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 …
It is 22 degrees in Madison WI, on its way up to 40. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Good morning, Meese! This is a drive-by on a rainy Sunday morning. We got up late, now about to have breakfast and watch the race. Back later!
Yawn – overslept – Good morning Meese …
will be back later after coffee …lots of coffee
I have been up since 2:30 and I am thinking I either need a second pot of coffee or to take a nap. I am leaning towards the nap.
Did you notice the puff pieces that the mainstream media put up on the PP terrorist? “Gentle loner” “sadly alone”. JHC!!
I put up a few comments in the MM post with some followup including a report that shows that when you let people accused of domestic violence get off scot-free, two things happen: 1) you allow the violence to escalate as studies show that violence begets violence; 2) if the perpetrator is not charged and not convicted, he has a nice clean record and can buy an assault rifle! :(
Another winter day here — I’m going to have to wear a wool skirt. High of maybe 50. I’ve got next week’s food settled, so I’ll go for a walk this afternoon. Right now, watching the news.
Still raining, still within 5 degrees of 40 – as it’s been since about 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving day! I’m tired of this. And I’m going to come up short of 200 KWHs for the month if the sun doesn’t come out for a couple of hours tomorrow (since it obviously isn’t today). sigh.
The Rs and their pet media can’t take responsibility for anything. Therefore the killers always have to be crazy or misunderstood or something – otherwise the Rs would have to admit that the killers are the hitmen sent out by their words/orders. Goddess please render them harmless.
Aside from starting cold and wet, the week should be OK but busy. More meetings at work, faculty’s still interviewing candidates for the tenure-track position, priority registration ongoing, I’ve got payroll-related stuff to attend to. Basic stuff. Hope everybody’s week is OK – stay warm and dry. {{{HUGS}}}
Jan, I uploaded the story. It’s in my drafts. Also uploaded the image but can’t get the image to show in “Preview.” Yikes! Please advise.
I will check it in a while. I have to get some things out the door before people start work this morning. Watch this space!
Good Monday morning Meese
was up all night with tummy issues – finally took some baking soda in water which helped.
Black pastors wrote an open letter to black ministers planning to meet with Donald Trump – published in Ebony:
Read more at EBONY http://www.ebony.com/news-views/message-to-black-clergy-think-of-trumps-rhetoric-before-meeting-with-him-333#ixzz3syC9GIZb
Follow us: @EbonyMag on Twitter | EbonyMag on Facebook
Am pissed off at all the media types equivocating about the Planned Parenthood shooter terrorist.
Have school today – next to the last class before final exams.
The black pastors cancelled after they were scorched on social media. I am certain that Ebony letter had a lot to do with it (see my comment below).
I am not sure the right-wing will be able to walk away from their violent rhetoric this time. Their base won’t care … they love that the GOP candidates are using the incident to ratchet up their anti-abortion rhetoric. But I think there is still a gettable-independent vote – not the folks who say they are independent because they are embarrassed to be seen as Republicans – but people who are turned off by the nativist, racist, guns-first crowd. Maybe Jeb! will vote for Donald Trump because of the R after his name but there are a lot of others who won’t.
I hope you feel better! There is nothing worse than having to drag yourself to work when you don’t feel well.
Good morning, meese! Monday …
It is 34 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 38. It is raining now and will turn into freezing rain later this morning. I don’t have to be anywhere but I hope it holds off until after rush hour so that folks can get safely to work and school.
Last day of November … heading into the last month of 2015!! I must say that I will not miss 2015. I think it was a bad year for humans. At least “2016” gives us hope of political change as we work towards electing a Congress that reflects American values rather than one that reflects the puniest vision of America – a Congress bought and paid for those who benefit from a fearful people whose dreams are crushed.
