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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– Page One of Comments is HERE
– Page Two of Comments is HERE
Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 59 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 73. Rain is in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Sunday Meese
50 degrees here in Saugerties NY. This is weird.
Sat here watching live TV from Houston which looks like a giant lake.
Prayers for everyone down there.
I am enjoying the cool weather but it is definitely weird. The middle of August is usually the hottest time of the year. We are going to barely hit daytime highs of 70 degrees for the rest of the week.
My Sunday morning piece will be discussing this statue in NYC and related topics
I am looking forward to reading about why on earth someone like that would be memorialized in bronze.
I noticed that there appears to be some awakening to the fact that celebrating the traitors who started a Civil War in order to continue to own other human beings is a bad thing. Rep. Sean Duffy from Wisconsin, a man so deep up Trump’s ass that he is often mistaken for an endoscope, came out a few days ago against the statues:
I wonder if this means he is feeling the heat in his district. Over 12,000 Wisconsinites gave their lives to preserve the union – it is difficult to defend your party’s embrace of Confederate glory under those circumstances and even more so when your party is called The Party of Lincoln.
I have WI ancestors. My great great grandfather James Bratt (who was white) fought in the Civil War in the 6th Independent Battery, Wisconsin Light Artillery.
It is amazing to me every time I hear about a Republican politician from a state that fought for the Union during the Civil War harumphing about those wanting to take down the statues glorifying traitors.
Gawd, I wish the federal government had tossed a bunch of those guys in prison! Then we could put up statues showing them in shackles – a reminder of their disgrace not their “glory”.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut gave the Democratic Party’s Weekly Address. His district is finding a way to recover from the loss of Eastman Kodak which in its heyday employed over 150,000 people worldwide. I know that “A Better Deal” got panned as an awful slogan but the plan Congressional Democrats put forward is solid in what it wants to do for the American people.
We will win back Congress with our better ideas and our stand against the politics of hatred and division.
Am disgusted re the push for caucuses by the so-called Unity Commission
Just filed my opinion
I filled out that DNC questionnaire yesterday. Caucuses are the most undemocratic way to select a nominee – they should all, including the Sacred Iowa Caucus, be banned.
The sane brother Atkins, Dante, pointed out just how awful they were in a Tweet yesterday:
I would add to 5/x that state parties can also have discrimination against mainstream candidates! Our party was taken over by berners which is one of the reasons that Hillary lost Wisconsin – the DPW was berned out and could not be bothered supporting the nominee because she did not win our state and they were poisoned by their purity.
That the DNC is even considering adding more is sheer insanity. I noticed that Konst is a blogger with the Young Turks, Cenk’s organization. Who’s idea was it to put someone who hates the Democratic Party on a Unity Commission??? JHC!
My part of town looks like a normal rainy day. Streets aren’t flooded — at least they weren’t when I went out yesterday & I only saw 1 traffic light out. Church canceled the 8:30 service, but having Sunday school & the 11 o’clock one. Local news is all about Houston, so I’m assuming nowhere in Austin is bad. Going to make oatmeal for next week and maybe squeeze in a gym visit. They were open yesterday, that’s how normal things are in my part of town. Here is a sweet song by Snow Patrol, about the important things in life, called Lifening (that 2nd verse makes me laugh & also gives me hope because just not long ago you’d never hear someone from “N’orn” say that)
A hand upon my forehead, the joking and the laugh
Waking up in your arms, a place to call my own
This is all I ever wanted from life, this is all I ever wanted from life
This is all I ever wanted from life
Ireland in the World Cup either North or South
The fan club on the jukebox, the birds and yes the bees
This is all I ever wanted from life, this is all I ever wanted from life
This is all I ever wanted from life
Words of reassurance but only if they’re true
Just some simple kindness, no vengeance from the gods
This is all I ever wanted from life, this is all I ever wanted from life
This is all I ever wanted from life
To share what I’ve been given, some kids eventually
And be for them what I’ve had, a father like my dad
This is all I ever wanted from life, this is all I ever wanted from life
This is all I ever wanted from life
This is all I ever wanted from life, this is all I ever wanted from life
This is all I ever wanted from life
Good morning, 61 and sunny in Bellingham. I made more progress pruning salal yesterday, and hope to do more today if my BCH leg will allow. I’ve had to ignore some areas of the garden so it’s rewarding to see the path clear again and to find the ferns have survived.
We’ll have dinner with our sons tonight and watch this season’s last episode Game of Thrones. So in my little world all is well…..just wish I could say the same for tRump America.
