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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Good morning, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 59 degrees in Madison WI, on its way up to 79. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Good morning Meese.
Settling in for the PR primaries this afternoon. USVI results
Hillary 1,308 86.51%
Bernie 186 12.30%
This Sunday morning on Orange – exploring “kente cloth”
Have a good day folks
Hillary won the Virgin Islands and gathered in 6 more delegates. Apparently, Sanders managed to reach “viability” (the threshold for winning delegates) and will get 1 delegate. Darn! The optics of having his campaign not be viable was going to be fun. I will have to save my “Pull the plug” hashtag for another time. :) I have high-hopes for Puerto Rico – 60 delegates at stake.
Dee, I have a question for you about Latino/Hispanic and racism. I see that Trump’s surrogates are claiming that his comments about the Latino judge are not “racist” because “Mexican” is not a race. Well, of course it isn’t! But what do you call it instead? EthnicOriginIsm? In my mind, a lot of the hatred comes from Latinos being Not White and that seems racist to me. And what is the proper way to refer to those with Hispanic surnames and Mexican/Carribbean/Central American/South American origin? Certainly, many people from Mexico are not of Hispanic descent, they are native people who were assigned Hispanic surnames by their conquerors. Those from the Caribbean islands with Hispanic surnames are often the descendants of African slaves, brought there by the Spanish and Portuguese. I prefer to call people what they prefer to be called or at least something generic enough to not insult them if I have it slightly wrong. Any help would be appreciated.
It’s racist – since Mexicans and other Latinos are socially constructed as a “race” here in the U.S.
Most Spanish- speakers here tend to identify themselves by country of origin.
It isn’t just surname – since there are latinos/ Caribbean folks who have surnames that aren’t from Spain.
One of my friends growing up was 100% Puerto Rican – her name was Hilda Oliver
I read a half dozen retrospectives of Muhammad Ali and watched the good, the bad, and the ugly flow by on Twitter. I was glad of the opportunity to learn more about him and look forward to hearing the Bill Clinton eulogy on Friday. The best that one can do is honor a person’s “How I Would Like to Be Remembered”, and this is what I found on the Internets:
I have to separate the sport itself from the “leader and champion” because I find boxing nasty and brutish and not appealing in any way. But the reason he got into boxing as his ticket out of the Jim Crow South (as opposed to other sports) is an important part of his biography.
p.s. The berners are claiming that Bill Clinton giving the eulogy is something rigged by the establishment. Yes, Muhammad Ali is a poster child for the establishment. Sigh.
Good morning, Jan and Denise! Cloudy here with violent thunderstorms expected later today. That’s probably going to blow out the power, so I’m not sure what we’ll do for dinner.
Getting a cold and trying to fight it with my usual remedies. Can’t afford to have colds, which usually end up as ear infections in my case.
We had a good time at Elder Son’s house last night, with Mr. Newbaby alternately crying because of his cold and laughing because of the funny faces we were making. It must be miserable to have a cold and be unable to say how miserable one is.
Re politics—made the mistake of reading the APR of foreign news on GOS. Now I have indigestion. I am so sick of MEN telling me that “no one likes Hillary.” I suppose all the people who voted for her are “no one”? Some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed.
Wishing all a good day—hoping to catch up with everyone’s posts as long as the power lasts!
“No one” who counts “like her”, obviously. The attacks from both the right and the left are awful and we really need this primary to be over with. If Sanders does not bow out on Wednesday morning (preferably Tuesday night) someone needs to come down hard on him. You can’t heal when someone is opening pouring acid into the wounds.
And the “Superdelegates are undemocratic!!!” nonsense has me livid. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) had their convention this weekend and voted to urge the party that they stop having superdelegates. No. No no no no NO. Maybe cut back on how many there are but, really, Democratic Party officeholders have a stake in the election and they should get a say in who they will have to run alongside. The cautionary tale is right in front of their noses – Republicans running downticket from Trump are going to be crushed or embarrassed or both. Call them “Party Stakeholders” if the term Superdelegates bothers you but do NOT take away their power to stop this:
I hope you don’t come down with the cold!
Tuna or chicken salad makes a nice high protein meal – for low carb serve it on a bed of lettuce/salad greens, for high carb make it a sandwich – which can be made while you have power and put into an ice chest until dinner time. As for the cold – my standard advice :) – pop 500 mg vitamin C every couple of hours and have 1/2 c garlic soup in the hours in between. Take care of yourself – and Sister Ass. heh
Thanks, Jan and bfitz! That tuna salad idea is excellent, think I’ll do that very thing.
What a relief! Now that I know that dinner will be cold anyway, I can relax and do other stuff.
See you later!
