Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: June 21st through June 27th

June 21, 2015 JanF Community 143

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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43 Comments

  1. Good morning, it’s 57 and sunny in Bellingham today and summer with the grand girls is underway. We’ll have fun keeping up with Ava today!

    I’m so relieved re the ACA decision. While logic was telling me this would happen my lack of trust in the SCOTUS was making me worry. Now to expand Medicaid and protect Medicare so even more people will have access to health care without worry.

      • Thanks Diana

        The ACA is life saving for our son. He is self employed so his current health crisis has very real economic consequences. Thanks to a trained navigator/social worker at the hospital medicaid is covering all of his current bills, which means he has the care he needs and will not be burdened with debt. Now with her assistance and the support of the Wa Health Care site he has the help he needs to move back to regular insurance coverage. His health challenge is chronic, but can’t be denied coverage…..a huge relief!

        • In Wisconsin, 166,000 people were depending on subsidies for healthcare and would have lost them (and their insurance, very likely) if the ruling had been for King. I know some of those people and it would have devastated them.

          This is a BHD.

    • I think it is hilarious that Scalia, in his dissent, said that the law should be renamed from Obamacare to SCOTUScare because the Supreme Court has saved it so many times. What a nasty little man!

    • The President will be speaking at 11:30am Eastern on the ACA ruling:

      I will put the finished video and transcript into a post when it is available.

  2. Hey, Jan and/or other admins – could you add me to the madness again? This is my first time here since the update to the site.

    • Will do, trs! Might take a while … busy day in the Blogosphere. :)

      Watch for an email from wordpress at motleymoose dot net with your temporary password.

  3. and the dermatologist called, I have a surgery consult on Monday for the melanoma surgery, can this day get any better

    • healing energy heading your way – I’d post the candle if I could – also “my” healing music except you and I have very different tastes in music. But healing energy is healing energy and that I can and am sending by the bucketfuls.

  4. Good morning, meese! Friday …

    It is 60 degrees in Madison on its way up to 75. Evening thunderstorms are in the forecast.

    I have a news hangover! ACA wins, housing discrimination loses. Yikes! The decision saving the subsidies was no surprise but what was a surprise was the right-wing vitriol aimed at Chief Justice John Roberts. I am not sure what the conservatives missed: Roberts is a strong defender of business interests and the destruction of the multi-trillion dollar private insurance business would not have been something he would have been in favor of. And the Republicans were pretty clear that they had no interest in fixing the 4 words that were being questioned so what did they think he would do? Duh. He did not dupe the right wing (he is not a David Souter in Antonin Scalia clothing) … he will continue to rule against voting rights and fair elections and women’s reproductive rights.

    Today all eyes turn to the court again for a special Friday opinions session. Tea leaf readers think that the marriage equality cases will be decided today but others think that will be the last day (Monday). I guess we shall know soon enough! You can follow the news here: SCOTUS Watch June 26th.

    Also today the President (along with the Vice president and First Lady) will be in Charleston SC to speak at the funeral of Rev. Clementa Pinckney. I am going to guess that it will be carried live at WhiteHouse.gov/Live but I don’t see anything there yet.

    Donald Trump is now polling 2nd in national GOP presidential preference polls. Good lord, what has our country come to?

    I am going to go put up some links in yesterday’s SCOTUS Watch post recapping the day’s events. One headline I saw was that the President declared a National Day of Gloating. I think it was snark. :)

    See all y’all later!!

    • Thanks for the link! I am going to guess the White House will cover it too. I am glad they moved it to a larger and more secure venue.

    • I am still trying to figure out what happened to make people come to the realization that the dishonest association of the Confederate flag with some sort of noble cause was wrong. Do you think it had to do with deflecting attention from addressing gun violence? It is certainly easier to remove a few scraps of cloth than to get background checks for gun purchases. While I would hope it is a spontaneous national epiphany, that the work of generations of civil rights activists finally came to fruition, I don’t believe in unicorns.

      • There was a guy on All In last night – actually they’ve showed clips a couple of nights — from the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The reporter interviewing him was African-American, and this dude was really trying to convince him to “respect” the soldiers because “they were defending their homes from invaders”. No, seriously.

        http://www.nbcnews.com/video/i-see-bravery-i-see-honor-says-confederate-flag-supporter-470557251946

        The face that they were traitors who rebelled against their country; that is was about the right to own other humans, all of this is totally lost on this lunatic.

