Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Sept. 10th through Sept. 16th

September 9, 2017 JanF Community 85

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 are HERE.

  • Page Two of Comments are HERE.

39 Comments

  1. Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …

    Morning low of 50 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 70. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. The Weekly Democratic Party address was by Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, chair of the House Hispanic Caucus. Her speech is in the Fighting Back post:

    Fighting Back: To DREAMers, ‘We see you. We know you. We believe in you. Democrats are right there with you.’

    The window to get the DREAMer bill passed is narrow. In my mind, it needs to be passed in September because renewals for the DACA recipients who will be impacted by the executive order begin October 5th. Let’s hope Congress, now that they don’t have to worry about the debt ceiling and a government shutdown, can move quickly to one of the bills on the table.

  3. Good morning Sunday Morning Meese

    52 degrees here – and the furnace is on. Weird weather continues.
    Watching Irma and continuing to follow the destruction it left behind in the Caribbean

    Had seen this tweet from the Bahamas and could hardly believe it

    Found an explanation on HuffPo

    Angela Fritz, The Washington Post’s deputy weather editor, confirmed this phenomenon is real and may occur during extremely powerful hurricanes such as Irma. The storm is so powerful, it can essentially change the shape of the ocean, Fritz said.
    “Basically, Hurricane Irma is so strong and its pressure is so low, it’s sucking water from its surroundings into the core of the storm,” Fritz wrote.
    “In the center of the storm, where there is extreme low pressure, water is drawn upward. Low pressure is basically a sucking mechanism — it sucks the air into it, and when it’s really low, it can change the shape of the surface of the ocean. As the storm draws water toward the center, it gets pulled away from the surroundings.”
    Wayne Neely, a forecaster with the Bahamas’ Department of Meteorology, warned residents of Long Island and Exuma, where water had also reportedly receded from the beaches, to be careful as the ocean returned back to high levels.

    “Care must be taken in this case because the water often returns with even greater fury,” Neely said in a Facebook post explaining the phenomenon.

    Will actually be discussing religion this Sunday morning,
    Have been disturbed by comments from folks on the so-called left I’ve read against all Evangelicals (and folks of faith in general)
    This – imho is totally stupid and attacks a big chunk of our Democratic Party base .
    I am opening with RevBarber – who is Evangelical and exploring other black progressive Evangelical leaders

    Back to Irma watching

    Prayers for everyone in FL and GA to stay safe

    • I saw that video yesterday! Amazing phenomenum. An article I read by a meteorologist (she called it the “bulge”) said it was exciting for scientists to be able to see it:

      As a meteorologist, there are things you learn in textbooks that you may never see in person. You know they happen theoretically, but the chances of seeing the most extraordinary weather phenomena are slim to none.

      By the way, you can pretty much make a macro to paste this into most comments about dozens of things: “Have been disturbed by comments from folks on the so-called left”. Joy Ann Reid had a great smackdown to the berners saying she is over them and they need to go away. The whole thread is great but THIS!!!

      This part was particularly pertinent:

      Your candidate fought hard in the primary, in which the Democratic Party allowed him to compete WITHOUT becoming a Democrat.
      Registered Democrats, including people so Democraty they WORKED FOR THE DNC didn’t like it and shocker – PREFERRED THAT THE DEMOCRAT WIN.

      I am done with the DNC. They are giving Sanders a platform for his butthurt white-identity tour and putting a “kick me” sign on their backs. I think the rank and file have already turned their back on Sanders and the cowardly DNC.

  4. Good sunny Sunday morning, Meese! It’s 53 F. at 9 a.m. here in NoVa, going up to 73 F. later. We haven’t had the air conditioning on for two and a half weeks. We are enjoying having the windows open and fresh air swooping in.

    Our alleged garden has that dying, end-of-summer look, although I did get a tomato out of it for Hubby’s breakfast. Might scrape a few runner beans for dinner. Last night I made an apple crumble from our own apples.