It is supposed to finally stop raining today. We’ll see. I’m cooking this afternoon, but hope to take time out to walk 2 miles. Just a mild little walk. Pastor said today’s bad slogan is “the Bible says it, I believe it….” The U2 song I gave him for that us I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, which is, imho, an amazingly beautiful statement of living faith. Anyway, that’s today: church, cooking, and hopefully walking.
The temp range in NW AR is supposed to be the same as Madison, WI – but we’re getting sunshine for a change! My friend whose husband cuts my grass offered to let me use her dryer for my clothes until the flea situation is dealt with. As much as I love the smell and feel of sun-dried clothing (especially sheets), I hate fleas more so I’m going to take her up on it. Online early because I had to look something up regarding a probably dying houseplant. I do not have a “green thumb” when it comes to houseplants. But the sunshine is always heartening – especially after weeks of not. Made orange muffins for the week and since I was zesting an orange anyway, made orange-vanilla oatmeal cookies, too.
Glad Hillary got such a “sweep” in VI – here’s to the same for PR! I’m doing my best to ignore B.S. and the BoBcats – and not say anything that would be hurtful to those who supported B.S. but are coming to see that he not only isn’t going to win but he isn’t really who they thought he was. Am totally looking forward to Bill’s eulogy for Ali, as much as I wish it weren’t yet necessary. Ali was a good man and a good role-model for all young men, not just those of color – but he was a superb role model for young men of color.
Need to get back to my housecleaning and also get the pork sirloin roast into the crockpot – flavoring it with 1/4 c balsamic vinegarette. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Glad your neighbor lent you her dryer, bfitz. Dear Goddess, I want your recipes!
Good morning, 67 and sunny in Bellingham. Working in the garden is wonderful for my mental health, but it sure makes my joints hurt…..thus the need for more mental health time outdoors. Such a dilemma! I accepted reality yesterday and settled in to read my book outdoors, but the neighbor through the hedge was refinishing his stained concrete sidewalk and the chemical fumes were to much. So I moved indoors and drifted off to another nap.
The oil train fire in Oregon is out, but question of how to safely move oil train bombs through the PNW remains unanswered.
Columbia Gorge oil-train fire out, but sheen on water and worries remain
My “sitting outside” time would be better if there were no people outside making noise! :)
I did get a nice walk in this morning and saw a racoon and a couple of Great Blue Herons. I think I will go sit on my deck if the chairs are dry from the rain we had last night.
“Ban the Bomb Trains”! Quite clever. I wish there was a choice other than deadly trains or deadly pipelines. Maybe “less oil, more green energy”?
Good morning, meese! Monday …
It is 59 degrees in Madison on its way up to 73. Scattered thunderstorms are in the forecast. A nasty line of storms came through yesterday evening and just the tail end of it caught us. The people in its path probably got battered.
Thank you, Puerto Rico! From the AP:
She will be campaigning in California today then will head home to New York to host a Tuesday primary night event in Brooklyn. The president will be visiting New York on Wednesday for a pair of Democratic Party fundraisers and I hope he makes the point of telling folks that we have a nominee. We need the attacks from the left to stop so we can deal with the attacks from the right.
The GOP has made their nest and they are finding it uncomfortable to lay in. But expressing surprise that the racist nativist christianist mouth breathers that they have been courting since 1968 would eventually want someone who appealed directly to their racism xenophobia and hatred of The Other is the height of arrogance. And Trump has inoculated himself from the GOP establishment because if they call him out, or try to push him out, his frenzied mob will destroy them. If they keep him, his narcissistic rantings will destroy them.
We need to make sure we don’t get distracted watching the train wreck – we have to keep our eyes on November 8th, work on electing Hillary, taking back the Senate, and getting as many House seats as we can. Then we can take a deep breath and enjoy watching the death throes of a party finally paying the price for perverting the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. Until then, Get Out The Vote then get out and vote.
See all y’all later!
Que Viva Puerto Rico!
Good morning Meese. Well – just one more day till Hillary breaks the threshold – not that it will put a stop to the whinefest – but will be elated to put more focus on GE and downticket races.
POTUS, FLOTUS and Joe Biden will be on the trail soon – and the combined forces against Trump will be awesome.
63 here going up to 84. Is very damp here because we had fierce thunderstorms and rain last night. My bones hurt.
Good morning, Moosekind, and a lovely morning it is after the non-event last night. No lightning, no thunder, no savage winds, just a little rain. Beautiful clear blue sky here in NoVa, current temp. 67 F., going up to 84 F. later.
We’ve switched to CBS This Yawning from the shriekers on GMA to get the day’s headlines along with our tea. Would you believe that the “headlines” included sports news and the MIss Something-or-Other pageant, with no mention at all of Hillary’s victories in VI and PR? Honestly, why does one bother with TV?
