Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Mar. 6th through Mar. 12th

March 6, 2016 JanF Community 138

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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39 Comments

  1. Afternoon all! I was at school this morning, so my first chance to check in. I didn’t watch the debate, but i recorded the re run of it and will watch some of it later. I was hoping Denise could opine in an informed way on the impact of the Castro stuff on the Latino vote down here in the primary – all I know is what I’m seeing on the internet. My impression is that it may not make a huge difference in the primary, as a lot of the older Cuban population is Republican anyway, but it may have ripple effects beyond them.

    I offer this from Sady Doyle – as she says, the best and possibly only debate recap you need to see.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2016/03/10/the-washington-postunivision-democratic-debate-abridged/

    Have a great day everyone!

    • I think that is the one I read. It brought it all together without a lot of unnecessary commentary.

      I guess we will find out on Tuesday how people reacted … although probably a lot of folks already have their votes “booked”.

    • I think it will have some effect – young Cuban Democrats want normalized relationships – but aren’t Fidel fans.
      It may have more impact on Central Americans who fled here from both ultra-left and ultra-right wing revolutions – where they got caught in the middle .

  2. The president might have some nice coattails for our nominee and down ticket races – current Gallup poll puts him at 52% …

    “Don’t be too quick to dismiss the significance of Obama’s support. He won’t literally be on the ballot, but there’s little doubt the president’s standing will have a real impact on the public’s appetite – or lack thereof – for radical change in 2017 and beyond.”

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obamas-approval-climbs-his-would-be-successors-line?cid=sm_fb_maddow

  4. Good morning, meese!! Friday …

    It is 34 degrees in Madison on its way up to 58. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    President Obama thinks that blaming him for the “rise of Trump is “novel”:

    Hillary was on Rachel Maddow’s show last night and I need to hunt down a video. Even though Rachel leans Bern, she is always respectful of Secretary Clinton and it should be worth viewing.

    Ed Kilgore looks at whether the Michigan upset is replicable. He think not …

    Florida is as close to a lock for Clinton as you will find, and the state where Sanders is close enough and where many of the same factors that won Michigan for Sanders could be present again is Ohio. To be clear, this is not because of some midwestern rust-belt populism trend whereby the whole region is a ripe target for Sanders because he has voted against a hundred trade agreements or his democratic socialism is inherently attractive to the horny-handed sons and daughters of toil that older journalists remember from the distant past. If that were the case, Illinois could suddenly feel the Bern — but I just don’t see that happening. And while there’s not much information available, Missouri does seem ripe for an upset. Still, unless something changes fast, he’ll remain the underdog everywhere on March 15.

    See all y’all later!

  5. That was a great response by POTUS!

    Have school today – it’s 52 degrees here – so I guess students on campus will be half-naked – lol

    Drinking my coffee, reading the news and attempting to ignore “The Progressives”

  6. Took the bus to work. It wasn’t too bad. I expect getting home to take 45 minutes or so — shorter than walking but still a long time. The public libraries are closed & I think schools are letting out early. But no state agency closings or early letting out that I’ve heard. All because our traffic system can’t deal with a presidential visit. And rain & SXSW & the rodeo…. There’s one bus route that will drop me off right by a great taco place, so there’s some compensation. And I have a whole bunch of new science fiction stories on my iPad, so it isn’t so terrible.

    Rachel Maddow interviewed both Hillary Clinton & Elizabeth Warren last night. Both great interviews, worth breaking my MSNBC boycott for.

    head is playing my boys’ cover of Everlasting Love

    • The Elizabeth Warren interview was great. I suspect that her comment later in the interview about “both candidates being good on the issues that are important” will not be well received in some quarters. But no one can deny that her comments about the Senate, especially Ron Freaking Johnson, are spot on:

  7. Good morning, Moosekind! Gray and rain-misty here in NoVa, 58 F. now, going up to 67 F. today.

    Just watched the news, with its horrifying pictures of the floods down South. They’re being called “historic” and “worse than hurricanes.” Not once does the stupid weather reporter mention the climate change responsible for these floods—not once! How deeply I despise the traditional media.

    In other news, the manuscript has been uploaded, my foot still hurts, and I have a busy day ahead because we’re having a family potluck dinner tonight. Daughter and I took Miss Pink Cheeks to her Daisy meeting and had a great time chatting with the other Daisy moms. Then Daughter and I stayed up until 11:30, talking nonstop. We don’t see each other often, so we have a lot to say! :)

    Apparently the Rethug debate was policy-oriented rather than insult-oriented last night. We were talking too much to pay attention.

    Wishing all of Moosylvania a good day. Remember to change your clocks tomorrow!