The right-wing is trying something, anything, to convince themselves that the gunman who killed three people in Colorado was not an anti-abortion fanatic, ginned up by Fox News, the GOP, and right-wing pundits and an edited video, since discredited. Today the killer will be arraigned and more information will come out but it is unlikely that he is a “lefty transgendered activist” as Ted Cruz contends or that the incident started as a bank robbery gone awry (as people on social media are still saying despite the police saying that the target was the clinic). I was thinking about the cognitive dissonance that they must have that their hero is also a cop killer but then it dawned on me: these are folks who think that 20 dead 6 year olds in Newtown CT are simply “the price we pay for freedumb”. They won’t give a damn that a policeman was killed and that 6 children lost a parent on Saturday.
Speaking of cognitive dissonance, the black pastors who were going to endorse Donald Trump today were shamed into cancelling their rally with him. On what planet were these folks living on that they would think that Donald Trump, or the Republican Party, has anything positive to offer black people in America?? On the day before the 60th anniversary of Rosa Parks’ defiance in Montgomery, the optics of black pastors going to kiss the ring of a racist may have been too much.
Bill McKibben tweeted some inspiring photos of the climate marches that took place yesterday all around the world. I am going to put them into the COP21 article. They can’t march in Paris (because of security) but they marched elsewhere. Look at this awesome photo from Ottawa!
They are spelling out “100% Possible”.
See all y’all later!!
Yay for shaming.
Am trying to pay attention to the climate meetings but have been distracted by our home grown terror issues.
Brrrrr …it is cold here in Saugerties – 27 degrees.
I hear you about the climate meetings. When I put up the post yesterday, I was thinking that there is so much awful going on here that climate change concerns seem secondary. But that is because we tend to get distracted by the immediacy of people’s needs and concentrate on that instead of the future. When our loved one is in the ER, we don’t think about how we should have gotten them proper medical care … we just want them fixed! But there is no ER that can patch up our planet … we need to get her the proper care now to keep her healthy.
Addressing man-made climate change is quickly reaching the point where our efforts will not be enough to stop the destruction of our planet. Floods and droughts and super-storms have human and dollar costs and the bill is coming due.
Of course, the GOP has promised to block any support of the Paris initiatives. Another reason to kick them to the curb next year. Kids get it: their planet is burning up. If they care enough, maybe we can get them to understand that marches are nice, rallies are nice but change comes at the ballot box. You have to Vote for the future you want.
Thank you!
Diana – I found your emails – they were mixed in with my junk folder – now corrected.
Apologies.
Thanks, Dee! Responded to your email. I’ll have to revise the line about the Yoruba.
Thanks for the inspiration! Next month’s story will be about Pombajira. :)
Hope your tummy will feel better soon.
Ahhhh Pombajira – that should be very interesting
The post is updated. The “problem” was that the Featured Image is not really viewable on the post itself: it is the thumbnail that shows with the post when it is displayed on the Motley Moose page, sent to Twitter, or posted on Facebook. To have it show in the post itself, you need to put it into the editing/composition window. Just position your cursor where you want it, click Add Media, locate the photo in the media library (it will probably be the most recent one) and then click Add To Post.
I also put the MORE tag in to break the post into “above the fold” and “below the fold”. Right where you had the line, I clicked on the More button and it put the HTML tag in. It is only important if your post ends up on the front page as the other posts are split automatically by the WordPress theme.
Ha! TMI!!
Feel free to Publish when you are ready. If you want the photo larger, just change the “width=nnn” parameter. You can go up to about 600.
Thanks, Jan! You’re a Web wonder!
Thank you for posting here!
Good Monday morning, Moosekind—it’s 40 F. now under a gray sky with showers sprinkling the road, going up to 43 F. It’s gingerbread weather! That’s what I’ll make for the girls’ tea today. The rain is supposed to intensify so I’ll pick up Miss Pink Cheeks and my 9-year-old neighbor by car after school today.
Today I am going back to the gym or die in the attempt! Haven’t been to the gym ever since this horrible downsizing started. Must go as often as possible before next week, when I am having a quite unmentionable medical procedure performed.
