Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Sept. 4th through Sept. 10th

September 3, 2016 JanF Community 118

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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46 Comments

  1. Morning all! Deceptively coolish here this morning – I’ll enjoy it while I have it, but it won’t be for long. We won’t really get any cool weather to speak of until mid-October, usually.

    Trump actually doubled down on this ‘Hillary doesn’t have a presidential look” nonsense this morning apparently – I was so happy to see Tim Kaine go full attack dog on him about that yesterday at the rally in Cleveland, but the Donald apparently thinks that’s the way to get votes among the suburban white women he desperately needs, attack the “look” of a middle aged supremely accomplished woman. We see you Trump. I’m listening to the airplane press conference now (thanks for the link Jan!)and I love the way Hillary just calls him “Trump”. It’s also wonderful to hear how calm and knowledgeable she is in response to any questions they ask – and wonder of wonders they’re actually asking a few substantive questions.

    Ok, another heavy duty Warcraft day today – plus to the bank and other errands later. Everyone have a great day!

  2. Good morning, 54 and cloudy in Bellingham. Looks like a fall day outside my window with leaves changing color, a cool breeze, and less morning light. I’ll need to close the windows soon.

    I’ve been making progress with my desk work, the estate work, my ongoing sewing room sorting, and various house projects but nothing is finished. So today I plan to complete something…..no matter how small the task!

    Time for some coffee and then I’ll start thinking about the day.

    • I saw that when it came over my Twitter feed last night!

      Abid Riaz Qureshi would be the first Muslim appointed to the federal bench. I doubt he will even get a hearing as the Republican Party expels the last dying gasps of its Senate majority, determined to land as many blows as possible on the president, our Constitution, and really, on small d democracy.

      I hope that Hillary Clinton’s transition team is putting a priority on getting our federal bench replenished after the obstruction of the 114th Congress. On January 20, 2017, she should send hundreds of nominations to the Senate.

  4. Good morning, meese! Wednesday …

    It is 72 degrees in Madison on its way up to 77. It stormed off and on all night and is storming now. Storms expected all day!

    I got a late start because my sleep was broken up so I haven’t had time to read the news feeds. I was pleased to see in my NY Times morning email that they are FINALLY covering the story about the pay-to-play and Donald Trump’s history of bribery. It would be difficult to find a person with more contempt for the rules and the role of government. That Republicans are blindly accepting him as a legitimate presidential candidate is mind boggling to say the least.

    Hillary Clinton spoke in Tampa yesterday (I watched it on the CSPAN link).

    All three cable “news” networks covered Trump being interviewed by one of his surrogates, Gen. Flynn, live. CNN showed Hillary in a tiny muted box in the corner of the screen, symbolic of the cable news attitude towards her and her campaign. Fine. She is doing retail politics, telling people how to register to vote, when the deadlines are to register, how to volunteer – that is how you win elections.

    Tomorrow she will be speaking in Kansas City at the National Baptist Convention

    The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. (NBC, USA, Inc.) announced today that on Thursday, September 8 at 5:00 p.m CDT., Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, will be allowed to address the delegates in attendance for the 136th Annual Session being held in the Kansas City Convention Center (KCCC). The NBC, USA, Inc. is the nation’s oldest and largest African American religious organization.

    The NBC, USA, Inc. chairman of Social, Civic and Political Commissions, Dr. Amos Brown along with the Convention’s staff are preparing for Mrs. Clinton’s arrival. Prior to her speaking, Dr. Brown and Attorney Charlene Priester will present a lecture on Voter Registration for the delegates at 2:30 p.m. in the KCCC.

    I haven’t seen yet if it will be on CSPAN.

    The Republican Senate forced another vote on the Zika funding bill that was filled with poison pills: confederate flags, defunding Planned Parenthood, repealing the ACA. The Democrats filibustered it, as well they should. Next stop is the House where the pressure is on to pass a clean bill to help fight this terrible disease.

    See all y’all later!

    • Tim Kaine spoke in North Carolina yesterday on national security (18 flags in the background!!!). I have it up in a tab and will listen to it later.

