects there, her work internationally for women’s rights, and, really, her lifelong commitment to making life better for children and families. She is not “moving left” or “reinventing herself” … she is reintroducing herself as her own person and having a really difficult time because the press has set a narrative (or many narratives) that are difficult to peel away.

      I am going to start posting some of the speeches and stories in our Featured Posts area so that people who are having a difficult time finding pie-free posts about her candidacy can do so.

      • If I were a violent person, I swear I’d slap the next person who said “Warren’s pulling Hillary left” or “Bernie’s pulling Hillary left” – Hillary was already a progressive before a sizable number of them were born and a couple of decades before Elizabeth Warren became a Democrat. (I’m glad Warren did switch parties and I want her in the Senate carrying Ted Kennedy’s torch as it were but give me a break in comparing the two.)

  6. Good morning, meese! Saturday …

    It is 29 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 53. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Quiet news day … I think everyone is still having post-debate post-FEC filing hangovers. Funniest headline: “Jeb Bush just proved that Dubya was the smart one all along”. That was because of his Tweet to Donald Trump saying that his brother kept us safe on 9/11. He missed the memo that reminded Republicans to say he kept us safe AFTER 9/11. Because, 9/11, was, you know, 9/11. Oops.

    Interior Department curtails oil leases in the arctic and says no new drilling for at least a year and a half. The next president will decide, increasing the stakes for the 2016 election.

    RNC chair Reince Priebus says “we’re cooked as a party for quite a while if we don’t win in 2016”, increasing the stakes for the 2016 election even more.

    Oklahoma to suspend all executions until 2016 while they try to find a less cruel way to kill people. SCOTUS is ruling on two 8th amendment cases this term as well as a case that will reduce wages for state healthcare workers by defunding public sector unions, further increasing the stakes for the 2016 election.

    See all y’all later!!

    • Yikes Jan 29?

      Okay – I’ll take my 42 with a smile then.

      I’m going to complain this morning after looking at the headlines – Joe Biden is getting on my last nerve.

      Is he or isn’t he ….3 months of this bullshit is a bit much.

      • Joe Biden is listening to the people who are whispering in his ear about how much he is loved by the country.

        He is loved … but for his personal history more than his politics. I am old enough to remember when he was called the Senator from MNBA because of his protection of the banking and credit card industry. He voted for AUMF – the cudgel that many on the left are using to beat Hillary over the head so he starts even on that. His position on abortion is troubling to me and a lot of women I know. Most of the endorsements from establishment Democrats are already locked up by Hillary and he gives them nothing that she doesn’t already provide. The wheels are falling off the email “scandal” bus and when Secretary Clinton appears before the Salem tribunal, er, Gowdy Benghazi committee next week, I sense that will be the end of it. There is no logical reason for Joe to run.

  7. Up for ungodly hour workout after a lousy night’s sleep. Kept waking up after bad dreams. And my stomach isn’t happy, either. Yay.

    • Sounds like you need to go back to bed and start your day over again!

      Sorry bout the bad dreams and the tummy ache.

  8. Apologies to any meese who are having problems logging in this morning. I received the old moose archives from Soapblox and was working on uploading them into our new hosting service. It just dawned on me that the multiple backups and uploads might impact the web site.

    I am done for now.

  9. Good morning, 53 and mostly clear in Bellingham. Spreading the gravel yesterday was the easy part. Raking the leaves, clipping the ivy, moving the pots, and clearing out the gardening clutter took forever! It was a good day to be outdoors, but I was so tired when I came in I retreated to the bath and my sofa for the rest of the day.
    We were smart enough to have the gravel delivered this year, but next year we need to remember to get some help with the prep work.

    It’s a quiet news day in the PNW as well, but that makes it easier to keep my focus on sewing and gardening.

  10. Morning all! Beautiful and cool here even in mid-morning – I think we’ll only be in the 70’s for a couple of days, which is heavenly from my point of view.

    JanF, you are spot on about Biden I think – I hope he doesn’t let his ego get in the way here, and realizes that it won’t be a good thing for his family, the party, the country or for his legacy if he enters the race.

    I am part of a large group of Social Security policy analysts and advocates that has fought against attacks on the program for the last 10 years, and many of them are worried about Clinton’s views on Social Security, which is tilting them towards Sanders who’s rock solid on preserving and expanding the program (which I agree with). My problem with that is that I still think Clinton will be better as a chief executive and leader of the Democrats at protecting Social Security and the entire range of Democratic achievements including ACA, and I would basically rather see Sanders, along with Warren, in the Senate pushing her from the left on this. The truth is we can never know how well any politician will deliver on campaign promises and stances, because no President determines the agenda alone – just ask President Obama about that.

    Have a great day everyone!

    • Social Security is important to protect. I don’t know Secretary Clinton’s views on it but I did get the sense from the debate and the post-debate buzz that there are some concerns. The thing about expanding Social Security is that it is going to take Congress to do that and until senior citizens vote for people at the congressional level who really want to protect their earned benefits … and stop listening to those who are trying to scare them into thinking that the only way to save it is to kill it for future generations … there is not much we can do. It would seem like it might be a good campaign issue in FL-SEN next year.

  11. Good Saturday morning, Moosekind! Brrr! at 11 a.m. it’s 53 F., going for a high of 55 F. today. We did have a fire in the woodstove last night and it made us so sleepy we dozed through the new episode of “Miss Fisher’s Mysteries.”

    Busy day again. The cleaning service turned us down so we will have to do the cleaning ourselves. My goal for today is to get my office CLEARED so we can concentrate on touching up the wall with paint and polishing the floor. Jose the gardener has been round already to plant the chrysanthemums and pansies. Good thing the latter appreciate cold weather. At the moment Dearly and Younger Son are loading the truck with firewood. The realtor does not want to see firewood stacked against the house. (In my view, the sight of all that firewood would make the house MORE desirable, not less.)

    Cudgeling my brain as to what to serve for Vegetarian Night tonight that doesn’t involve work on my part. After looking through my recipe files I came across Baked Beans, Boston Brown Bread, Coleslaw, and Blueberry Pie, a meal Dearly Beloved hates. That’s why I only serve it once a year and Meese, Tonight is the Night!

    Wishing a good Saturn’s Day to all while I patiently apply Goo Gone to the wall and wait for the pasty stuff to loosen up…

    • Diana. even thinking of dinner with all the work you are doing is impressive! Your menu seems tasty to me, and I hope you can see the end of your long getting ready to move list.

  12. It was chilly this morning, by Austin standards. Cool enough to wear cotton (as opposed to tech fabric) & to wonder if maybe long sleeves wouldn’t have been good…. Did 3.33 miles, not too tough. I had my music on, which sped me up. The 1st song in my mix is Patti Smith’s People Have The Power – this is to a lyrics version – and if that song doesn’t get you moving, you are really badly off. Had breakfast tacos, now contemplating groceries &/or cooking.

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