    Irma is hitting the Florida Keys at the moment, and seems as if it’s skipping the side of Florida that has Miami-Melbourne-and on up—or if not skipping, at least not affecting that side quite as badly.

    Have been reading that it’s better to get Alzheimer’s patients to a safe shelter in place than to evacuate them. Having witnessed the transformation of one of my closest friends into an Alzheimer’s patient this year, I can well believe this. She’s always talking about how she’s been turned out of her home, how THEY are planning to “kick her out” of where she is now (Memory Care in a very high-end retirement community), and how she’s packing her bags to leave.

    It’s very sad, because this woman traveled to Russia three times, beginning in the 1950s, when she refused to swallow Eisenhower-era propaganda that all Russians were evil communists. She decided to go to that country and meet Russians for herself. She worked for a think tank as she grew older and took advantage of their free college tuition to earn a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University. Sigh. I wish they’d find a cure for this frightful disease. P. has been a feisty, funny woman in her day.

    With all the attention paid to hurricanes threatening WHITE PEOPLE, not many are concerned with the Mexican 8.1 earthquake, which killed at least 80 people! Poor old Mexico. The world is in a terrible state. As bfitz says, we all just have to get on with our own little bit and try to make things better for others.

    • I love not having to have the air conditioning on! Not only kind to my budget but I very much enjoy the fresh air.

      I have noticed many trees starting to turn fall colors already. It seems early to me but my seasonal clock has been out of sync for the past 10 months so maybe this is when it begins. The more compromised trees always turn early but this seems to be more widespread.

      I saw some excellent news about Virginia: that your electronic voting machines will be replaced with paper ballots for this fall’s election. It is about time! There should not be any electronic voting machines anywhere that don’t produce a paper one-person-one-vote ballot that can be reviewed and then used for recounts. If our election machines are hackable (which Republicans have no interest in investigating), we will never get out of the mess we are in. Our only hope is fair and honest elections; I am certain that decent people outnumber the deplorables and if people have confidence that their vote will be counted they will be more likely to come out and cast a vote. Your election is important to the whole country because big Democratic Party wins will generate enthusiasm to attract good, qualified candidates for the midterms when more governorships and states legislatures are on the line. So many Republicans run without Democratic challengers because people consider it an uphill battle to unseat and incumbent. Make them all sweat next year!!

      • Yes, Jan, getting rid of the voting machines is excellent news! Here in Fairfax County we’ve been using paper ballots for a good two or three years. It’s why I was able to photograph my ballot showing that I was casting a vote for a woman nominee for POTUS.

        Sniff.

        • In Wisconsin we use optical scanners so it is the best of both worlds: quick machine counting but the ability to manually count paper if needed. I think there are some places that have machines for those who can’t fill out an oval due to a physical limitation and I am not sure how that is handled. A good solution would be to have the machine produce a scannable ballot and have that scanned in by a poll worker, if necessary.

          I have one of those ballot selfies also. :(

      • I was just coming here to share that news!!!

        I retweeted Joy Ann Reid’s tweet as well as Dee’s.

    • Excellent post. Do our evangelicals have a specific way they would prefer to have the pro-Trump evangelicals referred to? I am not comfortable with “white Evangelicals” even though that is the demographic they refer to in polls. I have been using “right-wing evangelicals” (or fundies) after I first became aware of the distinction.

      The good news is that white evangelicals are in demographic decline. So while their impact on the 2016 election, turning away from the teachings of their Jesus while they embrace the teachings of their TV preachers, was huge, they may not have the power to sway the next election:

      White evangelical Protestants are in decline—along with white mainline Protestants and white Catholics. White evangelical Protestants were once thought to be bucking a longer trend, but over the past decade their numbers have dropped substantially. Fewer than one in five (17%) Americans are white evangelical Protestant, but they accounted for nearly one-quarter (23%) in 2006.

