Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Aug. 16th through Aug. 22nd

August 16, 2015 JanF Community 97

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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46 Comments

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

    It is 73 degrees in Madison WI, on its way up to 91. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  2. Good morning, Meese.
    It’s going to be hot here today and even hotter tomorrow.
    Am off to look at birds after a few more sips of coffee. Will check back later to see how everyone is.
    Hope it’s a good day for all in the Pond and on our Planet Earth. Heck, hope it’s a good day for all on other planets as well.

      • Our temperatures won’t break until overnight on Monday; I hope the cooler temps show up for you in a few days.

        I’m ready for fall!!

  3. Good morning, Moosekind! Another beautiful, much too hot day in NoVa, 64 F. now, on its way up to 92 F. We need five days of gentle, all-day rain.

    Just woke up, waiting for the butler to serve the early morning tea. Younger Son prepared a marvelous birthday celebration meal for Dearly Beloved’s 85th: shrimp wrapped in prosciutto accompanied by fruit kebabs and yogurt for the appetizer; grilled filet mignon with Bearnaise sauce and roasted potatoes with red peppers, and roasted asparagus. We were stuffed! Then we had the microscopic birthday cake. Babylicious was enthralled by the candles and the birthday song. Mr. New Baby slept through it all.

    Hope it’s a good day for all at the Pond and Beyond! Portlaw, very inclusive of you to mention all the other planets. :)

  4. Morris Dees from SPLC “We’ve lost a champion”

    It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of legendary civil rights activist Julian Bond, SPLC’s first president. He was 75 years old and died last evening, August 15, in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

    From his days as the co-founder and communications director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s to his chairmanship of the NAACP in the 21st century, Julian was a visionary and tireless champion for civil and human rights. He served as the SPLC’s president from our founding in 1971 to 1979, and later as a member of its board of directors.

    With Julian’s passing, the country has lost one of its most passionate and eloquent voices for the cause of justice. He advocated not just for African Americans, but for every group, indeed every person subject to oppression and discrimination, because he recognized the common humanity in us all.

    Julian is survived by his wife, Pamela Horowitz, a former SPLC staff attorney, and his five children.

    Not only has the country lost a hero today, we’ve lost a great friend.

    • Oral History Interview with Julian Bond, November 1 and 22, 1999

      As the son of Lincoln University president Horace Mann Bond, Julian Bond came into contact with black thinkers, musicians, and artists. The historically black Lincoln had served as a haven for black intelligentsia, but it also protected Bond from the pains of white racism. His parents sent him to a Quaker private school, where Bond learned pacifist principles. Upon graduating, Bond decided to attend Morehouse University in Atlanta, Georgia. There he became active in the civil rights movement while working on a local black newspaper. In his work with the newspaper, Bond witnessed whites’ and black elites’ opposition to the push for rapid racial change. The swelling protests among southern blacks, especially college students, piqued Bond’s interest. His fervor led him to drop out of school, much to his parents’ chagrin. Bond describes his involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and his connection with other activists, including Ella Baker, Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, John Lewis, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses, and Stokely Carmichael. The grassroots training experiences he gained working with local activists in Atlanta prepared him for voter registration organizing in rural southern counties. Bond explains the ideological tensions between SNCC and older civil rights activist groups. Many older activists, Bond argues, rejected younger blacks’ radicalism as moving too fast, too soon. He discusses the growing internal divide that led to a black power camp and an integrationist camp within SNCC brought about by the inclusion of white Freedom Summer workers. Bond discusses his three successful bids for the Georgia House of Representatives and that body’s refusal to seat him in 1966. In 1968, he formed a black challenge delegation to Georgia’s all-white pro-segregation Democratic delegation at the Chicago convention. In the 1980s, Bond protested apartheid by boycotting stores that sold South African items.

    • Someone on Twitter pointed out that the PBS documentary on the Civil Rights movement, “Eyes on the Prize” was narrated by Julian Bond:

      Eyes on the Prize is an award-winning 14-hour television series produced by Blackside and narrated by Julian Bond. Through contemporary interviews and historical footage, the series covers all of the major events of the civil rights movement from 1954-1985.

      Series topics range from the Montgomery bus boycott in 1954 to the Voting Rights Act in 1965; from community power in schools to “Black Power” in the streets; from early acts of individual courage through to the flowering of a mass movement and its eventual split into factions.

      The web site has transcripts and video excerpts.