  5. Didn’t walk yesterday, I figured 1st day back at work was tiring enough, and you’re supposed to have rest days in working out. So now I’m eating oatmeal & drinking tea. Very sleepy. Will steer my brain toward City of Blinding Lights to keep me awake.

    Wil Wheaton is really on this Trump scandal. Even if you’re not a geek, if you’re on Twitter, you should follow him, at least till the election’s over.

  6. 73 at sunrise and heading for 90 – watered this morning – still managing to not turn on the A/C – and according to the forecast, today is the worst of it, we’ll start inching down again, especially with the overnight lows, tomorrow. Got just under 15 KWHs yesterday and am sitting at 94.5 this morning (hasn’t really started to generate yet this morning).

    Hillary’s speech was good. Thankfully somebody put a cspan link in one of the Hillary diaries at GOS so I watched it last night after I got home. I’m trying to keep track of our team’s speeches and watch them at home, but it’s a losing battle. This isn’t a tennis game where you’ve got two people and one ball to watch – danged if I can think of a sport this is like, way too many people to try and keep an eye on! Which is good.

    Anyway, got stuff to do – earning my paycheck and all that – Chair brought in balloons and GF dark chocolate muffins this morning to thank us for all the work we do in the office. So very different from the last Chair! But then, the “new” Chair is the main reason I didn’t take early retirement at the end of 2014. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

      • I was planning to. I was getting ready to retire at the end of 2014 when someone upstairs basically said to me, “Hang on. Changes are coming. I can’t tell you what they are, but they are coming.” So I hung on another 6 months. Then they announced the new Chair. She unofficially started June 1, officially started July 1, 2015, and started immediately pulling the department back together. (The irony of the choice is that 10 years back she had to – mention – gender bias to the Powers That Be to get her full very-much-earned full professorship and it was generally understood that she was persona non grata from that point on. After 6 years of our previous Chair, they damn-near fell on her neck when she said she’d take the job.)

  7. Good morning, Meese! Late to the party today because at 7:30 a.m. I was on the phone with Social Security, changing my old direct deposit to the new account number. The trick to getting hold of them is to call at 7:30. I was promised a wait of 12 minutes but it was actually five. The woman I spoke to was very nice.

    Once the direct deposits are in, the branch manager assured me that all my donations (Doctors Without Borders, ACLU, etc.) will be transferred over. So, gradually, things are getting straightened out. With the annuity, it was really easy! I went online and TIAA-CREF makes everything bone-simple.

    Meanwhile, back at the ranch on another rainless, late-summer day, it’s 74 F. going up to 90 F. I’m getting very depressed by the continued lack of rain. We’re used to drought in July and August, but as a rule September brings relief. Not this year. The gardener doesn’t even bother to come nowadays. Why should he, when the grass is dry, dead, and brown?

    Today is—or rather, was—the birthday of Her Sovereign Majesty, Good Queen Bess. I used to know someone who made a white birthday cake every September 7 and frosted it with white frosting in honor of the Virgin Queen. I bring this up because I consider Secretary Clinton to be our own modern-day Virgin Queen. She’s a virgin as far as receiving favorable press coverage is concerned!

    Hoping Dearly Beloved will scan our passports, international driver’s licenses, etc., so we can upload them to iCloud in case they get lost or stolen. We’ll scan the British Rail tickets too when he prints them out.

    Wishing everyone a good day—not sure whether I’ll watch the Forum tonight. My feelings are already hurt because we’re getting Buffoon commercials every 10 minutes and no counter-ads from our candidate. I know she’s pulled her advertising from NoVa, but my feelings are still hurt by Thing’s commercials.

    • I won’t watch the Commander in Chief Forum live but I will try to get a clip of Hillary’s segment later. I will probably follow it on Twitter. I won’t watch Trump, I simply can’t – his face and voice are triggering something that makes me want to punch my TV screen! I was reading something that suggests that Wisconsin will be a battleground state so I am sure that I will soon get Trump ads. The only political ads I have seen were Hillary’s during the Olympics and the pro-Feingold ads which, sadly, show Ron Freaking Johnson’s face!! Election day cannot come soon enough.