Now the University of Chicago is under lockdown? In no other advanced country would constant gun violence be tolerated! What is WRONG with us—or, that is, the percentage of us that prefer to live with the threat of Russian roulette every day of our lives? Black Friday sales at malls are down 10 percent, cyber sales are up. You’d better believe it—I’ll be cybershopping for the grandchildren’s Christmas presents today. Why go to a mall and get shot at?
Hope everyone in Moosylvania and beyond will have a good, SAFE day.
Cold & foggy this morning. Brought my gym bag to change & walk after work, because I want it to be marginally warmer. Eating breakfast & drinking strong tea.
Looking at Saturday’s walk, it splits each mile up — and I was getting faster, miles 2-5 and 5 was the fastest. 6 & the last .19 were slower, but that’s ok. And the music for mile 5, if I remember right, was Disappear, Chocolate by Snow Patrol and a couple of U2 songs from the Joshua Tree era. So music definitely makes a difference in my speed.
And this time next week, I’ll be at the Harry Potter theme park. Wonder how much the hotel would hate me taking a jar of tea, since no one in this country makes tea as strong as I drink it…..
49 is the high predicted for today (we’re at 48 already) which beats the 44 of the last 4 days, but not by much. Still drizzly and overcast. Unless the sun comes out by noon, definitely will not break 200 KWHs for the month – I’ve gotten just under 2.5 KWHs Friday through Sunday combined and am sitting at 197 for the month at the moment.
Nationally and internationally, and even for folks here at the Moose Pond, 2015 sucked big time. For me personally, it was better than 2014 – I got off the Quorum Court, Lodger left in February, we got the new department Chair 1st of July, I got a “re-assessment” and increase in pay that was retroactive to 1st of July, and my younger son’s family is coming to “Decorate the Tree at Grandma’s” this weekend. So I am just hoping everything gets better for everybody – including nationally and internationally – for 2016 while my own trajectory stays the same. {{{HUGS}}}
Morning all! I mistakenly posted yesterday on last week’s welcomings lol, but I’m here now! The best thing about 2015 for me personally was getting to retire in May – but for the outside world, it totally sucked. I’m glad to see young people’s optimism that something can be done about man made climate change, but I confess I’m a pessimist myself. We’ve gone too far, too much of the powers that be are firmly committed to no real limits on our civilization’s waste and pollution that are destroying our own future. I don’t think I’ll live long enough to see the worst of it, but I honestly don’t see how destructive sea rise can be stopped at this point. But maybe – it’s worth trying, at any event. I just remember a chilling ABC show several years ago – 2009 or 10 maybe – that was kind of a graphic novel laying out the path of environmental destruction over the 21st century from the POV of one woman born in 2010, if we did nothing to stop climate change. It ends with rising oceans and severe storms essentially destroying the power grids of the US and around the world, and the heroine, an old woman now, living with her daughter and grandson in upstate NY, scratching out a subsistence farming existence. It was quite grim and gripping – and it was only shown once. But I guess the message for me is if the sea starts to take over Florida, I’m packing up and heading for Denise’s in upstate NY! Of course, nothing is etched in stone – and maybe young people will do a better job than our generation has done in reversing things. We can only hope and support them.
Have a good day everyone.
I saw your comment in last week’s post and chuckled: you are not the first person to do that and you will not be the last!
Your comment about Adele led me to read a story in WaMo by D.R. Tucker about her songs (I am pretty culturally illiterate so I generally avoid references to music and such so as not to show my ignorance). Here is what he said:
Here is the music video … which I listened to and enjoyed!
D.R. was particularly taken by the video and what it meant:
Geordie, there’s a frightful man named James Kunstler who wrote a book called The Long Emergency, about that very subject. Apparently, upstate New York will be the safest place to live in terms of staying alive. He also predicts subsistence farming, an end to high school (hands will be needed on the farms), and general ghastliness. (I’m going to urge the grandchildren to learn French, because speaking it might increase their chances of emigrating to Canada.)
I required my sons to read the book. What Kunstler says makes a certain kind of horrible sense, but the unmitigated contempt with which he dismisses people in the Red states puts me off him.
BTW, that book is available as a free download somewhere. If there’s any interest, I’ll look up the link.
