Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: May 28th through June 3rd

May 27, 2017 JanF Community 91

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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27 Comments

  2. Good morning, meese! Friday …

    It is 48 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 81. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    People are rightfully upset about the shitgibbon announcing his plans to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. I followed it on Twitter (I still can’t watch him speak – it is too gross) and saved and retweeted some of the better takes. I have still not finished my morning reading but this takeaway struck me as the closest to my own feeling about why he did something that makes no business sense or diplomatic sense:

    Trump’s abrupt withdrawal from this carefully crafted multilateral compromise was a diplomatic and political slap: it was about extending a middle finger to the world, while reminding his base that he shares its resentments of fancy-pants elites and smarty-pants scientists and tree-hugging squishes who look down on real Americans who drill for oil and dig for coal. […]

    Climate change will affect the entire earth, from drought-ravaged farm villages in Africa to floodprone condo towers in Miami, but for Trump it’s just a symbol of the stuff that people who don’t like Trump care about. Paris is just an Obama legacy that he can kill, when he doesn’t have the votes to kill Obama’s health reforms or Wall Street regulations or tax hikes on the wealthy. Whatever damage Trump’s climate policies cause to the planet will be collateral damage, shrapnel from his political war on elites and the left and Obama.

    I saw a Tweet last night that really captured Republicanism and also captured why decent people are having trouble grasping what is happening:

    Chester Scoville‏ @ChesterScoville

    It’s wild to see a political rhetoric based on little more than gleefully imagining they’re hurting the feelings of people they haven’t met.

    See all y’all later!

  3. Good Friday Meese Peeps

    49 here in Saugerties NY going up to 71

    Trump keeps trying to push his Muslim ban. Now headed to SCOTUS.
    He wants to ban Muslims…meanwhile we are under attack by white domestic terrorists.

    I’m really enjoying Daily News covers:

    • The SCOTUS hearing of the Muslim travel ban should be interesting. Will Trump get the payback from “his judge” Gorsuch for his lifetime appointment? Some people are saying that Justice Kennedy would like nothing better than to affirm the Ninth Circuit to help erase the court’s ghastly Korematsu ruling. I am not so sure I would rely on that – this is a court that regularly re-affirms the right of states to murder people.

        • I still have this dream that Chief Justice John Roberts will look at the mess his VRA decision made – realize that we are NOT post-racial – and will support the limits we need to put on partisan gerrymandering.

          I know, I know. But the thought that fair elections may become a right in America is all I have to hold onto some days.

  4. Good morning, Moosekind! We have another beautiful morning here this Freya’s day. Yesterday was a 10 on a scale of 10. Right now in NoVa it’s 53 F., going up to 70 F.

    Had the night from hell—retired at 10:30 p.m., lay sleepless until midnight, got up and read until 2 a.m., was awakened at 7 a.m. by husband bearing a cup of tea. It can’t have been blue light causing the insomnia, because I’ve been reading proper books borrowed from the library. I don’t know what the matter is, but as I’m afraid of sleeping pills I suppose I’ll have to find another solution.

    My head has officially exploded after yesterday and not simply from the Paris thing, either. It seems that people cannot let Hillary Clinton alone to save their lives! She appears to be the official scapegoat into which people drive the demon and then drag out of the village. I’m sick of it. I’m damned sick and tired of hearing how she was a “weak” candidate (SHE was weak? For eff’s sake!), and how she should shut up and get out of the way. Why the hell should she? Oh, but women aren’t supposed to speak in public, right? Only great big men with hair grafts and orange makeup are supposed to speak.

    Well, we in Virginia have a primary on June 13 and Dearly and I are voting in it, as we always do. We’ll vote for Ralph Northam, not the candidate championed by Saint Bernard. That alone would make me suspicious, even if the upstart nature of Pierrello’s campaign hadn’t.

    It’s eight o’clock and there’s lots to do today, so I’m off to the races. Wishing all a good day!

