Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Jan. 14th through Jan. 20th

January 13, 2018 JanF Community 98

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!
 

36 Comments

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

    Morning low of 0 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 18. Cloudy skies with a chance of snow.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Up early. I just saw that the Immigration Service is going to let DACA kids renew their protections going back to September 5th based on the court order that put the recinded of the program on hold. I hope that means that cooler heads are prevailing and that a deal will be cut. Maybe someone told the shitgibbon that he can claim that the wall is being built even if it isn’t because his base will believe anything he says.

    Nancy Pelosi, in her presser on Thursday, said in no uncertain terms that Ryan won’t get Democratic votes for a budget deal that does not have Democratic Party issues addressed. She will only vote for another Continuing Resolution if it is to work out details of implementation, not if it is to keeping working to get a deal.

  3. Good Sunday Meese

    Well our little day of heat ended and we are at 9 degrees here in Saugerties NY.

    Making coffee and getting ready to post – today I’m looking at PRs rainforest – El Yunque.

    The crap continues

  4. Good morning, Meese. Sunny and blue-skied today, with a current temp. in NoVa of 15 F., going up to 26 F. later. It’s a good day to stay inside and make a pork-and-apple pie for dinner.

    Our tenant is moving out this weekend, much to our relief. However, he’s one to take a mile when given an inch. Although we told him we needed our pickup truck Monday morning, he has filled it up with furniture and boxes and now claims he can’t get any help from his brothers until Tuesday. Never again will we rent out the downstairs. I’ll get a job, sooner.

    Aside from that, this country’s affairs are a sorry mess as usual. Hope to read Dee’s PR column after breakfast has been cooked and consumed. Wishing all a good day!

    • Pork and apple pie sounds great! My French Canadian forebearers include pork pies in one of their holiday meals. It is made with ground pork and potatoes and spiced with cloves. It is delightful to smell cooking and delightful to eat! The same filling, with a slight variation, is used to create pork stuffing for the holiday turkeys; it is not cooked in the turkey but is usually cooked in a pan because it gets crustier that way. The crusty parts we called “zootsi” (which I am sure is from an old French word) and we used to fight over them as kids (as adults, we have more decorum).

  6. Cold this morning but it’s supposed to be nice till Tuesday, when we’re looking at a “wintry mix”. The news yesterday…. can’t even pick a “worst” out of that lot. Looks like Joy Reid is going to talk about the Trump-Duvalier money laundering thing, though. Don’t want that story getting lost. Woke up several times in the night, I’m going to have to turn my ocean waves aps up louder. I have several, because if one cycles off, I have more still going. I went to the gym again yesterday — yay me. Cedar pollen is still really high, I didn’t want to be outside.

    • “Stories getting lost” seems to be the theme of the past 2 years. I saw a tweet a couple of days ago from someone who has breaking news alerts on her phone. She said she can’t keep up and speculated “this is how we will die, isn’t it?”

  7. Good morning, 42 and sunny in Bellingham. I’m continuing to recover from the flue, but I don’t have enough energy to do anything so that’s got me blue. I’m feeling old and vulnerable today so I need to have a chat with myself!

    A health caution to share…..Ron’s brother has shingles and the virus is in his optical nerve, causing severe pain, vision loss, and a real concern re the infection moving into his brain. He’s absolutely miserable and is encouraging everyone to get the shingles vaccine.

    https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/shingles/public/index.html

    Take care everyone.

  8. 25 at dawn, windchill 18, heading for 38 “they” say – gonna have to clear off a bit to do it as we’re currently at 27 (windchill still 18) and it’s 12:20 already. Yesterday cleared quite nicely and we got 9 KWHs – high for the month & year so far :) – the m-t-d is 88.2 with this morning’s input. Orange muffins for the week. Cleaning (as much as I do) done. Late online today because my friend’s battery died at the grocery store so I picked her up and took her to get a battery (and hung around to be sure it worked and followed her home just in case). I would love to have an old car – the kind I actually know how to do the maintenance on and only uses the battery to actually start the car. Oh well.

