Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: June 26th through July 2nd

June 26, 2016 JanF Community 150

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.

…

46 Comments

  1. Good morning again, Moosekind! Cloudy and humid today in NoVa, currently 72 F., going up to 87 F. It may or may not rain later. Yesterday it just spat.

    DId so much running around yesterday that this morning I was down a pound on the scales, which means that so far I’ve lost 11. Good.

    Drove hubby to the ortho yesterday morning after dropping off Miss PC to play with her cousin, then went to training. He warned me I might need to take some aspirin or an Advil today. So far—no. I’m one of those who resists taking pills. Then we had to drive to Kaiser Reston for hubby to get a CAT scan of his knee. We are waiting for the doctor to phone with results. The ortho did provide Dearly with a cane and a detachable cast in addition to other treatment. Thank Goddess, Dearly is getting around a great deal better with the cane, is in far less pain, and actually got some sleep last night.

    Finding I can’t read the WaPo much any more because it keeps mansplaining how “unpopular” Hillary is. So unpopular that 17 million people voted for her? Also, in this alleged “newspaper of record” there was a headline on an op-ed this morning that included the nauseating phrase “a ways.” WHAT? Should I email them explaining that you don’t use the singular indefinite article with a plural noun, and suggest that “a long way” or even “a way” would be better usage?

    Dear Goddess, I seem to be permanently pissed off nowadays! We may still go to the beach on Thursday. Perhaps I will stop feeling so cross if I can look at the sea.

    Wishing everyone a good day!

    • “Perhaps I will stop feeling so cross if I can look at the sea.” – water is calming, isn’t it?

      WaPo is driven by clicks now. You probably noticed that there are more, shorter articles – that is to win the “total number of articles” battle with the NY Times and to earn $ based on number of clicks. If you write an intelligent, in-depth article and it takes someone 20 minutes to read and comprehend versus 5 articles that each take you 4 minutes to read, which one brings in more revenue? So worrying about grammar, syntax and even proper spelling is not important. Except to pedants like you and me!!

  2. Last night’s victory party was so much fun. And hopeful. I was really pleased at how young the crowd was. The lege is coming back in January & they will not let this go. But for now, we can enjoy a victory. Last night, I think on Rachel’s show, they talked about how the wording could be trouble for the other obviously no-helping-women provisions: the waiting periods (how does that help), the ultrasounds (again, ??), the bullshit scripts written by non-medical people — these would appear to be in trouble. Yay!

    picture of me with the best congressman ever, Lloyd Doggett (whose lifetime rating from NARAL is 100%): http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb189/BeckyHelton/20160627_184251_zpsjat7rgfg.jpg

    • anotherdemocrat, m’daughter-in-Austin loves Lloyd Doggett too. She mentioned his name to me years and years ago.

      Victory must taste so sweet! Three years ago, Daughter, Political Granddaughter, and I sat in the balcony watching the activities on the House floor of the Texas Capitol. It was a really exciting evening. The energy on our side was almost palpable!

  3. Ack!!!! I’m really pissed off – now the bro-gressives are attacking John Lewis because he spoke to the sexist reality in American politics.

    Sigh.

    • Sister Denise, some people are just stupid. Just because someone mentions a fact, that doesn’t mean that he himself believes it.

      I mean, if I were to mention that the Ku Klux Klan is still a force, albeit a greatly diminished one, in certain areas of the South, that wouldn’t mean I’m a Klan sympathizer.

  4. Temps dropped into the 60s overnight – when I woke up around 3 opened the windows in my bedroom and even the porch one for the cats. Didn’t manage to get back to serious sleep, but had some pleasant dozing until 5 when I gave up. We also got a bit of rain just before sunset yesterday – clouds kept my electricity production to just under 17 KWHs, but I won’t have to water tomorrow. Not exactly an even trade, but it will do. Total to-date KWHs for the month is 504, 64 short of May 2015 and 3 days left to generate. Vet had an emergency surgery yesterday so didn’t manage to get to the little black kitty – they say he’s happy as a clam at high tide as long as somebody rubs his tummy. Wish I thought his new person would keep him inside as he’s obviously fine with that. Oh well. She’ll love him and make sure no other cats get his food and that’s definitely better than not.