    • I don’t want to change the clocks!!!!

      I did not watch the debate but the headlines suggested that it was Trump pivoting to the general election. Sigh. I do not want to even think about an election where he is being considered as one of two people who will be the leader of the free world. That is too close for comfort. I remember in 2011 when people were saying “Oh, I hope they pick [insert name of completely unacceptable candidate here] so that we can beat them badly!!”

      I wrote about that back in 2011:

      It has become fashionable in some quarters to make statements about hoping that the most ignorant and unqualified Republican becomes the GOP presidential nominee in 2012.

      Since I already used “R U Nutz?” as a title, I can’t use it again (well ‘technically’ I could but stylistically I can’t). But that is the first thing that pops into my head when I hear that: Are you nuts!!??!

      Aside from the fact that it would say a lot (not nice, by the way) about our country if a major political party nominated someone who was clearly ignorant and plainly unqualified, it would be crazy for us to want to play chicken with our country.

      Picture this: our car of state goes screaming 120 miles an hour straight for the edge of the cliff and when we get to the edge we put the brakes on. And we hope that the brakes hold and that we didn’t push the pedal too late and that the cliff edge does not disintegrate under us and that our tires do not blow out. To me that is too many things that can go wrong. And believe me, all it takes is for one of those things to go wrong for our car of state to go flying off the cliff into the abyss. It won’t look like the last frame of the movie Thelma and Louise … that happy/sad ending did not show the wreck at the bottom of the cliff.

      • OMG, Jan, this is so true. Agree completely.

        I don’t want to change the clocks either. Is there something wrong with us or with them?

  8. Here is the Hillary interview (in three parts). Sorry for the delay, I got distracted by some shiney things on the Internets.

  9. Morning all! It’s gone from a week of spring to summer already here, around 80 degrees. sigh.

    thanks for the Maddow videos Jan! I recorded the repeat that was on at 3 or 4 AM this morning, but now I can watch it on my computer while I surf around! I didn’t watch the Republican debate either, but from the twitterverse it sounds like they tried to clean up their act a bit – and now the watch is on for Rubio to drop out so that we’ll effectively be left with Trump and Cruz, omg.

    In contrast, POTUS was in fine form yesterday, tweaking Trudeau about “ok, just where is the Stanley Cup right now? Is it in my home town of Chicago, with the BlackHawks?!” lol Canadians and hockey, he might just have verged on “this means war” stuff right there lol. But oh my what a good looking pair of men on the podium, and the pictures from the state dinner were wonderful – Michelle looked just fabulous as always.

    Teaching was ok yesterday – and now the best part is I feel like I have a real weekend again! Retirees are like the Dowager(Maggie Smith)’s great line in the first season of Downton Abbey, when Matthew says he can learn the estate business on his weekends off from being a lawyer – she asks “What’s a ‘week end’?” lol

    Ok, time to watch Hillary on Maddow and start my day- garage repair guy is coming at some point, as my garage door opener kind of stopped working yesterday, no idea why. sigh, I guess I’ve been talking about money in front of the appliances again, as my friend Fabrice tells me whenever something breaks. Have a great day everyone!

      • Didn’t she look stunning with that new hairstyle and the gorgeous dress? And…the girls are grown up now, or very nearly. Thursday was their first state dinner.

        Time goes by so quickly.

  10. Good Morning, 42, partly cloudy, and very quiet in Bellingham this morning, Yesterday’s wind storm had gust up to 60 mph, so lots of trees are down and people are still without power. Our lights stayed on, but the internet connection came and went for most of the day. Ava’s school had to close so she came here and we “gardened” all the indoor plants, fertilizing, trimming, washing pots, etc. Her young legs even got tired with all the trips up and down the stairs! So we rested and read The Secret Garden until her dad came.

    I’m mentally preparing myself for the tree service report, but it’s hard. The sight of the tall branches bending with the wind was scary yesterday, but this morning the sky outside my window is a lovely sight of lichen covered tree trunks and budding branches :::sigh::: However a tree very much like ours blew down up the street yesterday just missing two houses so I have to be realistic.

    http://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/article65166207.html

    • That must have been a horrendous storm, princesspat!

      So sorry to think you might be losing a tree. I must have Druid blood, because having to cut down a tree hurts my heart. We’ve had to do it twice now, and I still miss the darlings.

      I make sure to toast my trees in cider at Beltane.

      • We often save some of the branches and logs from those trees and use them in rituals. One young tree that I particularly loved, but which simply was unable to survive a bad winter when rodents ate its bark, provided fuel for several fires. It is a way to honor them and our connection to the earth.