    The Rs are still gish-galloping to get their evil agenda in place while we are trying to respond to the barrage. Which is why I mostly don’t pay attention. If it’s something I can make my pretty much pointless calls to my congresscritters about, OK. I make a note and make the calls. Otherwise, it’s the noise of Evil Ones being evil. If I can’t do anything about it, don’t waste my time – I need it for issues I can do something besides OMGHOF about.

    I’ve RT’d some tweets. I’ve got a few places to check in – or on – and then I’ll go RT some more tweets while I think about lunch. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  9. Good morning, meese! Monday …

    It is 18 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 19. Snow flurries off and on throughout the day. We got about 3 inches yesterday – the eastern part of the state is expected to have significant lake effect snow. I hope a lot of people have the day off!

    I am glad I was not waiting for Principled Republicans to push back against their president. I am a little surprised that Cotton and Perdue called Lindsey Graham a liar on national TV but considering that Perdue won because of massive voter suppression in Georgia and Cotton won by being the Trump precursor, a white nationalist running against President Obama and for the South Rising Again, it was probably inevitable. Never forget who Tom Cotton is (Charlie Pierce):

    Some people are ideologues. Some people are charlatans. Some people are opportunists. And some people are simply raging, flaming holes of pure ass. As Bruni’s column makes clear, at least in the case of Tom Cotton, these categories are far from mutually exclusive.

    The column tells the story of a woman named Cassandra Butts, who recently passed away from leukemia at the age of 50. In 2014, prior to her diagnosis, the president proposed to name Butts the U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas—which sounds to these ears anyway to be a pretty sweet gig. That was when the nonsense began. First, Tailgunner Ted Cruz put a hold on all nominations because he was upset with the deal the president cut with Iran, and because the Tailgunner is an unlikable algae of a human being. Later, our man Cotton jumped in and slapped a hold on Butts and a couple of other nominees for ambassadorships.

    Cotton eventually released the two other holds, but not the one on Butts. She told me that she once went to see him about it, and he explained that he knew that she was a close friend of Obama’s—the two first encountered each other on a line for financial-aid forms at Harvard Law School, where they were classmates—and that blocking her was a way to inflict special pain on the president.

    Tom Cotton weaponized a dying woman’s final days in order to “inflict special pain” on the president. Tom Cotton is a petty, sadistic swine who has the basic conscience of a cholera outbreak. He should be shamed from office, and he should be shunned by decent people.

    THAT is the face of the modern Republican Party and until the Cottons are driven out of office, or pushed into a permanent minority, we will never be a decent country.

    As a palate cleanser, I am going to go see if I can find an old post with a Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. speech to republish.

    See all y’all later!

    • WHAT an awful story about The Cotton. I do hope karma deals with him as he deserves. Surely a person as nasty as that will get some awful disease.

      Charlie Pierce is priceless.

    • Pierce is correct about Tom Cotton. I wish I thought we had a chance to get rid of him. Maybe if we get the kind of boots on the ground work that put Jones in the Senate. But at the moment I haven’t a clue as to who we’d run against him – especially not who we could run against him who’d get that kind of work. Only 2 things keep me in this state – my family’s here and I own this house.

  10. Good MLK Day morning, Meese. It’s still too dark to see what kind of day it’s going to be but the street lamp outside is illuminating thick frost on the tops of parked vehicles. Right now it’s 13 F., going up to 31 F. Not sure whether it’ll be sunny or not.

    Some people are predicting that this will be the week it all goes down. We’ve thought that before, right?

    It’s time to make the early morning tea, so will go do that. It’s also time to take the dog out and get the paper. When, oh, when, will it be Mueller time?

  11. Good MLK Monday morning Meese.
    9 degrees here in Saugerties going up to 26.

    Internet-Cable repair guy will be here at 8 AM – have to go lock the dogs up or they will have him for breakfast. Hope he can fix my problem since I loose connectivity at least once an hour.
    Have a day filled with hope for the future – no matter how bad things look now.