      They can drag the Republican Party into the trashbin of history with them:

      White evangelical Protestants remain the dominant religious force in the GOP. More than one-third (35%) of all Republicans identify as white evangelical Protestant, a proportion that has remained roughly stable over the past decade. Roughly three-quarters (73%) of Republicans belong to a white Christian religious group.

  6. Watching the news, eating breakfast & made my tea extra strong because muscle relaxer. Today: church, groceries, get next week’s food together. My bag is already packed for next weekend. So much bad in the world — storms, earthquakes, drought/fires not even making the news, massacre in Burma with more threatened — again not even making the news. Just looking for something good. Playing happy music in my head.

  7. Mid 50s was the low, 60 now and heading for 79 – sunny with some feathery clouds at the moment. Got 15 KWHs yesterday and m-t-d is 154 – so far so good. Back in drought mode but my yard is going to have to survive or not by itself. I don’t know what brushed against my face when I was watering last week but I’m not chancing doing it again – at least not until I recover from the itching/swelling and can actually wear my glasses again. Eyes are still having trouble focusing on anything – takes 3x as long to do anything, especially read and type comments online but really anything. I didn’t get my baking into the oven until after 8 and it’s usually just before 7. It’s done now but I think I’m just gonna live with being ankle-deep in cat hair and dust bunnies this week and give the cleaning a miss. Hope the insurance actually covers my doctor’s visit and RX – just did co-pays yesterday but since it’s the first time I’ve been to a doctor in about 4 years there’s no way I’ve met the deductible.

    Holding the Good Thought for Nancy Pelosi finagling one of the Dream Acts through – not quite as confident in Schumer, but he only has to hold his group together and pick up a couple of Rs so he might be able to pull it off. Holding the Good Thought anyway. Even if it weren’t just evil to uproot kids brought here when they were little and send them to a country they don’t know, it’s incredibly stupid to send kids who are now starting to put back into the system what they took growing up (like all other kids – Dreamers didn’t take any more out of the system, probably took less out of the system, than my kids did). AR alone would lose over $200 million a year GDP if the Dreamers are deported. Meanwhile concentrating on my community needs lists even though they’re pretty stagnant as far as donations are concerned – and unfortunately growing as far as people on them are concerned. (I’ve had it as short as 10 – there are now 14 and there’s another coming as soon as she gets all her numbers together and knows what to ask for.)

    Reached my brother outside of Tallahassee this morning. Too late for evacuation (as in the roads are so crowded he’d be more likely to face Irma on the road – very bad idea), but he’s in a cement building of multiple stories, is stocked up, and has a generator plus gas. He’s more concerned for the rest of the family in Tallahassee proper but thinks they’ll be OK – elevation is over 200′, over 4x Houston, so it’s “just” the winds and not surge or flooding they need to worry about. Cleanup will be the real issue.

    Heading over to DK to – slowly – read Denise’ diary and check in the Village diary I posted earlier this morning. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}} and please be safe all of you in harm’s way.

  8. Good morning, 56 and partly sunny in Bellingham. A very quiet morning in the PNW, and I’m slowly waking up. Time to find some coffee.

    Best Sunday wishes to all.

  9. Good morning, meeses! Monday …

    It is 45 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 73. Sunny skies are in the forecast. A perfect day, really. Cool mornings, comfortable afternoon and evening, sun if I want to go find it.

    I have not checked the status of the hurricanes yet this morning. I hope that the people who could not evacuate found shelter. It looked very dangerous. I was trying to grasp just how disruptive a weather event like this would be on one’s life and it is really impossible. This will not be an hour or a day or even a week, but even assuming one can return to a relatively undamaged home, a several week recovery. For those who lose homes or livelihoods, it could be months.

    This week in Congress we keep our eye on the DREAMer legislation. I am hoping we get some direction on which bill to push for so that we can start making calls. I don’t want to call Ron Freaking Johnson and just say “take care of the DACA kids” – I want a bill I can refer to. Senate committees are working on fixes to the ACA to keep the payments to insurance companies going and, I hope, restoring the funding for getting the word out on the shortened enrollment period and other changes that tRump’s HHS has put in place to try to destroy the exchanges.