This seems rather sweeping: “upstate New York will be the safest place to live in terms of staying alive.” :) I guess that it doesn’t have tidal waves and earthquakes , and does not seem to have many tornadoes but, wow, 100 ft of snow each year and bitter colds makes survival chancy, in my mind.
I have a particular disgust for folks who write off the red states so I will probably not go looking for a download. I am unwilling to ignore the plight of those stuck in states where Democrats will continue to be a political minority well into the future. Instead, we need to make sure the rest of us keep electing Democratic presidents (and Senators when we can) so that the social safety net does not get tossed out completely. As long as we have veto power and administer the federal agencies that help people survive when there is no one else who can help them, we will make a difference in peoples lives. Maybe someday, another generation will say “enough!” and break the historical bonds that tie so many red state governments to the Republican party.
Other folks have said – been saying for some time, as in the first time I heard it was in the late 1970s – that the only safe place will be in Ozarks (where I live and points north and east). Probably because of the shorter/warmer winters and the multiplicity of springs both hot and cold. But then I’ve also heard tell that the only safe places will be in underground cave systems in the southern Rockies. What they mostly have in common is shortage of people and source of (relatively) clean water. My personal opinion is that safe requires community working together – and that the only way we’ll get it is if we have a government as united in doing what’s needed and a people united behind it as we had during WWII.
The Ozarks would not be safe for me and my family because we are not white males with guns. Upstate New York gets it half-right in that cold is easier to deal with than extreme heat … there is only so much you can do for relief especially if there is no power.
Some rich people are building underground bunkers in Kansas to protect them from the hordes seeking food and water on our dying planet. They would do better spending their money to find a way to save the planet we have because there are more than a few flaws in their plan. Bill Gates just announced, as part of the Paris climate summit, the establishment of a fund to find alternative energy:
It’s one piece. But we don’t have a lot of time.
We don’t have any time and we may be too late already. The white-males-with-guns is an issue in parts of the Ozarks but not as many as you’d think. Most folks in the rural areas have hunting rifles and are pot hunters – one of the things that makes the Ozarks a good choice as long as too many people don’t head here is the rural nature and availability of game. As to the cold easier to deal with than heat, yes and no. It’s easier to deal with than heat IF you have a sustainable fuel source. Otherwise you freeze to death. Summer heat in the mountains, even not really mountains like the Ozarks, may not be comfortable but isn’t deadly like it is in the solar ovens known as big cities.
We have the reliable, affordable energy we need – solar. The issue is getting it out to the people who need it. In 3rd World countries their power needs are currently so low that getting a Real Goods weekender package out to every family would cover them while the necessary progress in battery technology was being done to deal with their growing needs. The growing nations are the worst problem because they can’t afford it – just like food – not because the answer doesn’t exist.
Hi everyone……between the long holiday, visiting family (and dogs), food and flower fun, and the pool this morning I’ve been to busy and or tired to be online. It was a fun Thanksgiving, and after a few more naps I’ll recover!
This arrangement is on the sideboard in the dining room along with a bowl my MIL gave me. I used some of her things all around the house so we could easily talk about her and sense her presence among us.
How utterly beautiful, princesspat! Thank you for sharing.
There you are! I was getting worried!! :)
Good morning, meese! Tuesday …
It is 40 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 36. Yesterday’s freezing rain did not materialize (it did rain all day, though) and today’s forecast calls for cloudy skies.
Heinous (and Fact-Free) Republican Comment of the Day …
The next person who says we should be nicer to Republicans and that they aren’t the enemy needs to be laughed off the debate stage. Period.
Today the Supreme Court will release the first batch of decisions in the 2015 term, the pope says we are committing global suicide by ignoring climate change, Chicago cop charged with first degree murder in the killing of Laquan McDonald posts a $1.5 million bail … raised by his police union! People were wondering about his being allowed to get out on bail after a first degree murder charge but, really, he is not a flight risk. Decades of history suggest he will be acquitted, sue to get his job back, and then get reinstated. :(
Sixty years ago today, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger and the civil rights movement was born. It made this possible:
President Barack Obama sits on the famed Rosa Parks bus at the Henry Ford Museum following an event in Dearborn, Mich., April 18, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
See all y’alls later!