  5. Good morning, 57 and cloudy in Bellingham today. I’m hoping for no rain because most of the family will be here for lunch today and I want to set the patio tables. With all the dogs and kids the dining room gets very loud and busy so it’s best to be outdoors.

    Thanks to the combination of the internet and a long solitaire session while I waited on hold with the phone we were able to insure my sister’s new car yesterday. The email confirmation is in her hands and her local office in New Mexico will bill her. New ways of doing business are efficient when it all works!

  6. 90 something with a heat index of 99 – our respite is over and it’s back to summer in Fay., AR. A/C kicked on for the first time in 4 days about 2 hours ago. The kitties are unhappy but the windows won’t be opened again until the overnight lows get back below 65. (Wednesday forecast for rain and overnight low of 56 – I can deal with that considering how hard the ground is right now.) Heard about Julian Bond. Morris Dees is right. We lost a good man and a warrior for the Light. I doubt he’s resting in peace any more than I think MLK is – or a host of others whose names I don’t know – too much hate and violence towards the folks they love and served. Hope everybody is having/has had a pleasant Sunday. {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Good morning, meese! Monday …

    It is 72 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 79. Afternoon storms are in the forecast and will cool us down for a few days. We need it! The backyard thermostat, full sun, registered over 100 yesterday and Saturday afternoon.

    The news is … the same. The Donald still leads (now we are getting puff pieces on his wife as First Lady … MAKE IT STOP!!!). The doodieheaded governor of Wisconsin, continues to drop in the polls. I admit to watching it with delight. Tuesday he goes to Minnesota to unveil his replacement for the Affordable Care Act, a grab bag of tort reform, medical savings accounts, “unfettered free enterprise”, and wishful thinking. Not too bright to release it in Minnesota, the state that is grabbing up all the businesses upset with Walker’s handling of the economy and the university professors bailing from the UW-Madison after his $250 million dollar budget whack and repealing tenure protections. Plus:

    On Tuesday August 18th, Scott Walker’s Presidential Campaign is going to release his plan to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. It is not often you get advanced notice of a major gaffe, but this is one of those times.

    The reason is that, of all the places the Walker Campaign could choose to release their healthcare plan, they pick the one state that shows how to properly rein in insurance companies – Wisconsin’s western neighbor Minnesota. […]

    … the cost disparity is so bad that the small business in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center where Walker is announcing his plan would likely be paying from $500 more to over $1,000 more per employee if they were based in Milwaukee County, where Walker used to be County Executive.

    The only good thing about the Iowa State Fair consuming all the news pixels is that we did not hear a peep this year about President Obama golfing while there were More Important Things to Do.

    Is anyone else reading the “Katrina: 10 Years Later” stories? It appears that we simply let New Orleans’ Ninth Ward residents fend for themselves. What happened to Bush’s promise to rebuild? Did he only rebuild the fancy parts? Did the money get squeezed out in the teabag Congress or in Bobby Jindal’s defunding all government programs in Louisiana? I have a few strories bookmarked for when I have time to read.

    See all y’all later!

  8. Good Moon Day morning, Meese! 68 F. to 94 F. today. Need I say more? The garden is expiring from lack of rain. August ends two weeks from today, thank Goddess! I am so ready for rain, coolness, and autumn.

    Jan, watching Scotty sink in the polls is an unending source of delight. Question re puff pieces on First Lady Trump: will it still be the same woman once Trump is in the White House? Hypothetically speaking, that is.

    Hope to get some writing done today. I’ve been so lazy, lately. Also hope it’s a good day for all at the Pond and Beyond!

    • I am so ready for autumn!!! It is my favorite time of year and having the windows open is a big part of it. I am not looking forward to recieving my electric bill … the air conditioning has been on almost non-stop for two weeks. :(

      Ha! Trump could easily have a new wife (or two) by January 20, 2017. Fortunately, unless our entire country goes insane, none of them will be First Lady. Did you see his immigration “plan”? Sadly, there is nothing in there that is not already part of quite a few of the other candidates positions on immigration. The only pure Trumpian idea is having Mexico pay for the border fence. Good luck with that!

  9. Good morning, Meese. Heading for 96, Sigh, Sigh, Sigh.
    Busy days here so will check in later.
    Hope all is well with everyone.

    • Have a good day, Portlaw! I have to head off and get some work done also. I have let myself get distracted by the “news” which is really not new at all. Republicans Are Hateful Destroyers of All That We Hold Dear … Reince, lather, repeat.

