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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Good morning, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 61 in Madison WI, on its way up to 79. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Hi Meese – Sunday
Women’s gathering was fantastic – and in spite of dire weather forecasts there was not a drop of rain – so we had a great time outdoors. Multiple generations of women were there – the oldest was age 87, the youngest in her early teens.
What was clear was that the advent of Trump was viewed as dire – and even those few women who had been Bernie supporters are going to get out the vote for Hill.
Trump is the Great Uniter – of Democrats. :)
Thanks for the update, Denise! It sounds wonderful! Just imagine, 87 and still partying hard—hope I’ll be the same.
Yesterday, despite all the predictions of violent thunderstorms and rain, we had one brief shower while we were having our afternoon nap.
Glad to hear about your friends getting out the vote!
Yesterday on Twitter, people were celebrating the 51st anniversary of the VRA:
The Republican Party, in complete self-unawareness, tweeted this out. They couldn’t even be bothered to spell check and completely ignored that 3 years later, they launched the Southern Strategy to undo all the Civil Rights laws, including the VRA:
Sorry! Here is some eyebleach:
We are lucky to still have John Lewis, a living reminder of what it took to get the Voting Rights Act enacted – and how quickly “this most basic right” can be taken away when we fail to exercise our franchise and allow Republicans to take over Congress. It’s on us! We have to find a way to get people to vote in midterms: the 2010 and 2014 elections are what killed the VRA, voter indifference to the most important tool a democracy has – the right of citizens to choose our government.
Good morning Meese, it’s a spectacular Sunday with not a cloud in the sky. Currently, it’s 66 F., going up to 87 F. (Well, it is August.) Today I get to stay indoors to do my horrible work.
Read with utter fascination how Paul Ryan was besieged in his own home by Trump supporters. I refuse to feel sorry for him, although I hope his wife and family aren’t going to suffer. The Rethug party gave birth to the monster that is Trump.
Got to scamper downstairs and cook a Full English for Dearly and waffles for moi-meme. Wishing a good Sunday to all!
My hope is that Paul Ryan’s dream of completely destroying the social safety net in homage to his Ayn Randian view of America is permanently crushed by the Trump phenomenon. I find it difficult to care about any discomfort he experiences when I see people literally dying from Republican Party policies.
p.s. That description of your breakfast made me hungry!! Off to find a bagel to nosh.
So I didn’t get as much done yesterday as I wanted. Today will be cooking & cleaning house. It is really hot — even our weather people are saying “dangerous”. We’re usually pretty stoic about heat, because it is supposed to be hot in Texas.
Brain is playing Steve Earle’s The Revolution Starts Now. A gorgeous, happy song. I love the last verse: Last night I had a dream
That the world had turned around
And all our hopes had come to be
And the people gathered around
They all brought what they could bring
And nobody went without
And I learned a song to sing
The revolution starts now
G’day all – forgot to check in yesterday. Not much going on – yesterday was a good performance of a Czech opera, Jenufa, from the Vienna State Opera – by Janacek. Modernish but not too discordant for me, and the two main soprano roles were sung marvelously.
I’m sad that I have no interest in watching the Olympics this year- I usually love the Olympics, but Rio was such a poor choice of locale, the impoverished people of Rio have paid and will pay in the future a high price for these games. Housing bulldozed down, etc. And the athletes may end up paying a high price as well – not just the Zika virus, which worries me especially for the young women there, but also the terribly polluted water in many of the venues. I just can’t get interested in it.
I am also getting seriously sick of the press’s treatment of Hillary – I can’t take one more minute on the damned e-mails, or why she won’t have press conferences. The questions she got on Friday amply demonstrate why she doesn’t do press conferences, nor should she – because the press is only interested in her pain, not in her policies. Drives me crazy.
Ok, Walking Dead marathon on TV, my Sunday is set – woke up to wonderful steady rain this morning, Hallelujah! I think we’re supposed to get more this week – won’t make much of a dent in our drought, probably, but it’s a start.
Everyone have a great day!
Woke to overcast, cleared off just as the washing machine finished so I hung them out. Started sprinkling as I logged on, so I just got here to turn around and grab the clothes off the line and hang them on racks in the spare bedroom (the one that has the ceiling fan) – and here I am back again to the sound of rumbly thunder and the pitter patter of just barely heavier than sprinkling rain. I should have figured it would since I watered this morning. Baked lemon-almond butter muffins this morning then made refried bean and Spanish rice soup. At which point the A/C kicked on so I closed up the house.
