Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: July 10th through July 16th

July 10, 2016 JanF Community 128

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.

…

45 Comments

  1. Hi Meeses – Just about to pack the laptop and take off. Will check in from St. Louis (presupposing I figure out how to log into the hotel’s wifi :) Bright the day. {{{HUGS}}}

  2. I’m going to try walking after work today, just 30 minutes. Even if it’s 99 degrees, 30 minutes should still be fine. I’m trying to decide about re-joining my training group. I really, truly hate getting up as early on Saturday as during the week, and I have never managed to raise the $750 for the Children’s Shelter. But having a team; and the carpool and indoor space on race day…. But that fundraising thing, it really is hard. I have a few weeks to think about it, but I should start thinking now, gives me time to change my mind 3 or 4 times.

    Brain is playing People Have the Power to me. Patti Smith on a Tuesday morning. May be enough to get me through the day.

  3. Here is the White House YouTube for the president’s visit to Dallas. Scheduled to begin at noon Eastern time which will be 11am local time.

  4. Morning Moosekind! Very early for me – was supposed to take big dog Max to the vet to stay a couple of days and get all his annual checkup plus bath and nails, but my back is hurting and I didn’t feel like wrestling him into the car, so I put it off for a couple of weeks. The weather you ask? Why, hot and sunny – we are just not getting any break from the heat, not even a thunderstorm to give the greenery a bit of relief. I haven’t run my sprinkler system in 10 months or so, but I may have to just to give the plants a drink.

    I feel the same way as Jan about watching the NH rally – I can’t stand the sound of Bernie’s voice, and I’m also worried the deadenders for him will show up and make mischief, as there have been calls to do. Ugh. I do want to listen to the President – I’m making a point of listening to every time he makes public remarks now, as we don’t have that much longer to hear him. I’m going to miss him.

    I’m so inspired by that wonderful photo ( can we say Pulitzer?) of the young woman standing in front of the Baton Rouge stormtroop…I mean police, I’m thinking about trying my hand at a pictorial quilt of it. I’ve never done one, but I could do even a stylized version, not necessarily photo realistic maybe.

    Ok, time for errands – ran into Dee in game a little while ago, so that reminds me have a great time everyone going to NN!!!! And have a great day everyone!

    • On BernedTwitter last night, I saw a suggestion that any Sanders supporters there are planning to noisily walk out after Sanders speaks. I really don’t have time in my life for the kind of anger that I would feel seeing that level of disrespect.

      I was not as tapped in during the post-2008 primary season but I know that many people felt the same way about Hillary (some of them are still angry about it). I am not sure what it will take for me to get past this dislike I have for Sanders. I just hope he does not appear on my TV too many times in the next 4 months.

  5. Good Morning Meese.

    Got some WoW playing in early – and now have to start packing my bags to head out for NN today, finish next Sundays post – and do Bkos too.
    Scanning the news ….
    Scanning twitter…
    Going to go read Nancy

    Need mote coffee

  6. Good morning, Meese! I’m really late today. Had to take Miss Pink Cheeks to camp, of course, and stopped by Trader Joe’s afterwards. It’s 74 F. now, going up to 85 F. later. We’ve lots of humidity today, so have turned the a.c. back on. Thunderstorms might happen later toward evening.

    Dearly Beloved is having his face carved up by the plastic surgeon—well, really, the doctor is looking for cancer cells. It is not a good thing to work outdoors with no hat or sunscreen. My poor hubby is going to be in no shape to do anything much for the rest of the day. :(

    Have become unbearably sensitive to criticism about Hillary lately—it’s just traditional media overload—to the point I can no longer listen to the car radio, and I’m getting to where I can’t watch anything but nonpolitical PBS programs.

    Going to head out to the gym shortly. I always seem to be running behind, nowadays. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and to our candidate, Hillary Clinton!

    • I am also upset by the Hillary news, from the attacks by the GOP – expected – to the terribly unfair media coverage of her. I will probably avoid the news during the Republican National Convention because I don’t even want to read a news report about the awful things they will be saying (I would never watch it).

