Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: June 5th through June 11th

June 5, 2016 JanF Community 97

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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36 Comments

  1. Good morning, Meese, it’s a gorgeous Tuesday morning here in NoVa, even though it clouded up so much last night I thought it was going to rain. Brought the porch cushions inside but there was no need.

    So excited today! However, I notice that The Guardian is still muttering to itself, “But no one likes her.” Right, no one but the 13 million who voted for her (or whatever the number is, I’m hopeless at math). We mustn’t ever hurt the fee-fees of great big ol’ hairy men who deserve the nomination just because they’re men!

    Feeling too ill to go to weight training today, so I’m bummed about that. The good news is that I had to go to Costco and buy bermuda shorts that are a size smaller! Must be muscle, because I weigh the same.

    Nothing intelligent to say, so will pop in later to say hello and gloat. :)

  2. Morning all! TS Colin is past us, and basically was a rain event – 7 inches, but that’s really not that much for us, it just sinks right into the sandy soil here, so no flooding near me that I know of.

    I am so proud that we have nominated Hillary Clinton – it’s still not really sunk in, as I was all prepared to celebrate tonight rather than last night, but it’s all good. I just hope Dems get out and vote in CA and NJ and the other states anyway. Of course, we still have to content with stuff like this:

    ha. even when she wins she loses…..the narrative must never stop. pic.twitter.com/IJ8P1he9mz— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) June 7, 2016

    but I’m going to enjoy the moment no matter what!

    What I really don’t know is how Trump is going to last as the GOP candidate given the reaction of all these top Repugs to his racist crap about the judge in the Trump Univ case – I’m not sure if they could really engineer someone else taking the nomination at the convention, but I bet there are conversations about that going on right now.

    everyone have a great day and let’s celebrate tonight!

    • I have been following the dilemma that Trump presents to the GOP fairly closely because I have had some concerns that the GOP will find a way to dump him and then convince a majority of people that his replacement is so much better and that they will vote in a Republican. In many ways Trump is easier to run against because he has no filters like smarmy Paul Ryan does. This I know for sure: he will not quit on his own simply because it gets “too difficult”. People who say that have not read up on Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And any attempt to force him out will blow up on them because his fans will not allow it.

      So Trump it is and the choice in November could not be any clearer.

      I was chuckling over Lindsey Graham going all Margaret Chase Smith on the Republicans declaring that Hillary Clinton would be better for our country than Donald Trump. I have been busy and have not been back into the news but I wonder if he has walked it back yet.

    • I will probably follow Twitter during Hillary’s speech tonight. See you there!

    • Oh, Goddess, talk about fee-fees being hurt! I am so afraid that Trump will drop out and they’ll get Paul (“Push Granny over the cliff”) Ryan to stand in his stead!

      Need peppermint tea for my roiling stomach.

      Glad you only got rain and nothing worse, Geordie!

  3. Headed out to buy some sparkling cider to toast with tonight – since I don’t do alcohol – YES!!!!!

  4. Good morning, 60 and sunny in Bellingham today. I had to keep my BCH leg elevated yesterday so I used my sofa time to read along with the political news and to re think my garden plans. I am so relieved HRC is one step closer to being our next President, but it’s hard to celebrate because the toxic campaign is not over. Nancy Le Tourneau writes about the importance of paying attention……

    What’s Going on in the Republican Party Right Now is Shocking

    I say all of this because it is important that we retain our shock at these events. It is bad enough that in about a month the Republicans are set to formally nominate Donald Trump as their presidential candidate. But it is even more dangerous if we begin to normalize this as political discourse. Explaining away racism as acceptable in an attempt to win, talk of executing politicians, and authoritarian tendencies are simply unacceptable in a democratic republic. So let’s be honest…that is exactly what is happening in the Republican Party right now.

    And in the garden, I’ve decided I need to let go of the plan I made before BCH happened. I was working towards a plant collector’s garden but that’s not realistic now, so I’m going to simplify my plans and use plants I know and are easy to find. It’s a bittersweet relief, but creative thoughts are stirring!

  7. Good morning, meese! Wednesday …

    It is 49 degrees in Madison on its way up to 77. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Whew! We made it. I was up much too late following the primaries, the victory speech and the afterglow. The president declared Hillary the nominee and he and Harry Reid will be meeting with Senator Sanders on Thursday to work on how he will wrap up his campaign. There is one more primary, in Washington D.C. on June 14th, but there is little reason for the Sanders campaign to continue unless he needs to dot the i’s in fini.

    I am going to put up a post later with the victory speech and some gathered Tweets.