Nabbed some over-ripe peaches at the Market yesterday and my friend just showed up with 1/2 of them made into jam! So even though I’ll only have a few more muffin batches of last year’s cherry jam, I’ll be able to start doing peach jam instead. :) Wish I could send a jar to Hillary – maybe make up for the a$$hats who whine that she won’t give them interviews after they demonstrate conclusively that she shouldn’t. Oh well, my good wishes and White Light will have to do. The attacks on her remind me just about daily why I don’t have and don’t want at TV.
So. Cheese and carrots for lunch and over to GOS to read Dee’s Sunday diary. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Peaches! Peach jam—how yum-a-licious, bfitz!
At TJ’s yesterday morning they were advertising beautiful jars of golden peach halves in fruit juice and boxes of vanilla cake mix for a “Peach Dump Cake.” No recipe was provided. I shall have to Google it.
comfort needed
for those that still log in to the Big Orange, this person suddenly lost her life partner yesterday – I’ve republished to the Austin Kos page & put it on FB, but she needs comfort — and I thought of here, because reading her profile, she’s Pagan
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/8/6/1557613/-My-Wolfman-Is-Gone-WolfmanSpike-aka-Spike-Tasamali-1963-2016
OMG, read the headline and thought she was talking about a family pet. Thanks for the link, another.
I’ll try to read it later—as usual, I’m going to be running all day long.
me, too – that’s why I didn’t read it for over a day, till someone else posted a diary about it
Good morning, meese! Monday …
It is 57 degrees in Madison on its way up to 81. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast. Cool nights are making a comeback which is good news for my electric bill.
Yesterday #HillaryCoverageIsCrap was trending on Twitter as Melissa McEwan expanded on her theme about the terrible unfairness of the media towards Hillary Clinton. Because I don’t watch MSNBC any longer, I did not see some of it but, holy mackeral, they are awful. The media is going to come out of this election with a lower approval rate than hemorrhoids … or Congress! We now enter the period of the race where the press gets bored because the polls are so lopsided so they write about nothing for the next 3 months. I am going to modulate my news intake to improve my disposition.
I see that the vulgar talking yam will be giving a speech in Detroit about the economy. One of his policy initiatives will be a childcare credit. Ha!! Maybe that will finally be the bridge too far for Congressional leaders like Ryan and McConnell: do not propose anything that will help working families!! Of course, a childcare credit is only valuable for those who earn enough to pay taxes. Many working families pay no taxes and would not benefit … they need subsidies to help lower the cost of childcare. But how would his council of economic advisors, all male and mainly hedge fund and real estate moguls (and half of them named Steve) , know anything about that?
See all y’all later!
Happy Moon Day, Moosekind! It’s 64 delightful degrees Fahrenheit, going up to 85 F. today. We’re due to get clouds later today, though.
Miss Pink Cheeks’ new camp starts at 9, so I’ll have to take her at 8:45 a.m. Thank goodness this is her last camp and I can have her to myself from 15 August to 1 September!
Melissa McEwan’s remarks re the relentlessly terrible coverage of Hillary really struck a chord with me. She describes it aptly, for all time, as “The ritual humiliation of an extraordinary woman.” And as she points out, if the most qualified candidate of all time is subjected to this, what chance do the rest of us have? Is it any wonder that fewer women than men run for office?
I’ve given as much to the campaign as my limited finances will allow, but I wish had lots more to contribute. This is one campaign where commercials showing Hillary with people, showing Hillary’s past record of achievement, really matter.
I’ve thought of mobilizing a Twitter Army, each of whose members would pick one particular journo and bombard him or her with pushbacks against cruel, unfair criticism. However, I have not the faintest idea how to do that.
Spent ALL DAY yesterday cleaning the horrendous fridge. When I finally staggered off to bed my hands still smelt of Clorox. Ugh.
May it be a good day for all at the Pond and Beyond!
The “journalists” would probably just block you and you would not make a dent. I read a story today from the NY Times saying that it is important to “balance” Donald Trump’s statements about abandoning our allies with Hillary’s email server. Sigh.
Pat Schroeder, who was shredded for showing emotion after her withdrawal from the 1988 presidential race is happy to see Hillary turn the “temperament” issue back on Trump.