      I felt my arteries clogging just viewing photos of the gawdawful food the candidates were eating at the Iowa State Fair. Our State Fair, in West Allis, a suburb of Milwaukee, has the same sort of cuisine. Ick!!

  10. Walked 1.3 miles. All this exercising should get me some sleep. Sigh. Eating black beans, drinking tea.

    Highs are down to merely the upper 90s. Downright chilly for Texas in August. Waiting for this “cooler & wetter than normal” fall. I’ll believe it when I’m wearing long sleeves in September. Which is too ridiculous a thought to even…..

    Playing California in my head to keep myself awake.

  11. 74 here in the Catskills – headed up to a very uncomfortable 92.

    Have to spend the week preparing for first day of school Monday.

    Got word from the Bronx Museum staff that the Young Lords Women’s panel I was on, “The Revolution within the Revolution” is now on youtube in 5 parts

    Very tired today – dealing with ongoing meta is taking its toll – I am looking forward to being back at school and dealing with people who are oblivious to online guerrilla warfare :)

    Have a good day folks

    • Awesome! Thanks for sharing the video. Bookmarked for later.

      Offline life is gloriously free of trolls! Sometimes, while immersed in the 10 minute news cycle, we think that everyone is tapped into the meta. Actually, most people wake up every morning, go to work or school and have not given even the tiniest of fks about what is going on in politics. In some ways that is good (it is sometimes soul-crushing) but in some ways it is bad. I wonder how many people realize that the Republican Party is actively seeking to repeal the birthright provision of the 14th Amendment. It is another way to frantically hang onto power as they see the demographic train headed straight for them. Right now I am angry about the no-exceptions anti-choice Republicans who fancy themselves doctors but are actually murderers … denying women legal medical procedures that would save their lives simply so that they can be more Pure than their opponents and get votes. 9% feel that it is okay to let a woman die rather than remove fetal tissue from her body; the way the GOP candidates are falling all over themselves to be crueler than the next guy suggests that it is a majority of the Republican primary goers.

  12. Oh, the difference between 60 at 0600 and 70 at 0600! The forecast link I use consistently underestimates the highs for the day so I’m betting their “87” is going to be 93 with a heat index one side or the other of 100. The news seems to be pretty much the same – but then “if it bleeds, it leads” even if we’re speaking metaphorically. I’m soloing today as everybody else in the department is at an offsite “strategic planning” meeting. It’s 1st day of open enrollment – so how busy I’ll be depends on how many transfer students, students whose financial aid is GPA dependent, employees who are also students, and senior citizens need to get into our restricted or full classes. :) Everybody take care {{{HUGS}}}

      • So far everybody who needs to get into a class has a hold of some kind and I’ve had to send them to whoever could lift the holds. Still have some Property Accounting stuff to handle, but can’t leave my desk as I’m holding down the fort while everybody else is at the meeting. Work doesn’t get me down nearly as much as the early primary wars at GOS. sigh. Hope your day is going well and you’re managing to get some writing done – baby’s sure do take up a lot of time, don’t they? :)

    • 60? 60?? I haven’t felt a temperature like that since…… April, maybe March. It is 78-80 – air temp – when I leave the house at 5:45 to be parked & walking by 6.

      This is why that article about Americans being extravagant using A/C really got to me — there’s maybe 2-3 weeks in October & another few in March – April where you could leave your windows open here. If you don’t live on the ground floor in a big city.

      • I remember it well. I grew up in Houston with no A/C – they didn’t even air condition the schools until after I graduated. Most of the 10 years I lived in Austin it was either no A/C or a window unit in the bedrooms so we could sleep. That’s why I moved to NW AR. :)

  13. Good morning, 53 and sunny in Bellingham today. The grand girls re here, our grandson is staying with us this week, and my sister will be here a few more days as well. It’s a full busy house but everyone is still asleep so I’m enjoying the quiet moment. I’ll go to the pool this morning, then after lunch I’m taking the grand kids shopping for school clothes. Ryan and Ava are easy to please but Emma (13 yrs) has reached the fussy age. Should be fun!

    We had a very nice family lunch yesterday, and the bonus of the day was introducing Finn (our daughter’s rescue dog) to Heide (our son’s 9 yr old lab.) Finn has been so fearful and aggressive he couldn’t be with other dogs so it was very nice to see how happy he was to just be with Heide, and she was very patient with him. It’s taken a lot of care and training but it seems Finn will be a happy family dog…yay!