  11. 47 at dawn, 57 now and heading for the mid 60s – off and on cloudy, hoping it will be more off than on. Unfortunately still showing rain for Sunday. We shall see what we shall see. Thanks for the video clips. Rachel is at least polite, doesn’t interrupt or talk over her interviewees, and doesn’t do “gotcha” crap. Both EW and Hillary did good jobs of presenting cases. EW seriously presenting the case for flipping the Senate – her main focus and why she’s not going to endorse anybody, because it would interfere with her drive to flip the Senate.

    Got the new router from AT&T – it didn’t work (effed up my phone as well), so I reinstalled my old router which then started working. I need to call AT&T about sending back the new router. Been putting it off because it takes so much time to get through the computer to a real human being. (One of my great aunts was “Central” in Milltown IN from 1918-1925. It’s not NAFTA that’s stolen our jobs, it’s automation. Sometimes you can feel a little sympathy for the Luddites.) Just hope the old router continues to work now that it’s started again as the newer models don’t like me any more than I like them.

    Hope everyone has a lovely day. And I’ll wish you a good weekend as well just in case my wi-fi goes down again. {{{HUGS}}}

    • Here’s hoping that your wi-fi stays on, bfitz! And in case it doesn’t, good luck for Sunday sunshine.

      Sometimes you can feel a little sympathy for the Luddites.)

      Moan…remember the days when you could turn on the TV and it came on INSTANTLY, and you didn’t have to press “Menu” to get the last station you watched, and you didn’t have to fight your way through a bunch of gadgets and widgets trying to trick you into ordering a movie? Hate that.

      • One of the joys of having gotten rid of my TV over 15 years ago – I don’t have to deal with that at all. :)

  12. Good morning, meese! Saturday …

    It is 40 degrees in Madison on its way up to 64. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    This morning’s Presidential Weekly Address is honoring the “legacy” of Nancy Reagan. Sorry, I just can’t. So I am going to post the State Dinner honoring the friendship of the United States and Canada. Last night, Hillary Clinton misspoke about Nancy Reagan’s contribution to the national conversation about HIV AIDS (apparently she meant to shout out her contribution to promoting stem cell research) and I, and many others, were reminded about the awfulness of that time and the unnecessary deaths. This Tweet captured it:

    Dan Savage ‎@fakedansavage

    Reagans started a “national convo about AIDS” only if people screaming “WHY WON’T YOU TALK ABOUT AIDS?!?” at them counts

    She quickly acknowledged the mistake, apologized, and now we can thank her for starting a national conversation about what happens when you demonize a group of people and essentially tell them that is it okay if they die because you don’t like their sexual orientation … or the color of their skin, or their religion, or their country of origin. See Trump, Donald: Making America Hate Again.

    See all y’all later!

  14. Well, yesterday was interesting. The Trump rally/riot, Hillary’s misstep — though she later did the right thing & retracted/apologized. And the President’s visit. Hours before, the line was around the building, so he’s still popular.

    I’m up early because my triathlon training group is having a reunion. I’m skipping the workout part — they’re running & I don’t run. No thoughts in my head, too sleepy. I know Obama said stuff, I just can’t think what it was.

    • It was a very emotional day. I was on Twitter for a lot of it and felt the waves of anger and angst and relief … then anger again and a certain amount of fear about what is happening to our country.

      Here is the White House video from the president’s participation in a South by Southwest Interactive …

      I admit to not knowing much about this event other than I thought I remembered it being boycotted last year because of some misogyny. Am I thinking of something else?

      • Earlier this year, when they were picking the panels, there was….. they invited Brianna Wu and some other people to talk about sexism in the tech industry. Then someone’s brain short-circuited and they decided that “for balance”, they had to invite people from the false outrage group that has sent her death threats & worse. Um, no. Then they did something else stupid that made it even worse…. What ended up happening is some kind of “summit”….. I don’t get it. Here’s an article & I still don’t get it

        http://www.austinchronicle.com/screens/2016-03-11/the-bumpy-road-to-sxsws-online-harassment-summit/

  15. Good morning, Meese! It’s 50 on this cloudy morning in NoVa and will stay like that all day. I need to go downstairs to breakfast in a minute.

    We had a wonderful family feast last night, although the mother of Mr. Newbaby was unable to attend, and Daughter’s husband had to stay behind in Austin because of work. (We did Facetime with him last night, though.) Through the neighborhood app NextDoor I found a pastry chef right around the corner and hired her to make my favorite cake for my birthday. I told her I wanted a carrot cake with pineapples and walnuts, so we’d be sure to get our protein and vitamins for the day. Well, she walked the cake over at 5 p.m. yesterday and what a cake it was! I’m going to hire her to make Shakespeare’s birthday cake next month.