      I am glad you got your SSA deposit sorted out easily. And I wish I could send you some of our rain. There is flooding in counties west and north of us as the storm dumped quite a bit of rain on already rain-soaked ground.

      When is your trip again?

      • Jan, we’re leaving (we hope) next Tuesday, September 13. We fly back (we hope) on Thursday, September 22. We fly SA (space available), so there’s always a question as to whether we’ll get on or not.

        The good part: if we don’t, we’ll just turn around and go home. Living 10 minutes from an international airport really helps. :)

  8. Good morning, 56 and cloudy in Bellingham. I’ve got a busy (for me) day ahead with the pool this morning, then working with Sue ( my 2 x’s a month housekeeper), and then a dentist appointment this afternoon. I should go to the lab for a coumadin check too.

    Ryan’s school starts today, so all four grand kids are back to their busy school schedules. Now that I’ve had a rest I miss seeing them so often!

  9. Morning all! Hot and sunny – how I long for days with temps in the 70’s instead of the 90’s! Oh well, we should get there by November.

    Just a quick check in now, have to clean up for the cleaners coming later, and then some WOW playing. I did manage to get the big check deposited yesterday – it’s been here since June when my brothers and I sold our last remaining bit of Tennessee we inherited from my mother, and I just hadn’t gotten myself down to the bank to put it in. I’m trying to put off taking Social Security for another 1 1/2 to 2 years, so that’s part of what will keep me going until then.

    I too will only watch Hillary’s part of the forum tonight – I’m like Jan, I simply can’t listen to Trump. Period. I will say who has surprised me as an effective surrogate for Hillary and that’s Mark Cuban, businessman and owner of big sports team (can’t remember which one, the Houston team or something?) – just saw a clip of him on Fox Business News arguing with the dufus host about e-mails and other things, and he was quite good.

    Ok, everyone have a great day!

    • I can’t listen to him either. I muted Rachel’s show last night when he was talking, and a blind friend of my messages me & asked something about what he said & I had to tell her I have no idea. She said there was a lot of background noise so she couldn’t tell what was going on, I not only had it muted, but I totally zoned out, wasn’t even looking.

  11. Good morning, meese! Thursday …

    It is 72 degrees in Madison on its way up to 79 (high humidity will make it feel like 91). The forecast calls for morning clouds and afternoon sun.

    I made the mistake of watching the Matt Lauer interview of Hillary Clinton last night (I followed the yam on Twitter) and spent the rest of the evening seething. Foolish me thought that a Commander in Chief Forum would be about being commander in chief and there were those damn emails again!! And Matt Lauer, JHC! They must have have given him a testosterone bolus before he went on stage … I am surprised he didn’t open by biting the head off a chicken to show how tough he would be! Twitter was funny – and sad. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus actually told Hillary Clinton to smile more. Maybe they are trying to get Trump’s polling numbers with women down into the single digits with his black support.

    I am keeping an eye on what Congress is doing. They have 22 days to pass a Continuing Resolution to keep the government open after the current fiscal year’s funding expires. The Republican Freedom Caucus wants to shut down the government because, well, they hate the government! The sticking point is that they want to fund until March so that they can beat up President Hillary Clinton over budget issues. The Democrats want to fund until mid-December and then pass an omnibus bill in the lame duck. If the Freedom Caucus withholds their votes, Paul Ryan will need Democrats to pass the CR. And in the midst of all this, the Zika virus is spreading and wreaking havoc on the Florida tourism industry. Ideology has consequences – it would be fitting justice for Rubio to be defeated because he belongs to the party that honors confederate flags over the financial well-being of his state (no, I don’t think he cares about the human life).

    See all y’all later!

  12. Happy Thor’s Day, Moosekind! Partly cloudy here on another hot day. It’s 75 F. now, going up to 90 F. Am pleased to report we received a three-minute shower (not predicted by the weather morons) yesterday evening and at bedtime, a concert by the thunder god! This was followed by such hard rain that even I could hear it. All is dry now, but at least parched, brown Gaia had a little drink.