  14. Good morning, meese! Tuesday …

    It is 68 degrees in Madison on its way up to 80. Thunderstorms in the forecast.

    The bored press stepped on my last nerve yesterday with their comparison between 2016 and 1968 with Hillary as LBJ and the email server as Vietnam. Charlie Pierce says it best:

    There’s a large granite wall in Washington that should resolve any confusion between the Vietnam War and whatever it is that Trey Gowdy and his merry band of fools are looking for in HRC’s e-mail servers. This is indeed a troubled time in its own way, but it is not troubled in the same way as this country was in 1968, when national leaders were being shot like partridges and there were outright brawls in the street and the United States was bombing a small rural country into pulp. Good god, this is dumb.

    And now Walker-Me-Too! (or Walker-Me-First?) wants a piece of the Trump mojo by climbing on the End Birthright Citizenship bandwagon. This is the worst of Republican selfishness: locking the door behind you after you use it to get in, kicking the ladder over after you climb it. Chris Christie’s ancestors came over from Scotland and Sicily, were they citizens when their children were born? I am not sure about Walker, I think his ancestors are pod people, but many of the rest of us would not be citizens now if there was no birthright. My ancestors snuck over the border from Canada and worked in the New England mills and factories … I am 99% sure that they did not become citizens … but their “anchor babies” did. p.s. The 14th Amendment was passed because the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was not a strong enough repudiation of the ghastly Dred Scott decision. Congress wanted citizenship codified into the constitution and not simply a statute that could be repealed or tweaked (not that anything like that could ever happen ::cough:: Voting Rights Act :::cough::). At that time the big thing was keeping Chinese workers in California and Roma in Pennsylvania from claiming a birthright. Thank you, post Civil War Congress:

    Pennsylvania Sen. Edgar Cowan, for example, expressed concern that the Civil Rights Act would “have the effect of naturalizing the children of the Chinese and Gypsies born in this country.” Meanwhile, the law’s supporters explicitly rejected these nativist concerns. As Sen. Lyman Trumbull explained, “the child of an Asiatic is just as much a citizen as the child of a European.” […]

    The view that citizenship by birth is a hereditary prize that can only be passed down by parents who enjoy privileged status, in other words, long predates Donald Trump. […]

    Cowan (and Trump’s) views did not carry the day in the immediate wake of the Civil War. The overwhelming majority of Congress and the state legislatures rejected the idea of tainted blood that drove the Dred Scott decision, and they wrote the principle of birthright citizenship into the Constitution itself.

    See all y’all later!

  15. Good morning, Meese. Heading for the nineties. Yuck.
    Another busy day here so will check in later.
    Hope it’s a good day for all creatures, great and small.

    • Our temperatures have not broken yet (although 80 is better than 90, I guess). We still had to run the air conditioning last night because the humidity was 99%. Looks like later today, after the next front moves through, we will finally get some relief.

  16. Good morning, Moosekind! Partly cloudy on another hottie—69 F. now, going up to 87 F. Wish it would rain, but apparently we have to wait till Thor’s Day for that.

    Feeling a bit depressed. Ending birthright citizenship? Deporting 11 million immigrants? Hillary’s server is like Vietnam? Idiocracy is here and now, folks!

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond!

  17. Walked 1.33 miles. And I have my gym bag packed for an evening workout. Maybe 2-a-days will get me some sleep.

    It has “cooled off” – high of only 99. Tomorrow, even mid-90s, but then back comes 99s.

    I had been contemplating calling in sick tomorrow, because I’m really tired. And a co-worker who was out all week last week decided that she needed 2 more days to recover from her vacation, dumping her rotating duties on me. I just printed the list for one of them…… I’m definitely out sick tomorrow. Going to see how long I can stay in bed.

    Earworm is still California. I’ll need my boys to get me through today.

  18. 75 at 0600 and climbing in Fay., AR – the rain front is supposed to hit us (as in better than 50% chance of rain) early in the morning around 0300 or so and bring a September-like drop in temps with it – the overnight low will be Wednesday’s high and Thursday it should be 49 at 0600. I can live with that. :)

    Every time I think our side is getting pretty crazy (Hillary Haters, what part of secure server created by the Secret Service for former President Clinton do you not get? Damned thing is/was probably more secure than the .gov site later rules insisted be used.), I look at their side and realize our crazies are nothing more than (very irritating) mosquitoes. Which is bad enough.