    • This piece by Charlie Pierce might make you feel better: Hillary Clinton Must Not Be Silent

      Prior to 2016, I have never seen a campaign, winning or losing, in which all of these fairly banal political problems were compounded by Russian cyber-ratfcking, the inexcusable meddling of the director of the FBI, and, yes, misogyny. But, because this campaign involved Hillary Rodham Clinton, all of those conventional political glitches have been so magnified that they have all but drowned out the other things that made HRC’s defeat sui generis, at least in my experience. And now, when she gets up on stage, and mentions the latter, the response is that she should shut up about these things, don a hairshirt about her “responsibility” for the less exotic problems with her campaign, and go away.[…]

      I think the nation would have been better served had Gore raised holy hell about what happened to him for as long as he possibly could. I think the nation would have been better served if some Democratic senator had stood with, say, John Lewis, to contest the results of the 2000 election. I think that Kerry should have hollered louder and longer about the shenanigans in Ohio that helped re-elect George W. Bush. Maybe if they had done this, the subsequent flood of voter-suppression laws, and the ensuing gerrymandering of various legislatures, which continues to rage through the political process today, could have been partially stemmed.

      Frankly, I hope she continues to “frustrate” Democratic panjandrums and I hope she continues to make the likes of Ruth Marcus simper about how bitter she is. Right now, as far as I can see, HRC is the only one completely free to hammer away at the extraordinary events that conspired to put Donald Trump in the White House.

      By the way, I have the same reaction to those endorsed by Bernie Sanders – I wonder how that will impact the upcoming elections? We will, of course, vote for any Democrat in the general election but will the berners have learned anything from 2016’s march off the cliff for the cause of purity?

    • this thread from Charles Clymer will make you happy

      <blockquoteclass=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”>

      1/ On Nov. 8, 2016, Hillary Clinton received more votes than any presidential candidate in history, save Obama, and yet… (thread)

      — Charles Clymer (@cmclymer) June 2, 2017

  5. 53 at dawn of a bright and sunny day – we got .8″ rain in a sudden and unexpected 1-hour splat yesterday afternoon but that cleared everything up nicely. Only 10 KWHs yesterday to start the month. We’ll see what today brings. No fresh water damage in the den ceiling so either the combination of folks I had go up on the roof and nail down/seal anything that might be a leak worked – or it leaked on top of existing stain. I will devoutly hope for the former.

    The motive behind everything pvl45 does – everything – is “eff u, libruls” That’s it. The motive behind the rest of the Rs evil is slightly more complicated but not much – greed and enjoying watching people suffer. I spent years of my life not believing in Evil. Lack of knowledge, misunderstanding, etc – but the Rs over the last 35 years convinced me otherwise. Our team needs to realize that. I don’t mean we can’t work with them, we can. But if we don’t understand their motives we will never be able to find where we can work with them and we’ll waste a lot of time, energy, and scarce resources trying to “compromise” on things they won’t compromise on simply because we want them to. Meanwhile ramara hasn’t told me how much we raised for her yesterday – the diary stayed on the sidebar a whole 3 hours and we did get some folks in there who are not my “regulars’ – but 3 hours and 28 recs do not a fundraiser fulfill. sigh

    Gotta get back to work after I check in on Batch’s diary. Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  6. Took today & Monday off work. Had another upsetting thing with co-worker who dumps work on me yesterday. She had a planned absence but didn’t arrange for coverage, so I had to: a) figure out she wasn’t coming b) do her stuff. Again. When she finally came drifting in, not a word of apology or thanks. So I’m home resting & letting other people deal with her absenteeism. Maybe whoever ends up having to do her work today & Monday will say something. Anyway, slept (fitfully) in. Watching the news, eating breakfast. Going to get in 2 miles of walking. Doing laundry. Got that U2 song in my head — you’re the best thing about me

  7. Good morning, 60 and cloudy in Bellingham. I’m weary today……being in the garden continues to be a needed antidote to the tRump flue but I’ve pushed my knees to the resting point. The new arthritis meds are allowing me to walk with less pain but I still need to be realistic about how much I can do. So I’ll go to the pool soon and then take it easy for the rest of today.