  7. Good morning, 61 and partly sunny in Bellingham. My sewing afternoon with the grand girls was fun but busy yesterday, and as I suspected Ava thinks there are far to many steps involved before she gets to drive the machine. Prewashing fabric, fitting the patterns, finding the trim, etc is just busy work for her!

    Time for some coffee. Have a great day everyone!

  9. Hai Meeses – just checking in. Back, hips and hands bothering/hurting me which I did not expect but not my knee which I did expect to hurt. Life is interesting. I drove most of the way through rain and some heavy fog in places (can’t see the 3rd car up kind of fog) but fortunately I drove out of the system before I got to St. Louis. I am NOT used to driving in the city any longer. I started getting tense when it went to 6 lane and I was pretty “white knuckle” when it went to 8. But I’m here and I’ve checked the Convention Center as to where I probably need to be at 2 tomorrow. The building is huge – at least to my no-longer-citified eyes – and while technically across the street, the front is a 2-block walk. LOL

    • Scottie Thomaston is looking for people to hang out with at the Holiday Inn. You should look for him!

    • Glad you arrived safely, bfitz! Totally sympathize about the nerve-wracking experience of driving in a city. Out here in the ‘burbs, where I live, it’s not so bad, but I find any kind of traffic disturbing. Hope you’ve recovered after a night’s rest.

      Thanks for the update and please keep us posted if you can!

      • As the years went by, my mother began mapping out driving routes that did not include any left hand turns. I find myself doing the same thing plus avoiding high speeds and confusing intersections. I am glad that my work travels rarely take me into downtown areas any more. I am a delicate flower!

    • Weird. My Republican, Obama-hating cousins on Facebark posted something about “ALL lives matter.” Might have to block them down the road.

  11. Good morning Meese
    Drinking coffee, doing laundry and packing my bags for Saint Louie
    Had to go out yesterday and buy some walking shoes – my dog ate my favorites.
    Flight leaves at 11:30 – which means I have to leave the house at 8:30
    Looking forward to hanging with bfitz

    • Nice to have something positive to celebrate today

      Soyinka was the first black African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. An autobiography, Aké: The Years of Childhood, was published in 1981 and followed by the companion pieces Ìsarà: A Voyage Around Essay (1989) and Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years: A Memoir, 1946–1965 (1994). In 2006 he published another memoir, You Must Set Forth at Dawn. In 2005–06 Soyinka served on the Encyclopædia Britannica Editorial Board of Advisors.

      Soyinka has long been a proponent of Nigerian democracy. His decades of political activism included periods of imprisonment and exile, and he has founded, headed, or participated in several political groups, including the National Democratic Organization, the National Liberation Council of Nigeria, and Pro-National Conference Organizations (PRONACO). In 2010 Soyinka founded the Democratic Front for a People’s Federation and served as chairman of the party.

      From his bio

  12. Good morning, meese! Wednesday …

    It is 73 degrees in Madison on its way up to 86 with a heat index of 104. Thunderstorms are in the forecast.

    Sorry to be late! I was putting together a post with the president’s excellent speech yesterday and it was difficult to decide what to blockquote. I recommend that everyone read the entire thing:

    President Obama in Dallas: “Can we see in each other a common humanity and a shared dignity?”

    I left it as a question because I really am not sure. I hope so.

    The post includes the raw video of the entire ceremony including Mayor Rawlings, Chief Brown, and a wonderful soloist from the police choir that you should hear. Her song starts at 1:16:58 into the full video. If I find a clip of just her song, I will post it.

    In political news, it appears that Newt Gingrich will be Trump’s running mate. All I can say is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Can they lose all 50 states???

    See all y’all later!

      • The HNV folks are chortling about the R’s “Henry the VIII” ticket (since Trump and Gingrich have had 6 wives between them).

        • I saw a Tweet last night that joked that Newt is trying to get a plank put into the Republican platform that “marriage should be defined as between one man and a cancer-free woman”.

          It is not just his marriages (we all make mistakes), it is how he treated the people who he had no more use for.