        • The articles of secession from the South Carolina legislature is pretty clear about why they were leaving the union. There was no invasion that preceded that.

          Ken Burns:

          Ken Burns, the documentarian behind PBS’s acclaimed The Civil War series, blasted the myth that the Confederate flag isn’t a symbol of racism and white supremacy during a Thursday appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

          “I think what happens is that we build up over time the sense of an excuse about why it came,” Burns said. “If you read … South Carolina’s articles of secession in November — after [Abraham] Lincoln’s election of 1860 — they don’t mention states’ rights, they don’t mention nullification. They mention slavery over and over again.”

          He later added, “Those [Confederate] flags came in after Brown v. Board of Education. This is not about heritage. This is about resistance to civil rights.”

          The lies that people tell themselves. I suppose we should be glad that they care to lie and that it is still not considered okay to say “we hate n—-rs!!” But they are not fooling anyone.

  7. Good morning, Meese! 66 F. here at the moment, going up to 82 F. today. Have a lot to do, including writing—July 1 is next Wednesday, and I have to be ready with a short-short story and a short blog by Monday for my Web guy.

    Like Jan, I’m suffering from a news hangover—what a felicitous way of putting it, Jan, thanks—but still eagerly awaiting the next major decision. Got a big kick out of seeing the pro-ACA demonstrators at the Supreme Court on TV yesterday. One advantage of living where I do is that all these places are a Metro ride away. My husband used to watch me on TV demonstrating for abortion rights on the steps of the Supreme Court. Also enjoyed the “Running of the Interns” with copies of the decision.

    So the racists have burned down two African-American churches! The bastards. Wish karma would deal with them as they deserve. Glad to see the Confederate rag consigned to the dustbin of history.

    Torrential rains coming tomorrow. We’ve had so much rain the grass is as green as the hills of Ireland. Wonder whether the rains will keep up?

    Wishing all Meese a happy Friday, with healing vibes and sympathy to Portlaw and anotherdemocrat!

    • Yay, you!!! “demonstrating for abortion rights on the steps of the Supreme Court.” I hope you can return this fall. I suspect that the court is going to hear both the Mississippi and Texas cases next term. We need you there glaring at Anthony Kennedy (metaphorically, of course).

      Do not talk about this “July” thing!! I am so far behind for things I have promised for the end of June that I am not sure where to start. I still have a weekend between now and then but it is already filling up with other things I need to do. :(

  8. Eating breakfast & drinking tea. No real thoughts in my head. Looking at pictures from last night’s U2 show in Chicago in my twitter feed. Adam handsome. Silver fox. And that’s about as deep as I go this morning. Thinking about what a good, sweet, compassionate person Jim was and waiting for confirmation I have a referral to the surgeon. Too heavy for this hour. Back to looking at pictures of the silver fox.

  10. Happy Friday – and at least there are a few things to be happy about this Friday (and thank you Jan for keeping us up on them) – not quite 80 when I got in, but then I left the house 20 minutes earlier than usual hoping to wrap up the draft of the Annual Report before anybody got in and needed my attention. No such luck but I did get through about 1/3 of the resume updates that I am mining for information for the last section (grants submitted) before I got interrupted. At which point I figured since I was interrupted I’d best scoot over here and check in before I got back to it :) – we’ve got rain in the forecast this afternoon which is supposed to keep us from getting as hot as we have the last few days. That will only work if it starts mid-afternoon and doesn’t let up until close to dark – and we’ll only get the promised lower overnight low if it does clear off and take it’s humidity with it. heh. Anyway, hope everybody is taking enough joy from the wins to give them the energy to keep on keepin’ on with the rest of it. {{{HUGS}}}

  11. Good morning, it’s 66 and sunny in Bellingham. Waking up to good news from the SCOTUS two days in a row is wonderful! I’m going to be in the garden today, planting flowers and enjoying this moment of relief and celebration.