Denise, sorry about your bones hurting. Hope you can get some rest because tomorrow will be a big night. I’m still fighting my cold and debating whether or not to go to the gym today. I should, but I don’t feel terribly well. Will think about it later.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond. Don’t-Stop-Thinking-About-Tomorrow!
I walked before work this morning! 1.13 mi, 22 minutes. Not pushing hard, just getting in a walk. Very happy for the slushy-cold tea. Earworm is City of Blinding Lights, my boys’ song that makes me feel like I can do anything.
57 at dawn heading for 82 and sunshine! It’s actually dry enough that my bones aren’t aching. (Holding the good thought for Denise.) Got 22 KWHs yesterday and on track to meet or beat it today. My neighbor who periodically does handyman work for me says he’s got a friend who uses relatively environmentally friendly methods for dealing with fleas – so I said talk to her and “get me an estimate”. If it doesn’t cost too much I’ll give it a try. If it works, that’s wonderful. If it doesn’t I’ve got lots of advice from the PWB Peeps on things to try – one of which is the standard (cheap) poison, but with advice on how to time the application to do the least amount of damage to the bees and other critters I’ve been trying to attract to my yard. So. It’s a bonanza year for bloodsuckers. Here’s to getting them out of my house, out of my yard, and away from Congress and the White House. heh
Hurrah! for Hillary’s good weekend! The end of the beginning is near. Near enough that people in the Village Under the Bus are talking about it – how good the community has been, how it’s brought lurkers out of hiding, how it’s encouraged people who were afraid of being attacked for supporting Hillary. It’s almost like the last month of school – a school where we like and support our classmates – knowing it’s time to graduate and move on with our goals and plans but also knowing we’re going to miss not so much the classmates themselves as we’ll probably see them going forward, but miss the special relationship of being the Village Under the Bus.
I’m sorry for Bernie – more so for his honest, earnest supporters. I have heard people say sadly that it didn’t have to end this way. But it did. Bernie’s character/personality wrote this ending before it wrote the beginning. It’s sad and I wish I could say or do something to comfort my friends who’ve supported him and now are taking blow after blow of the reality of Bernie as the myth of Bernie erodes away. But I can’t. I can just wait and hold them in my heart until it’s over.
Well, I’m at work so I’d best get to it. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Morning all! Waiting on Tropical Storm Colin here in Florida – the projected path takes it pretty much right over me, but I don’t really think it’s going to be much – a lot of rain and some wind gusts, but that really sounds about it. At least I hope so.
Ali was a great man – I hate boxing too, but he was so much more than a boxer. As I understand it (hearing about it on CNN right now), Ali himself planned his memorial service and so Bill Clinton speaking was almost certainly Ali’s wish. So the Berners can just shut up.
In fact, “Berners can just shut up” is kind of my general motto for tomorrow as well – their campaign’s incompetence on PR led to fewer polling places being open which reduced the vote for HILLARY, so they can shut up about voter suppression, please. Various people were passing around the FEC reports showing the expenditures charged to the Sanders campaign for his Excellent Rome Adventure – over $600,000 for that chartered plane, and almost $14k for one night of a suited in a 5 star hotel in Rome, apparently for his 8 family members who accompanied him and his wife for this boondoggle. More than $1500 PER PERSON for that one night in the suite. I don’t understand why his supporters are apparently untroubled by this – but I really hope the voters of Vermont are paying attention, as Al Giordano likely launches a campaign against him for 2018. I know it would be an extreme long shot, but I’d love SOMEBODY to push Bernie for some explanations of his behavior over the last year.
Ok, time to check in on the forecast – everyone have a great day!
THIS!! “Berners can just shut up”. I was watching Puerto Rico come in via Twitter and it is time to simply stop. Everything they are doing now is simply willful damage to our party and our nominee. Unfortunately, if he does pull off a victory in California, his fact-free fans will see it as a victory. I am hoping that when the president hits the campaign trail on Wednesday (fund raisers in New York) that he makes it clear that we have a nominee. Sanders can choose to bow out gracefully and have a speaking opportunity at the convention, or he can vow to fight on and be shut out. President Obama will win over the winnable berners and the rest can go &^%$ themselves.
I hope that TS Colin does not get meaner as he approaches. It seems like those storms have a mind of their own. I think I recall Frances, or maybe Jeanne?, looked like she was done, wandered out to sea, gathered strength then turned around and became a deadly hurricane.
Good morning, 64 and sunny in Bellingham today. I’m looking forward to going to the pool this morning…..gentle movement in warm water will help my aching joints. We’ve now weeded and clipped four garden beds, but we have six more to do. Fortunately the pleasure of being outdoors outweighs the discomfort that follows!
This article, by Garret Epps at The Atlantic, gives me a better understanding of just how calculated Trump’s blatant racism is. He’s counting on swaying uneducated public opinion…a very dangerous decision.