          • My ex is on his 3rd (I stopped at 1) and that one seems to be working for him. His 2nd was nuts – literally (she gave their son an axe and told him to do all the damage he could to their house when the divorce went through – wonder the kid didn’t hit an electric wire and kill himself), so I used to quip when somebody asked me about “revenge” that his 2nd wife was more revenge than I’d ever want. LOL. How a person treats those who can’t/won’t do anything for them is the number one character test and most Rs flunk badly.

      • Bubba has been working on a project that will keep him busy until the middle of August. I am certain we will see him weigh in on the VP choice in due time. :)

        • Grin!

          Have probably mentioned this before, but it weighs so heavily on my mind I must talk about it again.

          I take unwarranted criticism of Hillary so personally that I wonder what dynamic is at work here. This has gone on for years. I even did a comment about it on the old blog “BuzzFlash” many years ago, with the result that the owner of the site hastily put up a post to the effect that Hillary would make an excellent Supreme Court Justice.

          I don’t know whether anyone here saw the movie “Orlando.” It was an extremely strange film, so strange that my husband had to drive me to an “art cinema” to watch it. In it, a man goes into a hundred-year sleep, wakes up in the 17th century as a woman, and rejoins society. The treatment she received from men was so horrible that for the first time I understood what Shakespeare’s sister would have gone through if SHE had been the literary genius. She’d have hanged herself, most likely.

          Men have historically usurped women’s achievements. Look at that bloody old Wordsworth, surreptitiously reading his sister Dorothy’s journals and then writing poems based on what she’d written. The old git.

          Anyway, to conclude this rambling rant, when I hear people piling on Hillary for things that no man would have to account for, or piling on her for being an intelligent, accomplished woman who sincerely believes she can steer the country in the right direction, I feel as if the criticism is directed at ME—in fact, at every woman my age, who grew up in a time when girls early learned to accept that we were “the second sex,” the inferior one.

          Sigh. To borrow someone else’s remark, it “makes me wanna holler!”

          • You would not have liked watching the House Republican Doodiehead Committee hearing yesterday interrogating Attorney General Loretta Lynch. It was so grossly unfair to AG Lynch, and to Secretary Clinton, that I was left wondering if we will ever have the kind of country where misogyny and racism would be scorned rather than celebrated, where a woman would be judged by the content of her character rather than her husband’s lack of self-control … where government officials care about governing instead of settling old scores from 20 years ago.

            I feel a lot of the same things you do but I have been able to find comfort in some excellent writings that I find on the Twitter feed I follow; articles where people are pushing back against the lies and talking about the unfairness and giving us hope.

            I was thinking about racism this morning and the national disgrace of Trumpism. But Trumpism is also sexism and we need to remind people daily that this election is bringing out some nasty 19th century ideas about a woman’s place. Stay strong! In four months we will be referring to Hillary as President-Elect Hillary Clinton. We can’t fast forward through the pain but we can use it to fuel us as we help people get registered and get them to the polls.

  13. Good morning, Moosekind! Gray here, possible thunderstorms this afternoon. Current temp. 75 F., going up to 85 F.

    Later today I’ll be going to Elder Son’s house to look after Mr. Newbaby for the night. I hope he recognizes me!

    Have had no time for writing as I seem to be constantly busy running to the gym, ferrying Miss Pink Cheeks to and from camp, and constantly shopping in grocery stores. I’d love a weekend where I don’t have to do anything.

    Feelings hurt again because Dearly had CBS This Yawning on and they were gleefully commenting on Hillary’s “unfavorables.” It’s amazing how they see what they want to see. I hope she wins the election in a crushing landslide, 70 to 20, or something like that. Would so enjoy watching their ugly faces get covered with egg.

    Wishing everyone a good day!

    • I saw a headline yesterday that essentially said that ALL the youngs hate Hillary. Funny thing, though, when you dug into it a little bit more, young people of color find her plenty likeable – the negatives come from young white people. Hmm. Wonder where they got that Hillary hate from?? It is sad that the white youth vote does not understand that they have been duped by the right-wing smear machine (and the opportunistic left of the left) but it is good news that young, racially diverse voters, and their allies, are rejecting the lies. I hope the others come around when the scales fall off their eyes.