    Too outraged by the “forum” to comment. I really must clean up my little awful today in between doing all the other errands. Planning the packing very carefully. Just hope I have room for all I want to take. We travel only with carry-on bags because we fly SA.

    Wishing all a good day, and try not to let the news get you down!

  13. Eating oatmeal, drinking tea. Mid-90s this afternoon, with a heat index of 100+. Our cold front next week will have morning lows in the 70s — brrr! Brain is playing California.

    I didn’t listen to Trump’s part of the forum, but this:

    Marlow Stern ‏@MarlowNYC ·

    You’re really gonna conduct a #NBCNewsForum in front of veterans where one of the candidates *dodged the Vietnam draft* and not ask about it

  14. Hillary Clinton will be in North Carolina this morning at 11am Eastern:

    I don’t see the Kansas City speech on the CSPAN schedule yet. I will look for it tomorrow morning.

    She held a press conference on the tarmac this morning but since MSNBC called it a “media availability” it will probably not “count” – just like the presser with the black and Latino journalists didn’t count and the two where she was in her airplane don’t count. ThinkProgress calls folks who deny reality “Press Conference Truthers”. Ha!!

  15. 73 this morning heading for 85 and mostly sunny so far – the problem with sunny in the morning and even partly cloudy in the afternoon is that most of my generation is – or is not – in the afternoon. Got 14.4 KWHs yesterday, a bit less than the day before. We’re heading into a cool spell – overnights should be in the 60s by Saturday morning. I can deal with that. :)

    Last night’s “forum” was totally depressing – and reminded me why I stopped watching corporate media in the 1990s and just plain ol’ got rid of my TV Dec 2000. I trust Hillary and her team to get the win, but basically we’re up against Hitler’s troops protecting Mussolini right now. It’s not just CU, corporate ownership of the media needs to be broken up if we are ever going to be able to get true balance back in the media. And maybe I’m over-reacting (today’s Tricia’ birthday, she’d have been 46) but I don’t think so.

    Waiting on some answers before I can proceed on the stack of stuff I need to do today so I guess I’ll go read HNV at GOS. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{Hugs}}}

  16. Good morning, 58 and cloudy in Bellingham. I remain shocked and angry re the forum fiasco last night. How can someone with Laurer’s experience and resources do such a bad job? His continued interruptions when HRC was talking smacked of sexist disregard and his tolerance of the yams bs was embarrassing to watch.

    Jonathan Chait, Matt Lauer’s Pathetic Interview of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Is the Scariest Thing I’ve Seen in This Campaign

    Nancy LeTourneau, Welcome to My Worm Hole

  18. Good morning, meese! Friday …

    It is 57 degrees in Madison on its way up to 81. Storms expected this afternoon ahead of a cool front.

    Finally, Friday! These weeks with holidays in them mess up my internal calendar and seem to drag on forever.

    Two things I read yesterday struck me. One was Charlie Pierce’s column sorta-defending Matt Lauer and discussing how the complete deluge of lies from Trump (and the Republicans) cannot be handled by the type of press that we have right now. That led to reading a rant by Kevin Drum at MoJo (which quoted the wormhole column by Nancy LeTourneau at WaMo that princesspat posted above).

    But the most moving thing I read was posted on Twitter from a Facebook screenshot of an interview of Hillary Clinton where she talks about the kind of sexism she has encountered and why she may not seem warm and open to people. The interviews are reprinted here on Humans of New York: one and two. From the first:

    I know that I can be perceived as aloof or cold or unemotional. But I had to learn as a young woman to control my emotions. And that’s a hard path to walk. Because you need to protect yourself, you need to keep steady, but at the same time you don’t want to seem ‘walled off.’ And sometimes I think I come across more in the ‘walled off’ arena. And if I create that perception, then I take responsibility. I don’t view myself as cold or unemotional. And neither do my friends. And neither does my family. But if that sometimes is the perception I create, then I can’t blame people for thinking that.