Popped in earlier – no Jan yet – so decided to wait – good morning Meese!
I see Jan is here and all is well at the pond – wish I could say that for the rest of the world.
Ha! I was actually here at 3:30 but my welcoming comment took a while to compose. I always start with the intention of it being a quick-post and then I think of ONE MORE THING I want to add. :)
And I still haven’t had a chance to read Diana’s post!!!
The world is a mess. I don’t know what sort of reaction Ted Cruz’s ridiculous assertion about Democrats and violent criminals got in the places you visit but it got a lot of WTH reactions from my peeps. Setting aside Timothy McVeigh and Ted Bundy and Eric Rudolph for a moment, I can name dozens of Republicans whose crimes did violence to our economy, the middle east, America’s global reputation, and our planet. They literally make stuff up, don’t they? I do think Ted Cruz may be the GOP’s scariest candidate because he literally has no redeeming qualities … none. He will do or say anything to gain an advantage and is the very definition of sociopath. Here is a Tweet:
Jan, of all of them, Cruz scares me the MOST!
Please Goddess, not him! Dee says Marco Rubio is just as evil, but I don’t know much about Ruby-Baby.
Put up a quick post – since today is World AIDS Day.
Have to head out to the store and pharmacy – bbl.
Good rainy Tuesday morning, Moosekind! It’s 41 F. here on a cold, gray, dripping morning. Got to get dressed in a minute to drive my little neighbor to school. Yesterday I picked her and Miss Pink Cheeks up from school and brought them home for tea. Dearly Beloved had a fire going in the woodstove, so we could see the golden flames dancing inside. It was a nice contrast to the gray gloom of the afternoon. I had made gingerbread for tea, after which the girls put a few decorations on the tabletop Christmas tree.
This morning I saw a jaw-dropping, eye-popping article that began on the front page of The WaPo, about the most flaming anal apertures masquerading as humans that I’ve ever read! Dear Goddess, what have we come to? These, er, humans want Ben Carson for president because America has a nation has “fallen away from God.” Huh? Did they not study American history in school? Did they not learn that this country (in its present form) was founded by a bunch of ex-Englishmen during the Age of Enlightenment—men who deliberately engineered a secular government because they’d seen what happened in Europe when church and state were not separated?
It freaked me out even more than I already was. Thank you, Jan, for letting me post “Chosen of the Orishas” here in the Community section of The Moose. Much appreciate your help in getting the post up! Today it also appears on my Web site, http://goddessfiction.com, along with the blog. This will be my last blog. I want a completely new look for my Web site for next year, probably involving the template from Wix.
Glad to be here this morning, glad to say hello to my Moose Sisters, and hope that everyone will have a good day!
Less cold today — and by the weekend I won’t even need a coat. Winter in Texas. Today is World AIDS Day, and my insane baby Bono is going to ride bikes in Central Park with a donor to his Red charity. Anyone who gives $10 is entered to win. Central Park being where he had that bike accident. I’m donating $10 on every credit card I have. Because Bono. (maybe I can get him to bring Adam along). I was actually asleep when the alarm went off this morning — amazing! And there was music playing in my head — U2s cover of Everlasting Love.
30 at sunrise, 38 now, heading for 50 and more or less sunny this 1st Tuesday in December. Will have to read and fierce later. While I got most of my travel stuff done yesterday that was all the easy stuff. Now I have to track down the problems. Need to go to the bank sometime this morning to get household money for December – a little more than usual since I’ve got “Decorate the Tree at Grandma’s” on Sunday – other than that it’s mostly track the new class registration, see what’s not going to make, and get the Payroll for extra stuff dealt with. So that’s what my day is looking like. Should have time to read the checkins and even FP stuff which will be nice. Have a good morning/beginning of the last month of the calendar year. {{{HUGS}}}