Short work day today, I’m having my a/c serviced. While the guy is there, I’m going to ask if he will put some hooks up for me. I’ve wanted to put up different curtains for a long time & I’m not tall/strong enough to put the hooks in. I’ve got dowels & I’m going to put the curtains on them & them on the hooks. I’ll have to go to Lowe’s after the a/c guy leaves & have the dowels cut.
Phelps was about to swim as I was turning off the TV last night, so I watched. Pretty incredible.
https://youtu.be/Xvo-bfaVsg0 came up in my playlist again, so my brain will be playing that for me for a while. With this one, I also get the video, which is nice, because Hutchence was a good looking man.
Tim Kaine is coming to Austin as part of his Jobs Tour:
If the Republicans have to play defense in Texas, with a top of the ticket who is unable to raise money, they will be in a world of hurt.
yeah, I have a friend who sent invites – it’s one of those $2700 things, so I won’t be going
Yes, after I had my hopes raised that they were going to put Republicans on the defensive in Texas, people said that the trip is just a fundraiser. Nate changed Texas to a lighter shade of orange on his tracker yesterday but it is probably out of reach until we can find a way to get Latino voter turnout up. It is a problem everywhere which is why the Demographic Tsunami that we expected may be delayed. We have work to do to persuade those who think their votes don’t matter to vote anyway. The votes might not result in a single electoral vote in 2016 but there are downticket races … plus your vote lets those in charge know that you are there and that they better pay attention to your needs.
Howdy Meese
I’m pooped. Still tired from poll volleyball on Saturday, and then spent all afternoon yesterday doing a religious ceremony outdoors, honoring agriculture, with my godson
Reading about the Delta airlines global outage – cannot understand why they would have a system in place that could take them out like that.
Am now looking at tweets – #HillaryCoverageIsCrap
https://twitter.com/hashtag/HillaryCoverageIsCrap?src=hash&lang=en
makes me holler!
Good morning, 57 and partly sunny in Bellingham. Looks like I forgot to check in yesterday…..the excitement of doing laundry and finishing my book overwhelmed me, heh! I enjoy the family visits, but this one left me with 6 beds to change, all the towels used, and lots of table linens to launder.
I’m going to the pool soon, then Ava and I will sew her pj’s. Add some more laundry and bill paying and that will be my day.
I am going to start reading the 9th Malazan novel, Dust of Dreams, as soon as I can. And yes, I’m turning to fiction to escape the craziness of the yam and our presidential election. According to Sam Wang’s site HRC’s poll numbers are good but the day to day coverage worries me.
Sam Wang:
I just saw a poll that put Hillary up by even more in Georgia. Winning some of those states will make the Senate less of a scary every-two-years-up-for-grabs thing. We would have lost it in 2010 if we had not been so fortunate that the Republicans fielded the worst set of candidates ever. We did lose it in 2014 because too many of the seats we held were from the Old Times when Democrats could win in the South. In 2018 we have to defend the gains of the 2012 election, the Year of the Senate Women. Having a chance in some of the Southern states again would help.
I should see if I can reengage with fiction as a palate cleanser; I have not sat down to read a book for a long time. I used to enjoy who-dun-its and I can grab one from my stack of unread books from a few years ago and see if I still do.
Yay Sam :)
Love those EVs!
72 this morning – cool compared to the last week – unfortunately overcast again – these danged clouds are seriously cutting into my electricity production. Slightly cooler though (slightly) and I turned my A/C up to 82 so I’m not cutting too deeply into my banked KWHs. Enough rain yesterday to make me have to bring my clothes in, not enough to even measure so it’s good I watered.
Had some fun over at GOS yesterday evening – there’s a diary matching today’s politicians with Harry Potter characters. Hillary as Hermione was almost a given (although there were a few dissenters – a few said McGonagall and one say Harry himself), but the others were all over the place. It was a lovely respite from the outraged reactions to the Media’s treatment of Hillary. It pisses me off, too, but after all these years I’m resigned. The owners of the media are staging an all-out assault to try and stop her – any woman – from becoming president of the United States. Once it’s done, it can’t be undone – like having the first Black president. Any future attempts to stop the 2nd from getting elected will not have the same impact even if they are as bad because the concept won’t be new and scary. So we do what we can, she does what she can, and quite probably Black women are going to save the country and – in this case – the world one more time. (Although we white women are going to pay a larger part than usual in this one.)