    I do not know Hillary Clinton personally, never even met anyone who does except Bill and that was only shaking hands on a rope line, not talking about anything much less Hillary. I’ve seen her do some really good stuff though and I think I know how she operates. First she goes where there’s a problem. Then she listens to understand exactly what the problem is and get some indications of how to fix it. Then she creates a plan to fix it. Then she puts together a team to implement the plan – with a team leader who shares her passion about fixing that particular problem. That’s what I think Hillary is doing with Elizabeth Warren – tapping her team leader for the Senate efforts. By keeping an eye on who Hillary is campaigning with and for we could probably figure out who her team leaders are going to be for each area/issue. When she and EW say they’re going to take a day off for the inauguration, then get to work, they mean it. And they mean more than most folks think. They aren’t going to start collaborating on legislation on 1/21/17 – they’ll have finished that before 1/20/17. Hillary’s team leaders in Congress are going to start proposing legislation on 1/21/17 – at the very least getting it into committee. Congress is going to see a flurry of business the like of which hasn’t happened since March 1933.

    Gotta get to work. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{{HUGS}}}}

    • It is unlikely that we will regain a House majority and we won’t have 60 votes in the Senate in any event. Even with the very strong 111th Congress, the one that passed Lilly Ledbetter out of the gate and passed the Affordable Care Act (via reconciliation) in 2010, dozens of wonderful bills passed by Nancy Pelosi’s House simply died in the black hole of Senate filibustering.

      So I am not expecting much legislatively except where Republicans can be scared into worrying about their reelection. I don’t know which issues will have bipartisan consensus and how obstructiony the obstructionists will be – I guess we will find out!

      • I think the plan is to hit them with so much stuff that some of it will get through – that’s why a team and team leader are necessary. Expect to see her campaign strategy writ large.

  5. Good morning, 60 sunny and breezy in Bellingham. Yesterday was fun but very busy, so today will quieter. Ryan and his friends are discovering the Dungeons and Dragons world, so he’ll be doing some online and phone D & D organizing, and I will do some reading so I can better understand what he’s telling me.

    I also hope to plant a few more flowers and do some garden clean up. We’ll be hosting the family 4th of July celebration next weekend so I will start the prep now, with the hope my knees will cooperate!

  6. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 57 degrees in Madison on its way up to 75. Mainly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    There were primary elections in some states last night including Colorado, New York and South Carolina. In Colorado, Democrats got lucky when the Republicans picked a Cruzian fundie to run against Sen. Michael Bennet. The establishment Republican with the strong resume imploded. What had been a toss-up/lean-blue should be solid blue now.

    WUT!!??! Unpossible!!!

    Supporters of U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump are more likely to describe African Americans as “criminal,” “unintelligent,” “lazy” and “violent” than voters who backed some Republican rivals in the primaries or who support Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll.

    That poll showed that there is an embarrassing (to me, anyway) negative view of blacks even among Clinton supporters that certainly shows that we are NOT post-racial.

    President Obama’s press secretary asked if the House Benghazi report would be listed as in “in kind” contribution to the RNC. Ha! Sadly, the time and money spent on that nothingburger will never cause a moment of concern for any of the Republicans on that committee. The good news is that it is coming out now, 4 months before the election and there is time for the chattering classes to get their chattering about it over with. And PLEASE get images of Trey Gowdy’s pinhead off my screen!!!

    Oh, and New York Times? Bernie Sanders is not “a Democratic candidate for president” – he lost, we have our nominee.

    The president is visiting with our North American trading partners, Canada and Mexico, and there will be a joint news conference later today. The rest of the First Family is traveling in Africa. Stay safe!

    See all y’all later!