No clue what it was a dawn other than somewhere in the 60s – it’s 70 now and sunny at the moment. Sun finally came out yesterday around 1 pm – got 14.5 KWHs and the m-t-d at the moment is 330. As long as the system doesn’t go down again, we’ll at least meet the 350 of August 2014 (2.5K system) by the end of the month. Might get over 400 KWHs but I’m not holding my breath. Baking done (chocolate muffins) and sausages ready for the next couple of weeks (trying a link sausage from the co-op – it’s very lean for sausage at 60 calories, 3.5 g fat, and 7 g protein per ounce). Most of the household chores done. Haven’t vacuumed yet. Don’t want the noise right now. But I will shortly.
Evil is as evil does. The “unity” group is pretty much the same as the RWNJs. True Believers in their own propaganda every one. Never mind that honest to goodness data shows that jsfv was actually helped by the DNC and the procedures in place, every other scenario shows him getting beaten even worse than he was with the current system – they believe that open caucuses would have elected him so that’s what they are pushing. Nothing good or right for the American people much less for the Dem Party, just the mythology of bernie-woulda-won. There is a serious difference between “I find that hard to believe, let me check it out” and “I don’t believe it and I won’t believe it no matter what you show me”. When you couple that with a mythology about when things get too bad there’ll be a revolution and they’ll come running to us for the solution – well, we red-state Dems dang-sure know better and the solid blues (like CA and NY) seem to know better. It’s the on-the-edge states that are listening because given a choice between “work hard to prevent this evil” and “kick back and let it get really, really bad so they’ll come to us” you know what most Extreme Left choose.
Meanwhile I’m doing my best with my fundraisers but I’m a whole lot of not being able to contact anybody on my list for updates. And I’m worried about my Houston friends and family – last “check in” was about 7 pm last night when MomentaryGrace posted a comment in my Sharing Saturday diary because she knew I’d see it there. (She said everybody was fine and safe but the rain was about to move in.)
Need to go read Denise’s diary – If I can. I whole-hearted support her contention that the evil bastid should be treated like the evil bastid he is and definitely that statue should come down, just not sure I can manage details without getting sick – I carry enough nightmares, some of them over 60 years old, I don’t need any new ones. Michael wasn’t feeling well so didn’t do a British Breakfast this week – at DK I put together a substitute gathering diary and WYgalinCali added tweets so it wasn’t just Resistance information links so I need to check in on that. Then I need to go do the vacuuming. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Raining harder, windy — even with an umbrella, my skirt got soaked (& so windy that I flashed people when I go out of my car). Grocery stores & restaurants are open. I got a taco because I couldn’t take home made food again. And there’s a tree down in my neighborhood. But just the one, which is good. Counties to our east have canceled the 1st day of school tomorrow, Austin started last week, probably won’t cancel.
{{{another}}} stay safe. noweasels has an Update PSA Harvey Checkin Thread 5 — with “check in only” comment to keep the checkins at the top of the diary – I’m assuming mostly for the Houston area folks but here’s the link.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/8/27/1693722/-Tropical-Storm-Harvey-Check-In-Thread-5
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 66 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 72. Showers this morning, thundershowers in the afternoon. I am not sure how much impact Harvey will have up here – usually big storm events on the Gulf Coast end up changing weather patterns up here, generally to bring more rain.
I was reading a thread from ProPublica that included a report on the danger Houston had put themselves in by their lack of zoning and lack of regulation regarding wetland preservation. They are the ultimate “Don’t Tread on Me” city in the ultimate “Don’t Tread on Me” state. I am willing to bet that Houston has tried to fix some of these things but that there are state laws that say “you shall not do anything that is for the greater good if it tramples the rights of one person to destroy the lives of thousands”. I know that last week the Angry Apricot rolled back flood standards for infrastructure projects. We are literally returning to the 19th century – everyone can do what they want in order to make a buck and there are no rules against exploitation of labor, destruction of natural resources, or any concern about the future. I hope we can survive long enough to fix the mess being created. We need to hyperfocus on getting back one of the houses of Congress.
I am going to try sorting my outrage into two categories: disgust at the person of Donald Trump and the damage he is doing to the presidency and our country’s reputation abroad versus the policies that are being implemented under the Trump Administration and by the Republican Congress. The focus on the former is distracting many of us from the latter and it is the thing that we have the least control over. There will be no pivot, there is no adult guiding what is happening in the Oval Office and Donald J. Trump will always be disgusting and completely unfit. The rest of it we can do something about: we can contact our Congressmembers and raise the heat under them via protests, we can file lawsuits against the rollback of regulations and the violations of people’s civil rights, we can protest racism and bigotry to shine a big light on the Republican Party’s platform of exclusion, we can organize to win elections and take back the states and then Congress and then, in 2020, the presidency. But we can’t change the fact that there is a buffoon in the White House and we need to set our disgust aside as quickly as possible after each new outrage.