    Paul Krugman, at the NYT……

    Trump Gratuitously Rejects the Paris Climate Accord

    Beyond this, much of today’s right seems driven above all by animus toward liberals rather than specific issues. If liberals are for it, they’re against it. If liberals hate it, it’s good. Add to this the anti-intellectualism of the G.O.P. base, for whom scientific consensus on an issue is a minus, not a plus, with extra bonus points for undermining anything associated with President Barack Obama.

    And if all this sounds too petty and vindictive to be the basis for momentous policy decisions, consider the character of the man in the White House. Need I say more?

  8. Good Saturday morning Meese

    March for Truth day – hope the weather is good for the marchers around the U.S.

    This evening am taking hubby out to dinner for his birthday.

    • I read that there would be a Support Your Local Shitgibbon rally across the street from the White House this morning. The rally is being sponsored and paid for by the Trump Campaign – to make the little baby in the White House feel great again.

      Happy Birthday to your hubby!

    • {{{Denise}}} – Our marches show that we outnumber the Haters. They also show that we are both happier and more determined than Haters. Hate is all they got. They are noisy and violent and yeah, they can destroy – but they can’t build anything. They truly are the party of Death and we are the party of Life.

      Speaking of Life – Happy Birthday to your husband. Enjoy your dinner out.

  9. Good morning, meese! Saturday …

    It is 70 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 84 and a heat index of 94. Chance of thunderstorms most of the day, clearing towards evening.

    I let myself sleep in this morning and was awakened by the birds tweeting madly in the wetlands. Hey, birds, I was trying to sleep!!! So I got up and will get a head start on the work projects that always seem to stack up during the week.

    Interesting numbers in a Pew Poll tweet showed that 32% think that you must be Christian to be considered an American. There was no breakdown by race but my guess is that the Venn diagram of that 32% overlaps pretty much the circle of those who self-identify (or stealth-identify) with the white nationalist movement. One of our biggest jobs over the next 4 years is to marginalize those people so that their candidates can never win elections again. We live in a diverse America and it is unfair for us to be ruled by a minority party. An article by Jesse Ferguson, who worked in Hillary’s campaign, suggests that we can make a case to the Romney 2012 voters some of whom voted for Hillary in 2016. Maybe. But the Republican tribal instinct was so strong that only 4% did. Will they vote their regrets in 2017 and 2018? I am not sure I am willing to put all my eggs in that basket. We still outnumber them but unfortunately that includes too many who can’t be bothered to vote or whose votes were suppressed. It will be a big job to rebuild the state parties and the tools we need to get out the vote and protect the vote.

    See all y’all later!

  10. Gonna walk today, I swear. Yesterday the Torchwood marathon got me, today I’m recording the best episodes & I’ll get in that walk. Meanwhile, breakfast, tea & morning news.

  12. 60 at daybreak – or actually just before when the birds start their “singing up the dawn” chorus – it can’t seem to decide where it’s going or whether or not we get rain. Safe to say it will be warm and damp whether it’s rain or humidity. Still not uncomfortable enough to turn on my A/C – a blessing I am most certainly counting.

    Still thinking “world at war” on how to survive until the R regime is gone. As with war, much of what is going on is bad at best and horrifyingly deadly at worst – but we keep doing the best we can and tend to what we can until we get through it. My daddy and uncles fought in WWII. My grandmothers worked in government agencies (one ended up in what later became the Atomic Energy Commission, the other in a dept that found or authorize building of housing for war workers). My living grandfather was building that housing for war workers. From 1944-45 my mother worked in a cafeteria, replacing an older woman who went to work for the shipyard. Various aunts watched kids so their parents could work. All pieces of the community, all communities pieces of larger communities that make up the states, states, nations, allies who won that war. Has been done, can be done, will be done.

    Heading over to DK to write my Street Prophets Sharing Saturday diary. The lists of course just need checking and updating, but the beginning paragraphs I write for each diary are getting harder and harder to do. Partly because fewer and fewer people are reading them – fewer eyes on the issues, fewer eyes on the lists of folks needing help. But I haven’t hit the “it’s pointless” point yet, so I need to write those paragraphs for today’s diary. Bright the day and wind to thy wings, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

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