    I was laughing at the “Trump is Not a Republican” stories – puh-freaking-lease, and then at the news that Steve Bannon has put together a hit list of Senate Republicans who he and the Mercers will be primarying. I am not sure it helps us if a crazier person than Bob Corker runs in Tennessee (they are pretty red there) but primarying out the incumbent Richard Lugar in Indiana created an opening for Democrat Joe Donnelly. Angry “moderate” Republicans staying home or voting for a Democrat may make some of those “Safe Republican” go toss-up. If nothing else, it will make Mitch McConnell regret his “this is fine” reaction to a completely unfit man being nominated by his party.

    I am hoping for a quiet week to catch up on projects. Last week’s holiday shortened week – and school starting and the EquiSUX breach – made everything seem frantic and little got done.

    See all y’all later!

  10. Me & my cane made it in to work ok, though in was never my work. Leaving at 5, it’s a much busier street. Oatmeal, tea — which is definitely not strong enough. I bought an eye treatment at Target yesterday that has caffeine. Sure, I hope it does something for my puffy eyes, but also — caffeine. Playing The Blackout in my head. Energetic & upbeat.

    When the lights go out
    Don’t you ever doubt
    The light that we can really be

  11. Good morning, Meese. It’s fair in NoVa, with a current temp. of 51 F., going up to 73 F. later today.

    Have been reading Twitter and looking at the hurricane coverage on TV. Those poor souls! It’s like the aftermath of a war in terms of property damage and disrupted lives.

    Today is the sad anniversary of September 11, 2001. I’ll never forget how normal the beginning of that day seemed before the horror. Even now it boggles the mind.

    Hubby is mending, although very slowly. The pain in his legs keeps him awake on and off all night. Today will be a day of catching up with housework and most of all, writing. I have chapter 13 to work on; the scenes are pretty well mapped out, already, it’s just having the focus to sit down and write them after I get Dearly Beloved settled for the day. I’ll leave the house just before 4 p.m. to meet Miss Pink Cheeks’ bus and wait with her until her mom and Mr. Preschooler arrive.

    Wishing all as good a day as possible.

  12. Good morning Meese
    Spent the last few hours in meditation on Sept 11
    Thinking of that day – since I worked in the WTC – and didn’t go into work that day – each year I sit and think of those who did.

  13. 53 at dawn and heading for 80 – sunny with some fluffy clouds again – got 15 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 168 so still doing well for September. My face is still red and swollen but at least not itching (and the swelling is going down) – still can’t wear my glasses which is what causes the 3x-longer-to-do-anything and also both makes it hard to focus and gives me an eyestrain headache when I try too long. sigh. But healing. My backyard stuff is on its own though – either survive the drought or not but I’m not going back there to water again until I’m over this. And have gotten removed anything obvious that could brush my face.

    FYI – Batch checked in with WYgalinCali this morning – he’s got a mess to clean up but he’s safe.

    The evil ones continue to push their evil agendas. The weather disasters have been drawing attention and headlines because they are “clear and present dangers” but we need to handle both – the immediate and longer-term needs of those who are or were in harm’s way of a natural disaster and the immediate and longer-term needs of those who are in harm’s way of an R-made disaster. meanwhile, I’ll persist in my community needs fundraising stuff. And send out what energy I have to spare on best resolution of those folks’ issues to get them off my community needs list and back on normal track with their lives.

    Soloing this morning which is why i’m late checking in and gotta get back to work but need more coffee. :) Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • Gosh, bfitz, sorry to hear about your swelling and red face! Wonder what caused it. I came back from Alaska in 1998 with the same thing. It took more than a week to go away—was beside myself! Couldn’t think what caused it—touching fireweed while in Anchorage? Not sure.

      Anyway, sending you white light for healing. Sorry about the misery.