  14. Good morning, meese!! Saturday …

    It is a delightful 59 degrees in Madison on its way up to 79. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    Another news hangover!! If it were not mostly good news, I would tell it to stop. :)

    I was struck by the vitriol (and bad history) expressed in the dissents by the Four Horsemen of the 19th Century in the marriage equality ruling. First, how rude to suggest that the dozens of district court and circuit court judges who ruled in favor of marriage for all couples are stupid. Second, “God” invented marriage? I suppose 6,000 years ago when “He” created the universe. And third, it is an insult to other countries, like our neighbor Canada, to declare that same-sex marriage is wrong and any nation that allows it is wrong. Funniest Tweet last night by those enraged by the Supreme Court’s ruling:

    maddie ‏@Maddie_R_W
    Gay Marriage has been legal in Canada for 10 years.

    Do not miss the president’s amazing(!) speech: President Obama: “We must not allow ourselves to slip into comfortable silence again” . Video and full transcript.

    See all y’alls later!!

  15. Good morning, Moosekind! Gray, gloomy, and rainy here in NoVa, more like October than the end of June. If we don’t get a few days of hot sun pretty soon, the tomatoes will never ripen.

    Had a rotten day yesterday, during which two wonderful things happened: the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality (great was the rejoicing throughout the land), and the USA women’s team’s win over China, 1-0 (more rejoicing was heard throughout the land at at 9:30 p.m.).

    Traditional marriage my foot! Its defenders are completely ignorant of the larger world. It has not always been “one man and one woman.” How about Tibet, where, when a woman marries, she marries not only a man but all his brothers? How about Mother Lake, a community somewhere between Tibet and China, where the women don’t bother getting married but live sexually free lives and entertain lovers in their “flower rooms”? Men have to live in the village, while mother and children live in the house.

    And what about traditional marriage in the Islamic world? In Jordan I saw a man visiting a jewelry shop at the hotel near the airport, bent on buying gold trinkets for the four wives trailing after him.

    What about this country? In some parts of Utah, evidently a man can marry as many women as can stand to have him around. Ugh.

    The right to marry, conservative peeps, like the right to vote, is not conferred by God but through the republic to which we have pledged allegiance—at least, most of us have.

    And one last word before I shut up and go downstairs to breakfast: did everyone see the wonderful rainbow colors of the White House last night? That pleased me no end!

    • They put the White House all lit up on a continuous loop last night for 4 hours. :)

      Yes, when you unpack the word “traditional” you find it often includes the intent to subjugate and demean. Roberts can say that it should have been voted on but that shows his lack of concern for people’s lives (he is great supporter of people’s pocketbooks when they are the wealthy). The ghastly anti-miscegenation laws would never have been repealed by a vote … and how rude in any event to have people vote on other people’s civil rights!

    • By the way, I also watched the World Cup last night. It was a very good game! The single goal was quite worthy … an excellent setup and put in with the keeper going all out. Sometimes games at this level end up being won or lost on penalty kicks and it feels quite unsatisfying. The game also featured some different players and I think it was played with a little more crispness than the past few games. Perhaps the “knockout” part of the knockout rounds gets everyone’s attention. :)

  16. Up for my walking group. This is the last week of the special thing my friend is doing, I may drop out after this. And I’m undecided about re-joining my 1/2 marathon training group in August. I think I need one real rest day a week. Anyway, back later.

  17. Gloomy, chilly and damp here in the Catskills and we have a flood watch – which won’t affect me high on the mountain but will affect my low-lying neighbors

    Am wrung out emotionally from the funeral service and eulogy yesterday, and from the highs of wins in SCOTUS for us all.

    I think I will spend the day napping.

    Sending healing waves to Portlaw – hope her pain is abating.

    • Looks like NY State Troopers found one of the prison escapees. I hope they find the other one soon as that has to have everyone nervous in upstate New York. And they need to figure out what is wrong with the workers at that prison that made more than a few of them forget that their jobs were to protect the rest of society from people with evil intent. Maybe a “company town” when the “company” is a prison is not a great idea if it creates a dysfunctional workforce.

  18. Troupe commenting on phone. Saw the eulogy on my phone yesterday. Sobbed mrt later

  19. Good morning, 63 and sunny in Bellingham. An old friend arrived yesterday so we enjoyed dinner and reminiscing outdoors last evening. She is 60 yrs old (seems so young!) and will be competing in a triathlon today. She plans on winning and I’m sure she will!

    I watched the President’s eulogy later in the day, and am still feeling the effect of his words. A moment of grace…..may we all remember.

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