    • And the kids do not like The Donald:

      Donald Trump is wildly unpopular among young adults, in particular young people of color, and nearly two-thirds of Americans between the ages of 18 and 30 believe the presumptive Republican nominee is racist.

      That’s the finding of a new GenForward poll that also found just 19 percent of young people have a favorable opinion of Trump compared to the three-quarters of young adults who hold a dim view of the New York billionaire.

      This survey is also where the split between white youth and young people of color shows up.

  14. The sun comes up about half an hour earlier in St. Louis than it does in Fayetteville. That and not having cats to take care of both got me up early and makes me feel strange (like I ought to be doing something besides logging into the computer – LOL). Also woke with a skull-banger and a grungy (mildly upset) tummy. Hoping coffee will fix the former and breakfast (OJ and peanut butter sandwich) will fix the latter. Unfortunately, travel doesn’t really agree with me. I am a creature of habit – especially the habits of what and when I eat! :)

    While I didn’t watch the videos of any of the events yesterday, I read the reactions at GOS and am pleased. I didn’t think Bernie had it in him (and I’m pretty sure Robby Mook had more than a little input on that speech) but the concession and endorsement were apparently given in his forceful (rabble-rousing?) campaign mode and that’s more than I’d hoped or even asked for. If he campaigns as strongly for her in the states he won as he did for himself, well, we might actually get a 50-state blowout. (OK, not likely, but I can dream, can’t I?)

    The swag-bag stuffing doesn’t start til 2 (and the registration desk training at 3:30) but I’ll probably head over to the convention center around noon or earlier. There have to be more people like me (early to everything) around to visit with until things get rolling. Unless I run across some Kossacks in the lobby – then we can caucus on what everybody wants to do. :) Until then I’ll check back and forth between here and GOS. But first I’m heading downstairs for more coffee. heh. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • I am also an early riser and found a few others like me when I went to NN12. There used to be a morning news “show” with Liz Winstead for early fun. I wonder if they still have something like that now?

      I am glad you figured out the wifi! Please keep checking in.

      • I’ll check in as much as I can. Today since things don’t officially start until 2 I’ll be in and out for the morning. Not sure about tomorrow through Saturday schedules, but I’ll get in a “hai” sometime or other.

  15. We’re setting record high overnight lows. 81 at 6am. Blech.

    Tea. Oatmeal. Here’s to a day with no awful things happening. Here’s a link to Disappear


    Say I’m crying
    I’m looking at what’s on TV
    Pain and suffering
    And the struggle to be free
    It can’t ever be denied
    And I never will ignore
    But when I see you coming
    I can take it all

    (and this was written in 1989, a time that seems so much calmer & more peaceful looking back)

  16. The berning appears extinguished except for a few deadenders. Here is a good post-mortem – burying Sandersism, not praising it – from Kevin Baker, a New York Sanders voter:

    With Bernie out of the battle, what remains is the left’s odd, outmoded doctrine of purity, of revolutionary posturing. This is a philosophy alien to the long legacy of pragmatic American liberalism. Its perpetuation speaks directly to the reasons today’s liberals seem to have such difficulty holding and wielding power in this country. “The worse, the better,” went the Leninist saw. There is no reforming the rotten old system. Best to “let the empire burn,” and have the fires purify the new society. […]

    Change — lasting, democratic change, which is the only kind worth fighting for — is hard, slow, often exasperating. And yet the theatrics of revolution seem to mesmerize the left, over and over again. The concept, all too similar to the religious fundamentalist’s obsession with the end times, is that cataclysm will bring redemption. There is inherent in this a deep indifference to the historical recognition that one thing proceeds from another, reaction following action, and that when we start down an unknown trail we cannot be sure where we will end up. Hubert Humphrey or Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan, Al Gore or George W. Bush, it makes no difference, for if the apocalypse comes the millennium will follow. The worse, the better.