    Not much on today, except that Daughter and I hope to get our nails done. Dearly will drive her to Baltimore-Washington Airport, an hour away. I’ve promised to staff the Girl Scout cookie booth with Miss Pink Cheeks about that time, so we’ll have to say goodbye earlier. One day she plans to move here, as her husband’s parents live about 20 minutes away from us.

    Why am I not surprised about the Trump rally violence? Dread looking for HN&V this morning at GOS. I don’t want to see the Retch List titles. As of this writing, Hillary’s prospects are promising. I hope St. Bernie doesn’t win any more.

    Wishing a good day to all!

  17. Morning all! Beautiful, sunny and warm here today – I think I’ll have to run the sprinklers, it’s so dry and no rain in sight for days.

    What a day yesterday. I can’t really figure out exactly why Hillary confused stem cell research with AIDS, but I can hazard a guess – she was very tired, jet lagged, was trying to compose something nice to say about Nancy and the Reagans’ terrible record on AIDS was on her mind, and bloop, out it came. Or it was some staffer screwed up an index card, gave her wrong info and she was too tired to process what she was saying before it came out. I’m glad she corrected and apologized so swiftly, but of course it gives the Berners another switch to beat her with, so I’m just staying the heck out of GOS except for Lysis’ diary today.

    The Trump rally and protest are far more important and troubling. While I totally understand wanting to protest Trump’s presence in your city, and that of his racist violent followers, I’m not sure a protest at this time is the right way to go, because Trump just used it to turn the tables on the protesters. From what I read last night, he didn’t talk to the Chicago police before deciding to cancel and they certainly didn’t tell him to – so the police were caught off guard when he announced the cancellation, a move CERTAIN to provoke some of his more unhinged supporters to go after the protesters. And then Trump gets free TV coverage while maintaining that the protesters were trying to censor HIM – nonsense, of course, but the media eats that stuff up because it makes ratings for them. I’m afraid Trump comes out the winner here, and it is not good – I believe he was hoping for violent confrontations, to summon up memories of Chicago Dem Convention in 1968, to turn out even more of the Angry White Man vote for himself. It’s so dangerous, I don’t know where this will end.

    I also read yesterday that Sanders succeeded in his lawsuit to allow 17 year olds to vote in the Ohio primary so long as they’ll be 18 by the GE – while I understand the reasoning from a civics point of view, sheesh – he’s pumping up the audience most likely to be captured by his legalize dope/free college message. I really simply can’t stand the guy at this point.

    Oh well, we’ll get thru it, Hillary will get thru it and hopefully have a big win in Florida and elsewhere on Tuesday. Have a good day everyone!

    • I agree with you that Donald Trump comes out of this the winner because he gets the free press, the sympathy from those who are decrying “political correctness” (what we call “common decency”), and it feeds the butthurt of the entire Trump movement. It won’t help him in the general election but the Republican base is pumped up.

      By the way, I will never complain about more people getting the vote but I wish Bernie would spend some of his money to support the ACLU and NAACP lawsuits that will let minorities vote or help raise money for down ticket Democrats and the DSCC and DCCC and DNC to help fund voter id initiatives. To date, he has raised about $1,000 for the DNC. Meh.

      Finally, there is no rationale for the BernieBros to make hay from Hillary’s misstep on Nancy Reagan. It has nothing to do with her fitness for office and certainly nothing to do with Wall Street!! ;)

      A couple of Tweets:

      Dana Houle ‏@DanaHoule
      …apology shows it wasn’t some 11 dimensional move that results in her supporters getting screwed. But obviously many reacted differently.

      undue burden snipy ‏@snipy
      perfectly cool to tell me how you personally feel, but if your Hot Take is LOL GAYS NOW HAVE TO LOVE BERNIE SEEEEEEE please sit down.

      And this:

      AlGiordano ‏@AlGiordano
      If you were around eight years ago you can remember Sec. Clinton making an unforced gaffe about once a week. Thus, improvement.

      Ha!!

  18. Good morning, 48 and raining in Bellingham. Yesterday was a busy day with errands in the morning and flower fun in my garage in the afternoon. But then I came indoors to rest my knees and turned on the news:(

    Today will be busy too with a family visit (Ron’s older brother and is wife) and dinner at our son’s house tonight. Ron and his brother are going on a bird watching cruise, but being on the water with rain and white caps has no appeal for me, so I’ll treat my SIL to lunch and we’ll visit on dry land.

  19. hiya Meese

    Almost noon here
    Have been immersed in meta and working on next Sunday piece. Tomorrow is Bella Abzug, next Sunday will be Ann Richards.
    Now I’m going to go relax for a while – and kill some demons in WoW :)

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