    • This:

      Have a day filled with hope for the future – no matter how bad things look now.

      I am going to focus on the positive – the hope for the future. When people know the history they can be smarter about the present. The civil rights movement, a 150 plus year “resistance”, has still not realized its goal – that a person will be judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin. The Trump presidency can’t erase the progress that has been made and we can erase the damage if we stay focused on the future.

    • {{{Denise}}} – holding the Good Thought for the cable repair. Holding more than a Good Thought on the hope for the future. I must. If I didn’t have hope for the future, well, I’d have no reason to be here. So I hope – and try to think of ways to help bend that moral arc of the universe towards Justice. moar {{{HUGS}}}

  12. Today will be nice — high of 68. Tomorrow is another story: widespread ice & snow, with actual accumulation. No official announcements of closures, but the weather guy is predicting that everything will be closed tomorrow — it isn’t supposed to get above freezing till Wednesday afternoon. Will cover my plants & bring in my 1 surviving basil. And of course today’s song is Pride.

  13. Already had the high for the day – 34 – and we’ve started the steady drop to 2 for tomorrow’s slightly post-dawn low. Overcast and not supposed to clear off – maybe even get snow which I’ll believe when I see it and wish I could send Aji anyway. Yesterday got 6.5 KWHs and the m-t-d is 91.5 so it would take another clear sunny day like Saturday (which we ain’t gonna get) to crest 100 today. My hope of reaching 200 is still possible, but today isn’t going to help us get there.

    In the time between Dr. King’s speech and his assassination I had not just hope but a wonderful feeling of things being right. We moved into a neighborhood that was integrated. Not “de-segregated” but integrated. Black, white, and Hispanic families on the same block. My younger siblings playing with kids, us all going to school with kids, Momma visiting with parents, of different color and culture as if it were the normal it should be. But nothing gold can stay I guess – Daddy quit paying child support and the bank foreclosed on the house. I’ve never been as comfortable in a neighborhood since. But I know what that Dream looks like.

    Guess I’ll go get some coffee and wander around the net a bit. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  14. Good morning, MeeseFolk! It’s currently 16, with an expected high of 21 and the possibility of a couple of inches of snow. I was very grateful that so many people have the day off (I do not), because the roads are very, very slick. Every time I shuddered to a stop (due to my ABS anti-skid system), I was looking anxiously into my rearview mirror, hoping no one was too close or going too fast. I made it in one piece, and with luck, when I head home, the road crews will have been out.

    I have a bittersweet reaction to the observance of MLKs birthday. In my neck of the woods, it too often becomes an opportunity for folks to pat themselves on the backs for [essentially] not being Southerners. The history of Detroit is unknown to them, including the reality of the blatant racism now politely called “white flight.” So I was glad to see this story in Time today; a reality check is a good thing:

    • {{{DoReMI}}} – stay warm – but mostly stay safe. I knew about Detroit before I knew about Martin Luther King. My daddy was born in OK and his standard response to South-bashing on race was to tell stories of when he was stationed in Detroit during WWII – either getting officer training (he’d been enlisted) or pilot’s training (why he was promoted to officer – only officers could be pilots in those days and they needed pilots) I don’t remember which. So not only did I know that Momma’s very over simplified good-North-not-racist/bad-South-racist view was not correct, but it got Momma to do some reexamining of her own beliefs. And that helped us both later when I was old enough to go deeper into these issues with her. moar {{{HUGS}}} and again, please stay safe.

    • I find myself judging people by whether they shut down on Martin Luther King Day. If they don’t, I wonder why. Some of my clients over the years have been non-profits and the ones in the city, who also had a large percentage of staff who were African American, always closed. The ones in the suburbs did not. One of them was a private school and I wonder what they are teaching their little white charges about honoring the contributions of Black Americans. :(

      • We only last year disassociated MLK Day with REL Day – and joining them was the only way to get the MLK holiday passed our exceedingly racist pre-Southern Strategy Dem at the time legislature. The fantasy of the goodness of the Rebel Cause is alive and well in AR.