  14. Good morning, 56 and sunny in Bellingham. I’ve had to go to deep rest mode, which means I don’t have much to share because I have to turn off my mind so my body will stay on the sofa. Limited activity, careful reading, naps, and lots of solitaire are boring, but that’s what I’m doing.

    So I’ll go to the pool this morning, work at my desk this afternoon and that will be my day.

    Take care everyone.

  15. Good morning, meese! Tuesday …

    It is 55 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 77. Mostly sunny skies with clouds moving in later in the day.

    It appears that the Florida Keys took the brunt of Irma although power outages and flooding are going to be the norm for a while in Florida. It is good to know that building for a Category 3 hurricane is not a wasted effort – it will encourage people to keep those regulations in place. I follow our old friend Geordie on Twitter (as @AuntSophie1) and she tells me that she did not lose power and had no property damage. Yay!

    I am watching two things in Congress right now: ACA, which can still be repealed until September 30th under the 2017 fiscal year reconciliation, and DACA which needs to be protected. Another lawsuit was just filed, by 4 states in the 9th Circuit including California, to protect the DACA recipients. That is belts and suspenders – if we can’t get a law in place we need some lawsuits that run for about 1,225 days.

    It appears that Hurricane Harvey may very will put the kibosh on plans to cut taxes on the wealthy this year. The preliminary estimates for recovery funds are $290 billion. Do you think that Congressional Republicans, with their 25 Texas Congressmen, some of whom are committee heads, are going to vote against aid for Texas because there are no budget offsets? And depending on the Irma estimates, there are 16 Republican members from Florida who might have an opinion when the bill for Irma comes in.

    See all y’all later!

  16. Good Tuesday Meese
    49 here in Saugerties NY
    It’s primary day here for a variety of seats – am irritated that polls don’t open till noon – I’m used to going in the morning. My husband won’t get to vote because he doesn’t get home till after the polls close.

    I’m still focused on the Caribbean

    • I had read that St. Martin was pretty much wiped out. While it is known for its resorts, I am sure that there are many poor people on the island just scraping by. The good news is that the island is French and Dutch and those governments are not run by hateful pennypinchers like ours is.

      It looks like Hurricane Jose is going to leave the islands alone which has to be a relief.

      What is the rationale for New York making voting inconvenient for working people? If we can’t count on our blue states to care about more people voting, that is just sad. I was reading an opinion piece yesterday talking about how we really need to get over this delusion that we will somehow convince racist aholes whose butthurt led them to cast a vote for Donald Trump to turn and vote for Democrats. The suggestion is that we might be better off spending that energy getting the 10 million people who didn’t vote to the polls. I agree! Anyone who voted for Trump just to “shake things up” or because “black people and brown people are taking our jobs” will never vote for a party whose platform calls for social justice and diversity. Get out enough of the vote to take back some statehouses in 2018, change the voting laws to make it easier to vote, then get people to the polls to turn this thing around.

      • NYS has some of the most bizarre voting laws – the state house folks have been hard to get to change – it isn’t just Republicans who have been at fault though they are the biggest obstacle these days.

    • For Goddess’ sake, why doesn’t this country send them some food? And water?

      It’s shameful!

      I can’t get those poor souls out of my mind. At least in Florida people have a chance of getting out of the state to safety. But those in the islands can’t just drive somewhere.

      Hope they get some help, dammit!

    • That song — that was the 1st time a song ripped my heart out & tore it to shreds, then stomped on the shreds. I was in high school, and not in places where I could do a lot of research (Salzburg, and Saudi) but when I found out what it was about…. That song still makes me cry.

      • It had an amazing reaction world wide. Writing and singing about Biko also politicized Gabriel.

  19. Slept badly, but my hip hurts less, which is weird (in a good way, but still weird). Tylenol, muscle relaxers & sports crème seem to be doing the job. Must try to wake up.

    • Did you see the reply by the berner woman Konst who THE GD DNC HAS AS PART OF THEIR “UNITY TOUR”? She said that headline meant black people are Hillary-bots. I am so over them.

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