    Dara Lind at Vox had more on the double standard Hillary is held to. Some people on Twitter are starting to use the hashtag #ILikeHillary to counter the media narrative included in nearly every article that she is unliked. I like her!

    Hillary was in Kansas City yesterday evening speaking to the National Baptist Convention. CSPAN has the video (but did not cover it live):

    See all y’all later!!

      • Ha! My comment took a long time (I’m slowing down as I get older) and we were probably composing at the same time.

        I am listening to the speech right now. She is such a natural in that venue. The president of the group said “it is not BREAKING NEWS that she is here with us … she has always been here for us.”

        I hope folks did not ask her if she thought Kansas City barbecue was the best in the country – it is a subject sure to create conflict!

        • This – “it is not BREAKING NEWS that she is here with us … she has always been here for us.” sums it up.
          Same goes for her showing up for Latino events over the years.

          Had BHO not been in the race in ’08 – I would have had no problems voting for Hillary – since she was never “off” my radar.

          • I went back to get the exact quote from Rev. Jerry Young (I was still listening to the speech):

            “All of us know her, she has been involved in our community for quite some time … her being here is not Breaking News.”

  19. Good morning Meese

    TGIF. Getting myself up – and will head off to school at about 10AM.

    I just posted a comment over at Orange, in Lysis’ HNV diary – which I will repost here:

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    I just got finished re-watching Hillary’s speech to the National Baptist Convention “Founded in 1886, the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. (Convention) is the nation’s oldest and largest African American religious convention with an estimated membership of 7.5 million.”
    What amazes me — is that I’ve been watching Hillary give speeches to Black groups for years — she is always very comfortable and hasn’t shied away from discussing her faith — is that all of a sudden the press acts as if this is brand new.
    For those of you who are not practicing Christians — the speech may not have much meaning. It did strike deep chords in her listeners. She is clearly not a “fake” Christian. She lives by a social justice faith tradition — this is one of the reasons she has garnered black Christian support over the years.
    I didn’t see a transcript

    She spoke about “translating love into action” and touched on guns, Flint water, credit unions Rosa Parks, affordable housing, Clyburn’s “10, 20, 30 plan” , the assault on Voting Rights, which she called “a blast from the Jim Crow Past,” funding for HBCUs, black women and small business….
    The chords she struck were audible from the audience, in the call response tradition. Her biblical references are not something just stuck in by a speechwriter. When you listen to her you are clear she was raised by a mom who taught Sunday school — and had an excellent youth minister.
    Just to note here — I’m not Christian and was not raised in the church (black or white) — though I have had very broad exposure to world religions from early childhood on — and I teach the subject.
    Many folks on the left get real uncomfortable when this topic comes up — for a host of reasons — some of which I understand. However, dismissing those of faith — isn’t a good thing (imho) .
    I’m sure this speech is making the rounds on black Christian facebook pages.
    Hope other folks will pass it on too.

    • Denise, I always wondered what African-American women get out of a patriarchal religion that despises them for being human and female. You explained the role the black church has played in the community, and then I understood.

      It seems the black church is needed just as much as ever.

    • Denise – I found that last night and posted it in the Evening Edition. She “fits” the address – not a speech – in a way very few white people would be willing to. Bill of course, Tim Kaine I think, but really I think she likes coming to black churches just because she can express herself this way to black Christians.

  20. This whole business with Trump/Putin really bothers me – I wonder why more journalists aren’t (in their own self-interest) pointing to the ways in which living under Putin is more than just dealing with an “authoritarian”

    I mean the guy has had journalists killed. Russia under Putin’s fist still gets defended by folks on the left – which really makes me wonder what reality they live in.

    Reporters Without Borders has an interesting interactive global map, and the Committee to Protect Journalists tracks deaths.

    I guess many US journalists think “It Can’t Happen Here” which makes me think of Frank Zappa.

    • The “left” that think highly of Putin basically believe that American international information is CIA propaganda and so get their international information from the Russian media. When I pointed out to a friend of mine who falls in that camp that the Russian media is KGB propaganda, the response was something along the line of “but they aren’t building bases on our southern border”. sigh.

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