Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Dec. 27th through Jan. 2nd

Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (every Sunday morning). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).

The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.

So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?

NOTE: The comments page will now split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page and use the link.

43 Comments

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

    It is 32 degrees in Madison WI, on its way up to 34. Cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Good morning, Meese! It’s 53 F. here in NoVa on yet another cloudy morning with damp streets and grey skies, supposedly aiming for 70 F. today.

    Not many thoughts in my head this morning other than the outrageous, egregious behavior on the part of the Wisconsin legislature for restricting food stamp recipients from buying shellfish and potatoes—fer Gawd’s sake! May Goddess punish those creeps as they deserve by imposing conditions on them that even Viagra can’t mitigate.

    Republican legislatures are so mean-spirited. Now the ones in our benighted commonwealth want to disarm the bodyguards who protect our governor, in revenge for Attorney General Mark Herring’s proposal not to recognize concealed-carry permits from other states. When will the voting populace wake up and realize how inimical Republican lawmakers are to the common good? So far, it look as if that will happen on the Twelfth of Never. However, we can always hope.

    • The Republican legislature puts their Pharisee robes on to proclaim their christianity (and suggest that you convert?) but when it comes to putting “feed the poor” into action, they find they have lost their bible.

      I loved what Herring did with the gun permits!! He is so right: what good are Virginia’s laws protecting people from “bad guys with guns” if someone from a state that has an anything goes approach can come into your state and shoot it up??? Wisconsin was one of those whose permits are no longer acceptable. The president is asking the states to do what he can’t do at the national level – now we just need more Democratic governors.

    • This morning while I was paging through the news, I came across this photo on the article about the Houston mosque being torched by anti-Muslim terrorists (OT: maybe they should send the bill for damages to The Donald?). How can anyone feel safe in a society that considers this not only legal but acceptable?

      p.s. Do you think those cops feel safer knowing that all those “good guys with guns” are nearby?

  3. Good morning Meese.
    Glad you posted the Chicago situation article Jan.
    Thank you.

    46 here in Saugerties going up to 62

    Just popping in for a moment – will be back later

    • As someone who has had family members in mental health crisis situations, I found it both terrifying and sad. I really don’t know why police departments can’t insist on better trained cops and why a domestic disturbance is approached with deadly force instead of tasers or stun guns. There were several incidents in Wisconsin where a black kid hopped up on a drug or a mentally ill black man sleeping on a park bench were shot dead because the cops only had a way to kill, not a way to help.

      Maybe Chicago needs to fire them all and start over. I am not sure you can fix the culture.

  4. Awful weather to the north of us, but all that happened here was some rain & it’s cold. I was wearing shorts yesterday, today’s high will be in the 50s. Just hanging out, watching MSNBC (local news has the same stories they did yesterday). After realizing that I didn’t get in the 8 miles yesterday, I had planned to walk this afternoon…… I still will if the rain calms down a bit.

    Mojo out to everyone who is ill, who has ill friends/family, and all those affected by the tornados. There are 11 dead in just the Dallas area. Some were in cars that were just blown off the road.

      • Yeah, they said the storm would have just looked like a severe rainstorm, people wouldn’t have seen the tornado. I suppose that’s a comfort, that they died quickly.

    • I was reading on Twitter that Greg Abbott was “grateful that FEMA was there”. Doesn’t he know that FEMA is part of The Federal Government???!? Cue a primary challenger for 2018.

      Terrible devastation across the south and the midwest from not only the tornadoes but flooding and snow storms. I am sure that having millions of people in their cars on the road did not help.

      • Republicans only like the federal gummint when they are personally getting the benefit – but at that point they lubs them some gummint help. They have screaming fits if even one thin dime goes to their second cousins two states over, but if it’s for themselves… Goddess, we need to turn TX blue in a hurry! And Goddess bless those caught in any variation of the devastation.

  5. Morning all – hot again here today, will be until New Years – it’s just WRONG to have to put the AC on at Christmas, sheesh!

    Horrible news out of Chicago, thanks for your article Jan. I am beginning think all these police are hopped up on steroids or something, that they can’t use even common sense when dealing with a family trying to cope with a mentally ill young man. That, and, of course, he was black so who cares if they just shoot him and oh by the way kill a completely uninvolved bystander in another apartment? That just stinks to high heaven and there had better be a complete investigation and explanation for how on earth that happened.

    I am trying to figure out the reason for not allowing poor people to purchase potatoes with food stamps – seriously? I mean, even the 18th and 19th century Brits who were more or less happy to let the Irish starve allowed them to have potatoes for god’s sake!