The Problem With Calling Out Judges for Their Race
As much as people malign attorneys, there is a reason that most of our presidents have a strong legal background – laws are important and understanding our constitution is imperative. George W. Bush, failed businessman, didn’t understand the rule of law either and oversaw one of the most lawless administrations in recent memory. I hope people don’t go down that path again.
This sort of thing makes me want to punch something:
Oh, my GODDESS! That pond scum should be tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail. What an absolutely abysmal simulacrum of a human being!
That poor woman. May she walk in peace in the Otherworld.
I was watching this unfold on Twitter and one person claimed it was the “toxic politics of DC” that led to this. No. It was one party, a party that attracts the mean, the hateful, those who pull the wings off of flies to watch them suffer, those who are not happy unless someone else is in pain. Tom Cotton is one of those people. A hater who hates that he is in a political party named after the man who freed the slaves and “driven” from his natural party, the party of Jackson and Wallace and Helms and Goldwater, a party that rejected its past and stood up and said “NO MORE!” after watching the inhumanity of Jim Crow and lynchings and civil rights activists being beaten and killed. How awful it must feel to be such a hater that you would would harm a person who has done nothing to you but is the friend of the man you despise, the race you despise, and who is the personification of the country that has rejected you and your ilk. BWD on Twitter said that if Tom Cotton is their future, it is no shock that Donald Trump is their present. I hope the party is destroyed and the Tom Cottons are left to form a party of bitter Confederates, wallowing in hate but no longer wielding power.
Cassandra Butts died last month. She was 50 years old.
No wonder Tom Cotton hated her: she was an accomplished black woman, beautiful and strong.
I hope she is at peace knowing that her time on earth, while brief, left it a better place. Now she walks in beauty, away from the ugly of those who hate her for the color of her skin.
Tom Cotton is worse than pond scum, he’s dangerous pond scum. As Trump is America’s Mussolini, Cotton would be America’s Hitler should he ever be given the chance which he won’t because the Constitutional system does not give that kind of power to the Executive office – but he can and will do as much damage as he can to the country and constitution he’s sworn multiple oaths to uphold and defend. He’s a senator only because of mid-year lack of Dem turnout. But there are enough racial bigots in AR (who will not believe in his actual, deliberate evil) that he is likely to hold that seat as long as he wants to/lives.
Do you know, every time I have to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at Daisy meetings, and we get to the phrase, “with liberty and justice for all,” I mentally add, “Unless you’re black.”
Have I said this before? It really gets my goat!
When I say the Pledge I leave out a lot of it – but I also say it as a prayer for our country’s future as well as affirming my allegiance to our country right now. There is much emotion there when we say the pledge – adding that mental tag is putting energy into a situation that is wrong. It is current reality but it is wrong and correcting rather than reinforcing that wrong might be a better use of the energy. (And in case you’re interested, my pledge is “I pledge allegiance to the United States of America, the Republic, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for ALL.”)
Good morning, meese. Tuesday …
It is 53 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 71. Partly cloudy skies is the forecast with a slight chance of rain.
The AP reported last night that Hillary Clinton has enough delegates, pledged and super, for the nomination. Her campaign said that they won’t declare victory until people finish voting in today’s primaries and that they want to lock down a majority of the pledged delegates. So we get two celebrations … one for the inexorable math … and one when the victory cannot be spun in any other way than the will of the voters. I hope I can stay up for the victory speech!
See all y’all later!
Samantha Bee on the Primary Season (NSFW!):
I switched over to watch it live last night because I happened to be up “watching” the Hillary victory tweets and found out that my TV blocks it without a parental code because I have it set for TV-14. Ha! It did have some adult themes.
And a 2nd day of walking! 1.33 miles this morning. Yay me. Only bad thing about walking this time of year is it takes so long to cool down — even from a morning walk. But that’s ok. And yesterday’s walk didn’t help with my sleep but again that’s ok.
Please let the ugliest part of the primaries end today. Please. I just want to be able to be unabashedly happy that we have nominated a women for POTUS.
Sweetie, stay away from GOS today. You wouldn’t believe the dreck list!
Glad you walked!
59 at dawn heading for 85 again – sunny at the moment but the forecast has clouds moving in. I did manage to get 23.4 KWHs yesterday – now standing at 94 for the month, so should easily break 100 today unless it gets really “street light coming on” cloudy.
Glad Hillary put it over – even more glad she treated it gratefully but lightly and reminded everybody to get out and vote today. The woman truly keeps her “eyes on the prize” and the “prize” is not just the presidency, it’s the good works she wants to get done as president – which means “mandate” going in, a useful Congress, and flipping some governorships and statehouses.
Got to sort out all my partially done jobs and see what I can actually finish today. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}