    The New York Daily News had an “I’m With Racist” front page with Paul Ryan pledging fealty to Donald Trump but swapped it out for a special Hillary Clinton cover. Trump issued a statement that his words had been “misconstrued”, read a Karl Rove speech off a teleprompter, promising to be more presidentey – and then went on Fox to start a new round of attacks related to Trump University. He can’t be controlled, he can’t be stopped, and the GOP is realizing that they can’t Frank Luntz their way out of the mess their party is in.

    See all y’all later!

  8. good morning (yawn) Meese

    Stayed up past my bedtime to watch Hillary’s speech in Brooklyn (glad I did) and could barely open my eyes this am – didn’t even wake up to let the dogs out or make hubby’s morning coffee.
    Will go make some now …

    57 here and it is going to only go up to 64 with rain.

    • Am grinning at CA results …oh those pesky Latinos and Asians have upset many a pollsters (and Bernsters) applecarts

  10. 1.42 miles this morning. Yay!

    And it’s time to turn all fire towards Donald Trump. After November, when we’re setting things up for the midterms, we can revise the Democratic party’s way of getting a nominee — take it down to the slab & do a total rebuild. But between now & November, we can not just keep the White House, we really can get the Senate & bring the House closer to even.

    Happy bouncy tune in my head is Disappear. Sweet song, wish I had a time machine.

    • I am not sure it needs to be burned down and rebuilt. I see modest tweaks perhaps cutting down on the number of Superdelegates.

      But one thing has to be done: I want them to change the rules for allowing non-Democrats to run in our primaries. What Sanders did to us was a self-inflicted wound. You are either a Democrat or you aren’t. If you aren’t, become one.

      • I just mean if people want to re-do the rules, have at it. I’m for 100% primaries, no caucuses. And yes, to get on the Democratic ballot (top to bottom) you have to sign something swearing allegiance to the Democratic party. Promising to work for the Party in November, and to refund all donations if you switch parties or fail to campaign for the Democrat.

        • The caucuses need to go. I think that will happen pretty easily except for Iowa – they make too much money off it. I would like to have closed primaries but that would require a lot of help from the states which may not be doable. For example, in Wisconsin, there is no check-box for party affiliation at registration and it would require legislative changes. I would rather put our efforts to getting Congress and automatic voter registration.

  11. Whoo-hoo, Meese! Wow, what a morning! It’s partly cloudy here in NoVa, 61 F. going up to 71 F. today.

    Feeling deliriously happy this morning, especially about the double-digit win in California. Thank you, Golden State! She gave a truly inspiring speech last night.

    You know, on a personal level, her being the presumptive nominee partly makes up to me for my own failures in life. She and I both belong to the gender who was told we’d never be able to aspire to reach the peak in any career, whether law, teaching, medicine, or politics.

    Feel that I’ve missed the boat as a parent too. Daughter-in-Austin voted for Bernie and evidently believes all the lies about Hillary. Elder son liked Jim Webb because guns. Younger son likes Trump because he “tells it like it is.” How can my children, brought up by a radical feminist, turn out like this? Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now.

    If she’s elected POTUS, we can expect the same unleashing of virulent misogyny that Obama’s election unleashed with regard to racism. I keep coming back to this one remark by Germaine Greer, years ago: “Most women have no idea how much men hate them.”

    Well, Germaine, I think we’re all getting a pretty good idea now. Last night when I watched the Pond-dits on CNN talk about Hillary, and “how people don’t like her” (drop dead, Gloria Borger and Jake Tapper), I wanted to launch myself through the screen and slit their throats. I am so tired of their shit I don’t know what to do. And yesterday the WaPo was whining that she hasn’t given a press conference in a long while. Well, why would she when they would only ignore her policy points and bleat about emailghazi? They’re going to have to learn that they don’t have the world to themselves any more.

    John Oliver was the funniest. On CBS This Yawning they showed a clip of him saying: “WHO would have believed we’d have a presumptive nominee of a major party who is a WOMAN? It sounds like something out of science fiction, or—(pause while the faces of a dozen women heads of state flash up on the screen)—every other country in the world!

    End of rant. I will now go downstairs and eat some Alpen to celebrate. Wishing all a good day!

    • Eeek! I am sorry to hear about your children. There is still hope for the daughter who voted for Sanders – if we can convince her that emailghazi is part of the right-wing attack machine that, sadly, some of the most die-hard berners peddled to damage our nominee, she may come around. I was not a great Hillary fan but I became a stronger and stronger supporter watching her weather the storms. I think the turning point for me was the 11 hour Benghazi hearing. Maybe when your daughter sees what Trump and the RNC dish out, her feminist hackles will rise and she come to the light. :) Nothing can be done about the Trump son. I have a family-full of them and you just have to agree not to talk politics.