    Well, despite all the terrible news, hope everyone has a good day – stay safe everyone!

  6. Good morning, 41 and raining in Bellingham. I’m relaxing with Ryan while his parents pack the car and Finn guards the door. They are not leaving without him! Our three days of Christmas have been fun, but I’m going to need some serious recovery time today.

  7. Happy last Sunday in December- also 2015 – 38 here and raining. Actually it’s been raining steadily for the last 31 hours, we’re under a flash flood warning, and my neighbors’ yards are flooding. Fortunately – well, deliberately – I’m on the highest rise this stream valley had to offer and while there are puddles standing all over the place, no flooding. Should the temps drop another 10 degrees we could think about skating, if anybody still had any ice skates. (New normal means nobody does – it doesn’t get cold enough for long enough to freeze the ponds hard enough for skating so…) Anyway, living room is chilly so I won’t be online long – just check in, read and fierce everybody else’s check ins, check on a couple of folks on GOS, and do my end-of-month household logs. Hope everyone is staying warm. {{{HUGS}}}

    • Bfitz—when my sons, now 45 and 40, were boys, the creek at the bottom of our garden used to freeze hard enough that it could be used for skating. The boys would put on their skates, grab the Labrador’s leash, and let him pull them along (one at a time, I mean) the creek. Our backyard slopes down to the creek, and the boys would use the slope for sledding.

      That can’t be done nowadays. It’s years and years since we had a long, hard freeze in the winter.

      • Mine are 44 and 41 (for another couple of months) but they did most of their growing up between Austin, TX and San Francisco, CA so never got to do that. But my best friend’s “little” brother is 10 months younger than my older son and he used to skate on the stock ponds. (And as a teenager in the “transition” got to rescue – or at least try to rescue – cattle who fell through when the ice wasn’t strong enough.) Me, I grew up in Houston, TX in the kind of weather Geordie is complaining about. I moved to Fayettevile to get seasons and am rather P.O.’d that Austin’s climate has caught up to me. (And I rather doubt anotherdemocrat is happy about having Houston’s old climate in Austin.)

  8. Good morning, meese! Monday …

    It is 27 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 29. A storm is blowing in … literally … as we have winds of 14mph gusting to 18. Last night there was a Winter Storm Warning but it looks now like the worst is going south of us and we will just get a “wintry mix”. Lovely. Fortunately, I do not have to go anywhere since school is out this week and my daughter will be home.

    Here is some good news about activism effecting change: Black Student Groups Score Big Victory Against Private Prisons

    The public University of California (UC) school system will no longer invest in private prison companies. As a result of mounting student pressure to divest, UC removed its $25 million shares from the Geo Group Inc and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) — controversial companies linked to human rights abuses across the country.

    The decision to divest was made following a recent meeting between students — many of whom belong to black advocacy groups on UC campuses — and administrators. The school system did not need permission from the Board of Regents, its nonpartisan governing body. […]

    “By selling their shares they’re sending a message … that the UC system is against human rights abuses,” UCLA alumna and member of the Afrikan Black Coalition, Kamilah Moore told the Los Angeles Times. The coalition, which includes students from all of the UC campuses, issued a resolution in November that cited the disproportionate number of incarcerated African Americans in the country and the rapidly growing private prison industry.

    “This victory is historic and momentous. Divesting $25 million is a good step towards shutting down private prisons by starving them of capital,” Yoel Haile, ABC’s political director, said in a press release. “This is a clear example of Black Power and what we can achieve when we work in unity. This victory belongs to the masses of our people languishing behind America’s mass incarceration regime.”

    The for-profit prison system is one of the clearest examples of how privatizing government services and making the bottom line dictate how people are treated can lead to human rights abuses. Privatize rubbish pickup and street maintenance … but the government shouldn’t outsource the physical well-being of people in their care.

    Four days left in 2015. Yikes!

    See all y’all later!!

    • Good news indeed. But the government shouldn’t outsource any of its services. Cost has always beaten cost plus. A private company will give you a “deal” that lasts about as long as the ink is wet on the contract. Then the company’s “rights’ (like percentage of guaranteed prison population or number of schools they have sole cleaning rights to) get enforced big time while the quality of the services diminish for the public sector – and private labor sees increases in workload coupled with decreases in pay, benefits, or both (usually both) diminishing their ability to contribute revenue to the government or support to the local economy. Government services are things that aren’t supposed to be profitable – that’s why they’re government services. (rant over)

      • A great example is the tollway system in Indiana. Indiana sold the highways that the people’s tax dollars had built to a European firm who would then collect the tolls and maintain the highways. Well, it did not turn out to be profitable so they filed bankruptcy. Taxpayers may be left holding a rather large bag and the only real winners are the people who made money brokering the deal.