  15. Good morning, 42 and partly sunny in Bellingham. RonK and Ava are to the Nooksack River today to photo the cycle of salmon spawning and eagles dining. We gave her a camera for her birthday and a tripod for Christmas so she has her equipment and is eager to use it :)

    I’m staying warm in my sewing room. I’m feeling better today so don’t want to risk a set back with this miserable flue.

    Time for coffee and maybe the news. Take care everyone.

    • {{{princesspat}}} – more Healing Energy – enjoy the coffee, probably best to skip the news. Looking forward to the next photo essay. moar {{{HUGS}}}

  16. Schools are closed & my agency follows them, so we’re closed. Got my plants covered — between 2 & 3 layers of old t-shirts & sheets & some green things I bought that are for that purpose.

  17. Tuesday Meese
    Preparing for another snow storm here in NY – which will start today and be worse tomorrow
    Fingers crossed looks like my internet is fixed.
    Caribbean communities in the US still responding to Trump-shit

  18. Good morning, Meese. Still dark here, with snow expected for the evening rush hour. Currently it’s 26 F. in NoVa, going up to 40 F. later.

    Haven’t looked at the news yet. Dearly Beloved is already up, so I’m going to go down and request a cup of early morning tea.

    See you later.

  19. Pretty much every government & school is closed today. Flyovers are closed, some elevated roads are open but they’re showing traffic crawling. The only power outage is because of someone crashing into a pole. Police & EMS are begging everyone to stay home. We might get snow this afternoon & it isn’t even supposed to get above freezing till tomorrow afternoon. If we’re open tomorrow I might take the bus in to work, I don’t want to drive in this. Otoh, I’m coughing so I don’t want to stand at a bus stop.

    Weather guy just chewed out employers who are making people come in — said that’s dangerous & a bad way to run a business. Love him!

  20. Good morning, meese! Tuesday …

    It is 14 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 21. The snow appears to have stopped and the sun will come out. We had over 6 inches in the Madison area over the past two days – after only having 4 inches total for the season prior to that. People drove badly, as you might expect. The next storm will be easier.

    Late check-in as I scrambled to get caught up from a few crises yesterday afternoon. I still have a couple of emails that I need to reply to but I got early morning projects done before a 9am deadline.

    The clock is ticking on the government shutdown while tRump tries to tee up Democrats as the cause and gets ready to launch the “Democrats hate the troops” missile at us with his mention of “the Military” (yes, he capitalized it) as suffering greatly all because Democrats want to let drug dealers and rapists into the country. He is full of crap, as usual; the military does not all get sent home when the government shuts down. But no one can expect his base to know quaint things like facts. Kevin Drum had an interesting take on the collapse of the DACA talks:

    In that Tuesday meeting Sen. Dianne Feinstein tricked him into showing that he is, in fact, an idiot who has no idea what his own party’s position on immigration is. It’s not clear to me if Feinstein meant to do this, but it happened. Everyone in the world picked up on it and mocked Trump’s obvious dimwittedness. […]

    This is, needless to say, something that Trump can’t abide. My guess is that by Wednesday he had already decided to sabotage the negotiations and then blame it on Democrats, all as retribution against liberals for making fun of him.

    Everyone understands how you handle Trump: you offer him ridiculous, over-the-top praise and insist that he’s the smartest, toughest negotiator you’ve ever been up against. That softens him up for a deal. Plenty of Republicans have figured this out. Plenty of foreign leaders have figured this out. I’m sure plenty of Democrats have figured this out too, but they just don’t have the stomach to play the game. The result is that Trump inevitably becomes offended by the lack of praise and kills any possible deal. I suspect that’s what happened this time.

    That might explain why Lindsey Graham made his “Trump is the best” pivot – he realized that you can’t shame or embarrass or belittle Trump into doing anything, you have to suck up to him. I hope that works because right now things look pretty grim.

    See all y’all later!

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