    • Not surprised by the poll on attitudes towards us black folks. I live with this – and though Rs may be the most racist – there are still far too many Ds who have those same attitudes – having watched Barack Obama portrayed as a monkey by a “lefty” cartoonist – and the people who defended him, having watched “progressives” utilize blackface memes, and those who openly defended George Zimmerman – I’m well aware of how much more work we need to do.

      • It sounds like work that we, meaning white Democrats, need to do. While 70% of Clinton supporters would “prefer to live in a diverse neighborhood” what the heck is wrong with the other 30%?? My daughter is looking at colleges and she always checks the diversity of the student body. She wants to go to school with people who look like her and who have seen people like her.

        • Jan, I used to worry about my beautiful half-Chinese Miss Pink Cheeks and whether kids in her school would make fun of her Asian eyes. However, when I took her to kindergarten, it was like the kid version of United Nations. Half the children have Asian eyes.

          Fairfax County, perhaps owing to its proximity to an international airport and the nation’s capital, is one of the most racially diverse counties in the country. And it is very, very blue. :)

  7. Good Wednesday morning Meese. 65 here in the Catskills going up to 82 with rain. We had loud thunderstorms last night so the dogs were frantic – I didn’t get much sleep.

    Saddened to see terror strike – yet again – in the Istanbul airport.

    Trying to follow the impact of Brexit on places outside of the shores of GB – particularly in the former British colonies in the Caribbean – I haven’t seen much mentioned in our press.

    On a different note – some black history – I had the honor of meeting James Van Der Zee a few years before his death and have always loved his photos of Harlem society and social life.

      • What has always fascinated me about his studio photography is a picture of Harlem very different from the “poor ghetto” theme.

    • Now that the markets have settled down a bit, people are looking at the unknowns about immigration in the UK and also what the Brexit vote says about the character of the British people. One person said “Not every Leaver is a racist, but all racists voted Leave”. It is like those who vote for Trump: do you really want to be associated with the racists who are flocking to him?

  8. Diana, here is a hopeful editorial from the New York Times about the McDonnell reprieve by the Supreme Court. He is not out of the woods yet!

    Many people are concerned that the decision will be broadly interpreted to make future prosecutions of crooked politicians harder. But the court’s analysis was specific to the facts of this case. Indeed, the justices sent the suit back to the lower court, allowing for the possibility that Mr. McDonnell could be retried using clearer jury instructions.

    Federal anticorruption law bars public officials from committing, or agreeing to commit, an “official act” in exchange for something of value. But the jurors in Mr. McDonnell’s trial were not told that activities such as arranging meetings or making phone calls for a constituent do not, on their own, amount to “official acts.” […]

    The McDonnell decision should be narrowly construed and need not stop prosecutors from building strong cases against politicians who are abusing their office for personal gain.

    The good news is that Virginia passed a law that will make it more difficult for gifting and grifting to occur in the future: putting a $100 limit on gifts – there had been none before all this occurred making the $175,000 in “gifts” perfectly legal.

    It will be interesting to see if prosecutors do retry the case, if for nothing else to make the point that just being well-connected should not be a get-out-of-jail-with-a-mild-admonishment card.

    • Thanks for that, Jan. I do dislike that man so much, not least for how he treated his wife.

      Hope he has a nice time living with his priestly friend.

  9. I left work early yesterday because my contacts were messed up — turns out I had just got them in the wrong eyes, luckily. I was worried that there had been a sudden change in my vision & that’s never good. I got home just as the news about Istanbul was hitting. Honestly — what do these people want to accomplish besides spreading misery? Or is it just that? “I’m miserable so I’m going to exponentially increase the misery in the world so there are more miserable people”

    ok, I’m just going to shut my eyes & listen to some Snow Patrol

    • ok, so no one has clicked on the song link – I can tell because there’s a pun ( the song is Shut Your Eyes)

      • Sorry! I don’t click on song links very often. I don’t have my headphones on generally while I am working.