Got to get the Spring classes entered today. Actually have been working on it this morning, that’s why I’m late, but need an answer to something so I stopped for a coffee-and-lemon-almond-muffin break and to check in. And basically, I’ll have to go forward with what I can do and go back to what I need the answer on as soon as I finish typing this. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Yes – “The owners of the media are staging an all-out assault to try and stop her – any woman – from becoming president of the United States. Once it’s done, it can’t be undone – like having the first Black president.”
GOTV!!!!
Good morning, meese! Tuesday …
It is 72 degrees in Madison on its way up to 84. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast.
Today is election day in Wisconsin, partisan primaries to decide the Democrat and the Republican who will face off on November 8th. We have a few county races with challengers and there is a Republican who got himself into the Democratic primary to challenge Russ Feingold. One of our Congressional Districts (up north) has no Republican running and a Sanders acolyte is running against an 11 term Democratic congressman. It will be interesting to see if the Sanders guy gets out the vote – they often skip quaint things like building a ground game, expecting the magical unicorn of Revolutionary Ideas to do the work for them. Whoever wins the primary, wins the seat.
Trump gave his Big Speech and it turned out that it was the same old Republican trickle down with the addition of a child care deduction that would only help 20% of working families. I did not watch it but monitored it on Twitter. It sounded like it was addressed to the “economic anxiety” of billionaires and the magical thinking that got Kansas into a budget hole so large that 10 state legislators got voted out in their primary last week. Elizabeth Warren tweeted her disgust.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is now a NeverTrumper. Some Twitterers suggested that Trump’s attack on Maine’s immigrants was the final straw. It would be nice to think that there is a final straw but it probably had more to do with political viability. Any Republican who thinks they can endorse and then later wash the stench of Trumpism off their skin is deluding themselves.
See all y’all later!
Looks like Trump’s economic speech got derailed by attention paid to his Freudian breast slip.
The NYT piece:
50 G.O.P. Officials Warn Donald Trump Would Put Nation’s Security ‘at Risk’
is getting wide circulation.
swing State polling for Hillary looks excellent am- waiting to see new poll for North Carolina.
I hope this story gets some traction:
Good morning, Moosekind! Another frantically busy day ahead, preparing the house for when the family comes over to celebrate Dearly Beloved’s birthday this weekend. It’s partly cloudy in NoVa, 64 F. now, 79 F. later. Must say I’m enjoying the cooler weather we had yesterday and will have today. The cloud cover that’s responsible wouldn’t be very good for solar collection, though.
Denise, what was Trump’s “Freudian breast slip”? Missed that one. Delighted to see Hillary ahead by 10 points, though! I’m feeling encouraged by Georgia and will wait with interest to see about North Carolina.
Back later, but must run now! Wishing a good day to all!
Trump mispoke the word “cities” referring instead to another name for “breasts”. Sad, really, because the emphasis should have been on his lies not a slip of the tongue. I am beginning to think that the race has descended into a social media gotcha contest. Eric Boehlert from Media Matters wonders if the race is essentially over – everyone has seen Trump’s juvenile behaviour and it is baked in, there is nothing he can do to reverse it and, worse for him, his entertainment value is diminishing. Maybe trying to gain points by smearing the Gold Star parents of a soldier killed in your own party’s war of choice might have been the end of the line.
Ten million hot dry degrees. I brought my gym bag, so I can do the elliptical machine in the a/c after work. Because “dangerously hot”. Luckily my a/c didn’t need anything, just routine maintenance. He changed the filter for me, which I appreciate since it is over my head & I hate doing things over my head. I’m sure there are things going on in the world, but I’m just going to turn up the volume on the song my brain is playing at me, yes it’s still Disappear.
interesting/depressing twitter thread, commenting on one of those “why are there so few women leaders” articles:
https://twitter.com/the_author_/status/762987812450865152
Stu Rothenberg, WaPo:
Bolding mine.
Eric Boehlert, last night:
Oh, but wait. As Petula Dvorak suggests, suppose Hillary does win the election. Will the headline be, “Bill Clinton back in White House, brings wife”?
The traditional media make me barf.
I worry about what the media will find to entertain themselves with between now and November 8th. It is not like the 10,000 writers chasing clicks are going to go back to covering the flower show – they will be looking for something to “make their name”, real or made up – truth optional.