And don’t get me started on caucuses! JHC, we are going to shoot our own feet off! I like Tom Perez but he apparently has no backbone or no power or believes that giving in to the Sandernistas somehow unifies our party. What if it were that the KKK wanted to be Democrats again? Certainly we would say no to the divisive politics they would bring. Why are we embracing a group that hates Democrats, denies that any identity but “white” is valuable to the public conversation and have one issue – oligarchs? We can’t fix oligarchy, we can’t fix corporate and individual greed, we are not going to “shut down Wall Street” and we should not unilaterally disarm when it comes to political contributions. We can’t fix anything until we have electoral power and change will be incremental. These are the same people who were pissing all over the ACA because it wasn’t perfect and were willing to have nothing instead. Go away, purists, form your own party where you can argue with each other and get off our lawn! Harumph.
See all y’all later!
I will follow and tweet anyone who is pushing back against the idiotic and destructive advocacy of caucuses.
That crap is beyond stupid. Have to remember to use the hashtag
#StopCaucuses
Amen, Jan – and they don’t form their own party because they can’t. They have no idea how to and don’t want to learn. They think if they take ours the organization and power we’ve worked so hard to build will magically give them what they want. They do not understand – and will not understand – that the very things they are having temper tantrums about is what gives our part that organization and power. Without it, we’re the Greens under wottsername.
Exactly, bfitz!! The Democratic Party put real blood sweat and tears into rebuilding after the LBJ years. Between the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights laws, we were trying to figure out where our coalitions were. We know now.
As a party, we have ballot access in every state and party structures and, now, a 50 state strategy. The berners want to waltz in and cherry-pick which states they will run their anti-Wall Street people in and jettison the South because they know they can’t compete there. No no no. We sink or swim as a national party, blue states, purple states and red states – no Democrat left behind.
Good morning, Meese. It’s 6:30 a.m. here in NoVa, too early to tell what sort of day it’s going to be. Current temp. is 55 F., going up to 75 F.
This afternoon I’m going to look after my youngest grandson in the next county over, so will be leaving home around 11 in order to pick him up at noon from the day care. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll pick up Miss Pink Cheeks from her new school. Wednesday and Thursday afternoons I’ll look after the two little Japanese-American boys I looked after earlier this year.
My poor husband slipped in the apple tree yesterday when he climbed up there with the rake to get the highest apples. The ladder was perfectly secure but he was wearing the wrong kind of shoes. He’s very bruised and scratched, so has been laid up since midday yesterday. I wish I didn’t have to leave him for the afternoon.
Like everyone else, I’m heartsick at the awful devastation in Houston. Learned from the family FB page that some of our Houston relatives fled to a safer location but that a very young cousin is still there in his apartment. I hope his mother urged him to get out.
Lots to do before I leave: rinse the raspberries and string beans and wash the apples we picked yesterday. I’m taking them to Elder Son, who delights in organic produce.
Hope the coming week doesn’t bring any more bad news and that Texas will get the help it needs. They say this is a once-in-500-years event.
Oh dear – sorry to hear about your hubby – sending healing waves!
{{{Diana}}} – Healing Energy to your husband and household. (And I’d say that flood in TX is more like a one in 5,000-year event.)
Thank you, Moose sisters! He’s feeling a little better and getting about with a cane. We will go out to vote for Karen Keys-Gamara this morning. She’s running for an at-large seat on the school board, previously held by a Republican.
Monday Meese – 50 here in Saugerties NY going up to 76.
Trying to get prepared for first day of school tomorrow – my teaching partner and I are still trying to finish up on the syllabus.
Luckily – we don’t teach much of anything on the first day – we just go over what students can expect and introduce ourselves.
Work is on 2 hour delay, which is nice. Watching the news & eating oatmeal. There was one tree down in my neighborhood yesterday, but on a side street so not blocking much traffic. I may move my plants back out to normal places this evening. We’re just getting rain, lots of it but just rain. Evacuations to our east but Austin got lucky.
61 around dawn, 66 now and heading for 82 – totally not normal for August, not even the “old normal” much less the “new normal” – feels more like September or even October. PV generation unfortunately is more like September, too. But better than October. :) Got 17.7 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 346.7 so might, maybe but not going to bet on it, crest 400 for the month. At least will beat the 2.5K system’s August 2014 total – but not by much.