        Leave your puns in the open!!! We won’t punish you …

        • it’s kind of a dreamy, pop-y song…. it only occurred to me about the pun after I typed it, while I was doing the link thing I thought “hey, that’s a pun”

  10. Happy Woden’s Day, Meese, and it’s a beautiful, low-humidity day here in NoVa. Current temp. 66 F., going up to 81 F. Cookout weather!

    Felt sad when I heard about the bombing in Turkey. What is the purpose? To instil terror and uncertainty so that no one can go about his or her everyday business? I think this has a lot more to do with hopelessness (income inequality, hardscrabble existence) than with religion, although that’s the justification they use.

    Lots of laundry to do today—one more lavender to plant. Hubby is under orders (mine) to take it easy. He did far too much yesterday.

    Wishing all a good day!

  11. 65 at dawn – actually dropped low enough last night I turned the A/C off and opened the porch window for the cats, but not cool enough to open my bedroom window until around midnight (bathroom break) – aired the house out again this morning and walked in again this morning. Noticed the creek is dry so even though we got rain Monday it wasn’t enough. sigh. Did get over 22 KWHs yesterday – am now 40 KWHs short of June 2015 total production, so just like last month it’s going to be down to the wire as to whether I meet or beat it this year. Last (probably) report on the little black kitty – he had his operation yesterday and is fine. Since he’s a stray the clinic didn’t charge for boarding so it came in under $300. My neighbor’s granddaughter’s roommate brought home a pair of Siamese cats Monday night which is their lease limit so she couldn’t take him after all. My neighbor would love to have him but she’s got a cat, works full time and is caregiver for her mother – she just doesn’t have time to deal with integrating a new cat into the household, especially one who needs pain meds on a regular basis for the next 5 days and can’t go outside for 10. (But, oh, how she wanted him. – We talked back and forth about it for a good 20 minutes before reality prevailed.) I’ve got 2 cats and work full time so that would have been problematic. Fortunately one of the clinic vet techs totally fell in love with him – to the point of giving me her phone number when I picked him up in case the planned adoption “fell through” – so I took him back to the clinic and gave him to her. She also has another cat but she says her cat is “laid back” and also her family/household situation is such that they have flexible hours and the cats won’t be left alone/locked in separate rooms more than 4 hours at a stretch. So. Unless that one doesn’t work out, the little guy is safe in his new home/with his new family.

    The Turkey is is very depressing. It’s an attitude most Americans just don’t understand – the “direct line to god by suicidally taking out a bunch of god’s enemies” thing. Like the kamikazes towards the end of WWII. Americans don’t have a problem with killing people, obviously. And they don’t have a problem dying if they can “take someone” with them. But suicide isn’t the goal – doing a “Rambo” and taking out the whole place while surviving to do it again somewhere else is the American ideal. Which makes it at least a little more possible to figure them out and stop them.

    Getting down to the wire on Fiscal 2016 and need to get some stuff processed. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{{Hugs}}}}

  12. Good morning, 61 and sunny and breezy in Bellingham. A busy day ahead…..I’ve got flowers to plant, 4th of July tasks to do, bills to pay, laundry to tend, and a sewing room to put back together. Our grandson will be the carpenter’s helper today, filling nail holes on the new work table. The grand girls will be with us tomorrow and they are anxious to help too so their summer sewing lessons can begin. It’s a family affair!

    I like to share the grand kids interests, so last nights visit to the local game store was fun. I was the only Grammie there but Ryan didn’t mind. He was excited to find the books and to share his fun as he builds his character.

    http://www.darktowerlgs.com/

  13. Morning all! I have not much to report, as it is always hot and humid here this time of year, no surprise, and I haven’t done much other than rewatch the last couple of GOT episodes and play WOW (my raid team met our objective last night in conquering the last big raid “boss” on heroic, of this expansion, so now we can relax and wait for the next expansion with new stuff to do on August 30th.) So sad about the bombing in Turkey – the terrorist mindset just baffles me, I have to admit.

    The UK situation continues to alarm me, as well – the far right UKIP seems to have gained at least temporary respectability with the leave vote, and its leader now endorses Trump. Of course. The level of competence of both major parties there seems marginal – even worse than the Republicans, which is hard to believe. At least the US stock market seems to have calmed down a bit and is recovering some of the losses, so maybe I will dare to look at my portfolio in a couple of weeks.