        I don’t know that I need city workers picking up my trash. But I would feel better if they manned the snowplows and did other things that my public safety depends on like road repairs, water treatment, police and fire and the like.

        • CA had that experience a couple of years back. They ended up having to buy the roads back from the private company at something like triple the price for roads that hadn’t been maintained for the entire 8-10 years the private company owned them. And actually you do want public employees doing the trash pickup. Especially in the summer when the heat can spread disease like wildfire if the pickup isn’t done properly. Trash pickup is a part of public safety that people don’t even think about any more – unless the workers are on strike because somebody is trying to steal their retirement.

  9. Hmm – I posted a comment (I thought) and it seems to have gone poof.

    Good morning Meese – hope everyone in the south and midwest stays safe from the storms.

    • I hate disappearing comments! I now do a select-all / copy before I preview or post because nothing is more deflating than having your carefully selected words disappear into the ether.

      I thought our Winter Storm Warning had been cancelled but my Weather Channel desktop icon must just have been in the process of updating. It is now bright red with this:

      A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 9 AM THIS MORNING TO 6 AM CST TUESDAY.
      * TIMING… HEAVIEST PRECIPITATION FROM MID-MORNING INTO EARLY EVENING.
      * SLEET AND SNOW ACCUMULATIONS… AROUND AN INCH OF SLEET IN FAR SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN TO 3 TO 5 INCHES OF A SNOW AND SLEET MIX WEST TOWARD DARLINGTON AND DODGEVILLE.
      * FREEZING RAIN ACCUMULATIONS… UP TO TWO TENTHS OF AN INCH INLAND FROM LAKE MICHIGAN.
      * WINDS… EAST WINDS 25 TO 30 MPH GUSTING AS HIGH AS 45 MPH MONDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING.

      Snow is no big deal but the freezing rain is! I am not sure why they report it as two tenths. Who cares? Any amount can turn a street into a skating rink.

      Do you have anything fun planned for your semester hiatus?

        • Denise, on or about New Year’s Day I’m hoping to post the Pombajira story here and on my Web site. I’ll ask Jan, our Web Whiz Kid, to help me.

          That will be one more thing for you to read!

          • I will be happy to do so! Let me know if you want my email address so we can do our blog-post-building in a more offline way. I can send it to you using your Moose sign-up email address.

          • How amazing, Denise, this music goes surprisingly well with the story! Thanks for the clip. Somehow it reminds me of the orgiastic festivals at Bubastis in, oh, 1700 B.C.E. or so. :)

  10. Had to turn off the news this morning, couldn’t take the heartbreaking stories from Garland & Rowlett (Dallas suburbs). One of the dead is a newborn. Too much sadness.

    And wow is it cold. 30s — when I went to bed Saturday night, it was in the 70s. Wool socks, hat, gloves, coat… and still glad of my hot oatmeal.

    Pretty Christmas lights from one of the Irish tourist twitter things I follow:

    https://twitter.com/DavidCostelloDC/status/680851491226255364

  11. Good morning, all, getting off to a very slow start this Moon Day. Grey, showery, and 42 F., going to be cold all day before rain and warmer temperatures arrive tomorrow.

    Feel heartsick about the tornadoes in Dallas and elsewhere and about the police-initiated murders in Chicago. Why don’t they just fire all the police and start over, with officers who are trained to act like human beings? Does anyone remember the anecdote that was making the rounds a while back about four Swedish police officers on holiday in New York, who helped subdue an unruly passenger on the subway? The difference between their reaction and an American police officer’s reaction was wider than the Arabian Gulf.

    Stuck at home all day because our new cleaning service isn’t sure when it’s going to arrive. (This does not bode well.) Miss Pink Cheeks, after requiring us to admire her toy pony, is now watching cartoons with Monty Beagle, who just tried to chew one of her brand-new bedroom slippers.

    Wishing a good, UNEVENTFUL day to all!

  12. Morning all! Down here in the hanging chad that is Florida, we have been unaffected so far by the terrible storms that hit Texas and elsewhere – but I’ve lived in tornado zones most of my life, Tennessee and now here, and they are just terrifying, popping up so fast and destroying everything as they go. Unpredictable devastation.

    I am having a really hard time understanding this Chicago killing – and I hope sufficient pressure will be brought to bear here to get real answers from the CPD. I agree, they all need to be fired and replaced with people trained to reduce violence, not escalate it, and to handle people with mental problems, not just kill them. And their neighbors for good measure. It’s just disgusting.

    ugh. I think I’ll go see Star Wars again today, see if it stands up to a repeat viewing. Or maybe just play WOW lol. Have a great day everyone!