Extreme Left = Extreme Right, elitist authoritarians. But we outnumber them. Our task isn’t to somehow convince them to be on our side, neither of them will ever do that. Our task is to help the folks who tried to vote but weren’t allowed so they can vote and convince those who didn’t vote to do so. And the more we focus on that the more both Extreme Right and Extreme Left are relegated to street-corner proselytizing. Eyes on the Prize is a lot more than elections, it’s our entire progressive Equal Human (including all human beings no matter what) Rights goal – but to change policy and reallocate resources we need to get our people to the polls and win elections.
Still haven’t made contact with most of my community needs folks (nor my cousins in Houston – what happens when you’re an “exchange holiday cards” family – I no longer have valid contact information) but i shall persist. Somehow managed to be responsible for 6 DK diaries in the last 4 days which would have been exhausting enough without the Harvey/Houston worries – last i heard MomentaryGrace checked in via FB last evening around 5 pm. Holding Good Thoughts all around – just sending Good Energy out into the Universe to be shaped and used as needed.
Gotta get back to work. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Bfitz, you sound overloaded with work! Thanks for everything you do.
Good morning, 76 and sunny in Bellingham. I woke up late and had to scoot to get to the pool. I benefit so much from the pool workout I have to go regardless of how I feel. It was hard to get out the door this morning, but now that I’m back home I’m feeling much more energetic.
We’ve got warm weather again, so the garden needs watering. RonK is in Oregon staying with our daughter and going to a family funeral so I’ll have to drag the hoses around. His aunt was in her nineties and her death was expected but it’s still a time of transition for her family. I’m glad he can be there.
The news from Houston is so sad and alarming. May our nation find a way to help people rebuild their lives.
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …
It is 61 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 73. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast.
Supreme Court Justice Sam “Hates Black and Brown People Voting” Alito issued a stay on the redrawing of the Texas districts that were created with discriminatory intent, signalling that now that he has new pal Neil “Hates Black People Who Refuse to Freeze to Death” Gorsuch to help return the nation to original intent “white male landowner” franchise, that pesky Voting Rights Act can be ignored. Curse you, people whose non-voting purity will destroy our democracy!
The shitgibbon admitted yesterday that his presidency is a reality TV show for him and that he considers the TV ratings of his various tweets and announcements before he makes them. The media should stop reacting to his every pronouncement – really, it is all a rerun now – and concentrate on reporting on the actual impacts of Republican governance.
AP reported that most Houstonians have no insurance and will have no way to rebuild. That is what happens when we have tens of millions of people living paycheck to paycheck and often trying to figure out which bills to pay. A report I read a few days ago said that 6 in 10 Americans do not even have $500 in savings. And now, with an avowed ungenerous federal government, there will be a lot of hurt.
See all y’all later!
Good Tuesday Morning Meese
It’s 54 degrees here in Saugerties NY – going up to a “high” of 69 – bizarre August weather. First day of school – at least I don’t have rain for my drive. Class starts at 2PM so I will have zero traffic.
Wrote BKos yesterday – for today and was so overwhelmed with all the stuff going on – I decided to do musical birthday celebration piece instead – to lift my spirits.
Today is 3 black musical b-days – Michael Jackson. Dinah Washington and Charlie Parker
Bird
Dinah
MJ
Rev. Barber is kickin’ ass and taking names – too many great tweets to post here – a sample
A good AlJ video clip
Poor peoples campaign – and march from Charlottesville to DC
That march is an amazing undertaking. I hope it gets covered well.
I doubt it will be unless twitter and facebook can push the press
{{{Denise}}} – i’ve got a comment about the March linking to your Sunday Diary for info in the Village Morning Edition at DK – if you could drop by and give them the FB and twitter info for following, we might be able to pick a few more that way. (I tried to copy the tweets you posted above but they won’t paste properly at DK – sorry I’m so technically inept.)
Thanks for posting these! Following.
Thanks – they will need a lot of tweets and retweets
Ha! After I followed them, I got a notice I’m on their “Texas partners” list.
As well you should be!!
It’s finally stopped raining — in Austin. Houston is still going to get more. Tea. Oatmeal. Bad night’s sleep. I tossed & turned & tossed… looked at my watch & I’d been in bed an hour; I thought it had to be at least midnight. I hate nights like that. Using City of Blinding Lights to give me energy.
Looks like Austin is getting a visit from the Orange madman.
Yep, lucky us — and he’s going to my neighborhood, too. He’s leaving at 4:30 so hopefully as I’m heading to the gym & home, traffic will be back to it’s normal badness rather than “presidential visit” badness.
Ick! I wondered where he would end up – assuming that anything south of Austin would be hard to get to. He probably wants to visit your awful governor and, hopefully, give him the kiss of death. Do you have anyone to run against Abbott next year?