    No, the worse, the worse – especially for those who live on the margins with a slender thread of the social safety net keeping them from plunging into the abyss.

  17. I heart Elijah Cummings!!!!

    Congressman Cummings Destroys Arguments For License-To-Discriminate Bill In Three Minutes Flat

    Exactly one month after the deadliest gun massacre in recent U.S. history at a gay bar in Orlando, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing on Tuesday on a bill that would give a license to discriminate against gay individuals under the guise of freedom of religion.

    The bill, the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), was introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) last year, and would provide special legal protections to individuals who oppose same-sex marriage and those who oppose extramarital sex.

    Under the bill, the government cannot deny tax subsidies, grants, or benefits to individuals or religious organizations who harbor anti-LGBT views. While the bill’s authors and supporters on the panel attempted to frame the bill as a logical extension of the the First Amendment’s freedom of religion clause and claimed it was “not a discriminatory bill,” opponents countered that it would merely sanction taxpayer funded discrimination.

    In addition to Lee and Labrador, who left without answering questions, the witnesses included three Republican majority witnesses (anti-gay former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran, Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Kristen Waggoner, and Witherspoon Institute scholar Matthew Franck) and three Democratic minority witnesses (former Rep. Barney Frank, Columbia Law Professor Katherine Franke, and successful marriage equality plaintiff Jim Obergefell).

  18. Good morning, 61 and cloudy in Bellingham. Our grand girls are here today so we’ll sew this afternoon. They arrive early and are sound asleep in the study now so I’m going to the pool, and I’m late.

    Best wishes to all!

  19. Good morning, meese! Thursday …

    It is 72 degrees in Madison on its way up to 79. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Yesterday’s storms missed us but I understand they wreaked havoc across the middle of the country, St. Louis included. I hope all of our flying friends got to NN safely.

    The Trump campaign has announced the announcement of the Republican VP. There will be a yoooge event on Friday. If there is anyone who thinks this is nothing more than a way to grab 3 news cycles instead of one, they have not been paying attention.

    Secretary Clinton spoke at the Old State House in Springfield IL yesterday, making the case that the Party of Lincoln is now the Party of Trump. If anyone thinks this is something that just happened out of the blue, they have not been paying attention.

    Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is being attacked by the right-wing for expressing an opinion and, sadly, a lot of folks on the left have been weighing in with their tsk-tsks. There are a lot of reasons to “suspect” that the Supreme Court is not apolitical including many in this century: Bush v Gore, the convenient gutting of the Voting Rights Act (advantage Republicans), Alito’s diss of President Obama in the State of the Union (his speech to the Federalist Society), Clarence Thomas’ wife working for the Bush Administration and then as a lobbyist for a right-wing “think” tank, and Antonin Scalia hunting with Dick “Dick” Cheney even when a case involving Cheney was before the court. But RBG warning us about the dangers of Trumpism may very well come from a deep love for our country, and genuine concern for our institutions, and losing the progress we have made. Brian Beutler opines:

    Whatever veneer of judicial impartiality existed before this week was already very thin. … So if a new line was crossed, it was fairly close to the old line.
    …
    Is a Supreme Court justice obligated to remain in the realm of subtext no matter how great she imagines the danger facing the country to be?
    …
    I see a woman who endured incredible sexism well into her professional career, warning the public about a politician whose sexism would make Don Draper uncomfortable, and who promises to restore a more patriarchal order. I see a Jewish woman with living memory of the Holocaust who is more likely reacting to the normalization of neo-Nazi propaganda than pandering to Notorious RBG readers.
    …
    [I]f the precedent Ginsburg set means that in the next 100 years, a sitting Supreme Court justice feels bound or empowered to speak out about the rare dangers of one of the two candidates for president, this is something we can live with.

    Indeed.

    See all y’all later!

  20. Had another super-restless night, up at least 4 times. Playing very loud U2 in my head. Grateful yesterday was uneventful in the world — can we make it 2 days in a row? Our thermometer high yesterday was 100, but the index was 111 & they issued a heat advisory. But if that’s the worst that happens, that’s ok with me.

Comments are closed.