    Hope everyone’s health is handling the icky weather – high humidity will never let anyone get decent sleep if they get any at all. Have the good Toosday and {{{HUGS}}}

  19. Good morning, 55 and partly cloudy in Bellingham. Everyone is still asleep so I’m enjoying a quiet morning. Ryan and RonK are going to pick grapes for wine this afternoon. The vineyard is near Mt Baker so it’s a nice drive and a bit of an adventure. I’ve got to open the mail and pay some bills, and my sister will continue to elevate and ice her wrist with the hope of being able to drive back to Oregon tomorrow. She fell Sunday evening while walking in the park, and the visited the ER in the middle of the night when the swelling became alarming. Fortunately it’s just a bad sprain but she needs a few days of recovery before it’s safe to drive.

    • Yikes! This has been a nightmare trip for her, hasn’t it? Best wishes for better luck!

    • Very sorry to hear about your sister. What a nightmare for her. Hope recovery is soon.
      I remember Mt Baker from a trip some time ago. It was gorgeous.

  20. Good morning, meese! Wednesday …

    It is 69 degrees in Madison, with temperatures still dropping and an expected daytime high of 68. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast. The storms last night were more severe looking than they turned out to be, at least for Madison. We just got rain and a little lightning.

    What is it about Republicans that make them so hateful and so selfish? How can a group of people, obviously large enough to win elections, be for the policies and the terrible rhetoric of the right? I’m not even talking about the horrible immigration policies of the GOP, now being embraced in me-too fashion by even birthright citizen Marco Rubio. I am talking about this guy in Maryland, who the Republican governor refuses to fire:

    During a public event Friday, State Housing Secretary Kenneth Holt said that state laws regarding lead abatement in homes are too strict and invite abuse. The secretary told the crowd “the current law could motivate a mother to put a fishing weight in a child’s mouth to elevate the level of lead in his bloodstream and qualify for free housing at the landlord’s expense until the child turned 18,” according to a paraphrase of the comments in the Baltimore Sun. Holt declined to defend his hypothetical child-abuse scheme with evidence that it has ever happened, according to the paper.

    JHC on a Ritz cracker! They are so convinced that everyone who benefits from the social safety net have gamed or will game the system. In Wisconsin, Repubicans passed a law to drug test food stamp recipients because it would be unacceptable for the children of a drug user to do anything but starve to death because of the circumstances of their birth. You know what? There will always be a certain percentage of people who will game any system and I am unwilling to cut off the 95% because 5% are bad actors. The nickels and dimes that are dishonestly gained from the social safety net are nothing compared to the billions that the corporate welfare recipients steal from the taxpayers. It is immoral to let people starve or get sick and die or live under a bridge. Period.

    See all y’all later!

      • Sadly, there are plenty of examples of awful Republican officeholders because there are, first, too many Republican controlled states, and second, they are all pretty much the same … teaparty infused hacks. In the olden days, at least in Wisconsin, even Republican governors hired competent people to administer the various agencies.

        Digby weighed in on this a few days ago:

        This is what happens when you elect a Republican to run a Democratic state. They have no personnel infrastructure only wingnutty partisans with which to choose among to run their government. Big problem.

    • Agree completely. As for Holt, what sewer does he have for a mind that could even come up with such a thought? No normal person would even imagine such a scenario.

      • I think it comes from them thinking about how they would game the system. It would not surprise me to hear about Republicans sacrificing their kids futures to make money (they do it every day, as a matter of fact, by their climate change denial). Digby suggested this as a possibility:

        Some wily developer could see that he was dealing with a bigoted moron and tell him a ridiculous anecdote to feed his prejudices in order to save himself from being forced to stop killing children and causing brain damage.

    • There’s a supposed “good christian” down my street who told me that food stamp recipients trade their food stamps for drugs. When I explained to her that wasn’t possible in the first place and that over 50% of the people on food stamps are kids, she ignored the second point and sort of accepted the first by saying that they buy food and trade it to drug dealers for drugs. When we reached the point of her categorically denying that the food stamp allotment is around $90 per month which won’t buy you much in the way of drugs and would leave you starving, I gave up. I do my best not to talk to her about anything. But yeah, I don’t understand the evil pretending to be (self) righteous Christians and patriots. Acknowledge that it exists, but do not understand it.

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