      I am going to save this off because it will make a great title for a post or maybe a captioned image

      “Most women have no idea how much men hate them.”

      Now, back to getting caught up on projects so I can sit back and read the news and bask in the commentary.

    • They switched it from a nasty swipe at Paul Ryan. I hope they run that one tomorrow.

      Fast forward to November 9th: YES, HER!!!!!!

  13. 59 at dawn heading for 90 and sunny again – still getting enough clouds that I haven’t gotten to 24 KWHs in a day (which I did twice in May) but the last three have been above 20 – monthly to date is 117.6. Walked home Monday and Tuesday, maybe today as well. We shall see.

    Stayed up for Hillary’s speech – late for me but oh, so worth it. I listen to her and think, “that woman is a Class Act” – every time I listen to her. While both Bernie and all the GOP are calling out the worst, Hillary is calling out the best that is in us. More good than we ourselves thought we were until she showed us. Not mythological “exceptional” that means we don’t have work to do or room to grow, but good – loving kindness and determination to make things better. …freedom and justice for ALL. It’s joy and excitement and tears and celebration right now. Savor it. What the Rs and the misogynists in our own party will be throwing at her for the next 8+ years will make Bill’s administration look like a love-fest. And the only way to keep it as nasty background noise rather than time-wasting, tax-dollar-wasting investigations and impeachment attempts is to get our butts to work and take Congress back. And we will. But right now, for this “one moment in time” we can laugh, cry, hug each other, and rejoice. :)

    Got to get to work. I wasn’t very efficient yesterday. heh. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • When I watched her speech and listened to her, it was not difficult to imagine this as the beginning of a long run for our party. You look at the people behind her, the faces of the Democratic Party’s future, young, old, Latino, black, Asian, women, and you start to get a sense of how impossible it will be for the current Republican Party to win a national election again and to hold onto Congress. They have nothing for those people, me included, and we have a chance to build something really special on the foundation that President Obama put in place.

      • We have GOT to find some way to get our people to the polls in the mid-terms. It’s as simple as that. Hillary will take us forward but how fast and far will depend on not only what kind of Congress we give her for 2017, but what kind of Congress we give her for her entire administration. I know she’s got backup plans – both Bill and Barack Obama had Dem Congresses their 1st 2 years and did what they could with them (much of which was cleaning up R messes) so she has to have that in the back of her mind. But oh, the things we could do with a Dem Congress even for one full 4-year term, much less 2!

  14. Good morning, 62 and mostly sunny in Bellingham. I’m sleeply savoring HRC’s primary victory, and I hope she has a moment to do the same!

    Her speech last night was very moving, especially this part, as featured by Nancy Le Tourneau……

    Who May Lead?

    We’re stronger when every family and every community knows they’re not on their own. Because we are in this together. It really does take a village to raise a child. And to build a stronger future for us all.

    I learned this a long time ago from the biggest influence in my life, my mother. She was the rock until the day I was born until she left us. She overcame a childhood marked by abandonment and mistreatment and somehow managed not to become bitter or broken. My mother believed that life is about serving others. And she taught me never to back down from a bully which it turns out was pretty good advice.

    This past Saturday would have been her 97th birthday. She was born on June 4th, 1919 and some of you may know the significance of that date. On the the very day my mother was born in Chicago, Congress was passing the 19th amendment to the constitution. That amendment finally gave women the right to vote. And I really wish my mother could be here tonight.

    I wish she could see what a wonderful mother Chelsea has become and could meet our beautiful granddaughter Charlotte and, of course, I wish she could see her daughter become the Democratic party’s nominee.

  15. Morning all (well just barely!) I stayed up till the wee hours of the morning to try to see how Cali would turn out – neck and neck the news nets kept telling us, heh. I watched Bernie’s speech with the sound turned off (I’d really like to never hear his voice again, frankly) and followed reactions on Twitter – Armando thought he was bringing his campaign down with a soft landing, but I and most other people were not at all convinced. A couple of hours before Sanders was due to give his speech last night, Politico published a devastating piece about the inside fighting in the Sanders campaign that basically amounts to his campaign aides throwing him under the bus. Rachel Maddow was reading portions of it on the air and you could hear the indignation in her voice that his campaign had been lying about believing he had a chance to win after March – they knew he was done but kept up the fantasy, because Sanders himself refused to let go. You always have to take stories like this with a grain of salt, but it is an amazing read nonetheless -and I believe a lot of it is accurate –

    http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/bernie-sanders-campaign-last-days-224041

    Still trying to absorb the fact that we will have a woman President come January – I loved Hillary’s speech, she sounds so centered and confident. I especially loved the part about her mother – my mother was born on June 4th also, albeit a few years after Hillary’s mother, but I’m sure she never knew she was born the day Congress was voting on giving women the vote. A great, great night – I hope she gets a couple days of rest before hitting the campaign trail again.