  13. Good morning, 35 and lightly raining in Bellingham. I napped and read the day away yesterday and then slept for hours last night. My house still looks like Christmas exploded, which it did. but I’m going to the pool now and will deal with the clean up later today.

    I’m reading Midnight Tides, book #5 of the Malazan series. It was written in 2004 and while it is high fantasy the author has created a world that reflects the reality of our current state of affairs. I had to re read a few chapters because Christmas seems to have wiped my memory but now I’m back into the story and really looking forward to the next book.

  14. Looks like not everyone in Texas is delighted to see people carrying weapons: some stores will ban them

    At least three grocery stores have opted out of Texas’ controversial open-carry gun law that will take effect Friday, saying only concealed weapons are allowed in their stores.[…] On New Year’s Day, Texas will become the 45th state to legalize carrying a pistol in plain sight. […]

    The Lone Star State had nearly 826,000 concealed license holders in 2014, which ranks among the nation’s highest. Openly carrying a gun will require obtaining the same license concealed weapons holders have — be at least 21, have clean criminal and psychology records, complete a training course and pass a shooting test.

    Amazing. I think I would not want to be out and about on New Years Day when the hungover open carry folks go wandering into the Safeway and someone tells them they can’t carry their AK-47s into the munchies aisle. Crossing Texas off the list of states that I might consider visiting.

  15. 39 and dropping at 1215 CST in Fay., AR this last Monday in both December and 2015. The rain’s tapering off here although we could get some snow flurries this afternoon. At least it’s lighter. (It was so dark yesterday I got 0, as in zero, electricity production for the whole day. I’ve already got just over 1 – as in one – KWH today.) Temps are dropping. My chiropractor canceled (don’t know whether she’s sick or just can’t get in – she lives outside town and raises horses when she’s not being a chiropractor – considering the amount of water we’ve gotten this weekend just passed – over 7 inches – there may be some uncrossable bridges between her and here), so I spent the morning bringing all the porch firewood into the house. It’s supposed to be warmer tomorrow (low 40s instead of mid 30s) so I’ll split more wood for the porch rack around midday then.

    Haven’t read anybody’s comments yet, so don’t know, but hope everybody’s doing OK under whatever circumstances you find yourselves. {{{HUGS}}}

    • Yikes, bfitz, it sounds even darker where you are than it is here! Sorry about your kilowatt hour collection, but somehow it seems appropriate to have this kind of weather at the end of the year. Good move, bringing the firewood in. We’ve brought some in to the screened porch, just in case.

  16. Good morning, meese! Tuesday …

    It is 24 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 27. We are still under a Winter Storm Warning but the storm is pretty well done. There appears to be a band of snow in Iowa that may drop some more. It snowed much of the day yesterday then turned to freezing rain with ice pellets lashing at the windows for hours. It was very unsettling!

    I was on Twitter yesterday when the Tamir Rice news hit. His murderers got off scot-free and, from what I understand, got their jobs back. The prosecutor said it was not unreasonable for the police to only take 2 seconds to assess the situation and not spend even a second more to determine if the gun was real or if the person they were about to kill was a child. Black male, brandishing gun … death sentence. I gathered a few Tweets and will put them into a comment on my post about the Chicago outrage. We could have a new post every few days to report on law enforcement’s crimes against black people. To review: 977 people shot dead by police this year, 37 of them black and unarmed. My favorite Twee from yesterday:

    Joanne Harris ‏@Joannechocolat
    In the news: Man pretending to uphold the law shoots boy pretending to shoot a gun; is acquitted by a court pretending to dispense justice.

    See all y’all later!!

  17. Good morning Meese – weather is terrible here – we have ice pellets falling from the sky – even the dogs didn’t want to go out into it. It is 29 degrees.

    Read an uplifting story this morning over at Orange – about a Muslim woman and her husband who set up a free coffee and donuts stand:

    Today I stepped out of my comfort zone and stood out in a public space holding a box of donuts in front of signs that my husband Sebastian made. “Talk to a Muslim” “Free coffee and donuts” “Ask a Muslim” “Free conversation.”

    Here’s the link to the facebook page
    https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1028900757181347&id=100001842973842

  18. Yesterday was exhausting. I took twice as many calls as normal, and people just couldn’t understand that we didn’t have time to just chat…. Hoping today things calm down. Meanwhile, eating oatmeal & drinking tea. Head is playing People Have the Power to me. I don’t know if I believe that. Or if that’s such a great idea, given Trump’s popularity.

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