    Everyone have a great day – Diana hope you guys get to go to the beach after all!

    • Wow. Just wow.

      I will post the speech and full transcript in the morning. I will really really miss this guy.

  16. Good morning, meese! Thursday …

    It is 55 degrees in Madison on its way up to 77. Chance of thundershowers in the forecast.

    The president’s speech to parliament was quite excellent. I watched it live and followed it on Twitter. The speech was a mixture of nostalgia, campaigning and statesmanship and when he finished, the Canadian Parliament was chanting “4 more years”. :) I have the video but the official transcript has not been released yet. When it is, I will post the speech.

    Trump is imploding. The reset to “Presidential Trump” is not taking because it is based on a faulty premise: that Trump could be anything but a vulgar talking yam or, as the Scots would say, a ludicrous tangerine ballbag. His rating is dropping with men and white non-college educated people. He can’t go any lower with black folks (h/t Aji) and he is getting close to the floor with Latinos. Nate Silver released his election forecast and we start at 350 electoral votes.

    Read this excellent Rebecca Traister piece on Democratic anxiety, our fear that the Republicans will DumpTrump, put up a more acceptable candidate and steal the election from us. She gives us some good reasons it can’t happen but here is why we are scared:

    It’s partly because we have become, in a sense, more conservative — in our desire to keep what we have. Obama’s presidency, the reform of our health-care system, the expansions of women’s rights and civil rights and gay rights — these are real (if imperfect) liberal gains. And psychologically, the fear of losing something is more acute than the fear of not gaining something. Underlying our worry is the notion that the next five months could see either a total rupture of a humiliated Republican Party, a consolidation of liberal gains, and confirmation that the country has decided to move, at least for now, in a more progressive direction — or a horrifying defeat for liberal Democrats, a repudiation not only of Clinton but of Obama, and a rollback of many of the progressive gains of the past five decades. So it’s understandable that this is an epically tense time for the liberal psyche.

    And, dammit, we need to stay scared! Stay scared until the morning of November 9th when we can wake up, sip our coffee and feel the sense of relief that everything Democrats have built since FDR will not be wiped out because we were complacent.

    See all y’all later!!

  17. Good morning Meese. Thursday. 60 degrees and sunny here in Saugerties – going up to 87.
    Saw this in my headlines – not surprised

    Ku Klux Klan at 150: After Civil War and civil rights, KKK looks to rise again

    Looking forward to next Tuesday
    Obama Will Campaign With Hillary Clinton in North Carolina

    Unhappy about news out of GB.

    On a brighter note – I love to celebrate birthdays

    • The KKK will be there to wrestle with the Republican Party to claim the mantle of Trumpism when he crashes and burns in November. We have been saying for years that the GOP is making itself a regional rump party, built on the ashes (asses?) of the confederacy to nurture white male butthurt. Maybe they will just merge – they simply need to find someone to build a white hood big enough to fit over an elephant’s head!

      Happy Birthday, Lena Horne!

        • Ha! That looks like a Twitter Pile of Poo emoji on top of his head – nicely drawn hood to evoke that image.

  18. Yesterday, in Question Time, David Cameron quoted the Smiths. (they’re his favorite band???) Today, Boris Johnson declines to run for PM. I’m fairly certain I’m in bizarro world. Well, I slept past 5, and my brain is playing Snow Patrol at me, so with contradictory evidence, I’ll withhold judgment.

    • Boris Johnson, out, a guy named Michael Cove, in. Corbyn’s Labour Party in shambles.

      I will avert my eyes for another few days.

      • they (either Rachel Maddow or Lawrence O’Donnell, I forget which) also showed Corbyn being funny & scathing, but my brain was too busy trying to wrap itself around a toff like Cameron being a Smiths fan to remember what he said

        I think QT is on CSPAN later this week

Comments are closed.