    Slept in this morning after such a late night – I’ve been in a bad pattern recently of late nights, early rising and then napping a few hours in the middle of the day, and I’d like to get out of that. No election results to stay up late for tonight, so hopefully back to a reasonable schedule! Hot, hot, hot here today as it will be for the next 5 months. Everyone have a great day – on to November!

    • I did not watch or read about Sanders’ speech. I will let the president fix this for us – he is the leader of the party and he wanted the campaign to play out. But he also called Hillary the nominee and Bernie Sanders needs to respect that. No, he can’t go to the convention expecting a roll-call of his delegates or a fight on the platform drafting committee with his Obama-hating surrogates. He lost. Maybe someday I will be magnanimous but right now I am angry at the damage done unnecessarily to our party.

  16. Good morning, meeses! Thursday …

    It is 56 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 82. Scattered thunderstorms are in the forecast. We are going to get into the 90s tomorrow and Saturday. :( Too hot for me.

    I am still recovering from the news overload of the past two days. Today, the president meets with Bernie Sanders and, I hope, puts to rest the notion that Hillary Clinton is not the nominee. His campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, stated yesterday that she was not. Why does it always fall to Hillary to “repair” the breaches? In 2008, it was “Hillary must mend party unity”. Now, “Hillary must reach out to Bernie Sanders”. How about party leaders put their thumbs on him: he appears to be immune to commonsense and certainly unwilling to take any instructions from a woman.

    Busy day here. See all y’all later!

  17. Good morning, Moosekind! Absolutely gorgeous here in NoVa, although “they” say it will be “breezy at times.” Gad, I hope it’s not like yesterday, with wind gusts at 40 miles per hour! It’s 48 F. this Thor’s Day morning in NoVa, going up to 78 F.

    Feeling depressed this morning. Staying off Facebark for the foreseeable future because I don’t want to be around any anti-Hillary people. Haven’t been to the gym all week because of this cold, but feel sufficiently better to go this morning. Weight hasn’t budged in two weeks—that’s getting on my nerves.

    That’s enough moaning from me. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond!

    • The dying embers of the berning is taking a while to extinguish. I see a lot of people who are now embracing reality but it is still too early for some. I am willing to give them time as long as they do it quietly!! :)

      I think that the president’s endorsement will take care of uniting the Democratic Party behind our nominee. Then what will be left are those who embraced Sanders because of their hatred of President Obama – people who are not really Democrats and who think you need to burn the country to the ground to purify it. We don’t need them (we didn’t in 2008 or 2012) or, quite frankly, want them – they stink.

    • Good for you, another, walking before work!

      You appear to be very interested in Ireland. Did your ancestors come from there? We think our family is Scots-Irish-French with perhaps a dash of Cherokee. They emigrated from Tennessee to Texas in the mid-nineteenth century.

      Irish attitudes toward women are medieval.

      • Ancestry is English, Scots-Irish & from that part of northern France that the English occupied so really more English. I follow a lot of the Irish new feeds because I followed a lot of the touristy stuff because I want to go some day & twitter will suggest them to you

  20. 69 at dawn and heading for 90 again. I’m going to have to turn on the A/C soon, darn it. Sunny at the moment although a bit hazy which lowers production – but at this time of the morning the angle of the sun does that anyway. Should be over 20 and probably over 22 KWHs again today so that’s good.

    I am still happy about Hillary’s historic win – ignoring those who want to rain on my parade. I know the next several months will be brutal – but when have they not for her? We’ve got her back and she’ll get through it as she always has. We can take a minute (or couple of days) to smile, cry, think of our mothers and grandmothers – and rejoice. At the same time, I wish I could do something to “make it better” for the Bernie supporters (not the BoBcats or the BernieBros) – they are disappointed and mourning. That it’s partly because they believed Bernie’s hype (and the anti-Hillary crap) is immaterial. I know they’ll vote for Hillary in November and that a grudging vote counts as much as a joyous one – but I wish I could somehow get them to believe in the real Hillary. The strong, caring, driven-to-do-good woman I’ve admired since I first heard of her back in the mid-1980s. I wish they could share our joy.

    Got to get to work on the next step of getting an H-1B visa for an incoming faculty person (ours is the spousal hire and for some esoteric reason has to be done before the other department can apply for the visa to hire her husband so really under the gun here). Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

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