Motley Moose – Archive

$1.4 million dollars toward healing the wounds of the Green Mountain State. Thanks, phellas.

The Phish benefit concert Wednesday night at the Champlain Valley Exposition in Essex Junction raised more than $1.2 million for flood recovery in Vermont, according to the band.

Money was raised through ticket sales, merchandise, the concert webcast and concessions, Phish said in a news release Friday.

“It was amazing and inspiring to see so many people come together through music to aid the great state of Vermont,” guitarist Trey Anastasio said in a statement. “We’re so grateful to the businesses and individuals that helped us raise as much money as possible for the recovery process.”

“Culture” is not intrinsically a political topic, but it certainly can intersect politics or be political. This diary’s intent is to stimulate conversation on what culture is (arts? a group of people bound by a language or ethnicity? something else?). If enough of you like this idea, I would be happy to make it a regular feature. On the other hand, I may just do it anyway! I’d like to start the conversation with the concept of culture as represented by the arts, which are an important part of our lives, and an often neglected one. This can be a place for artists and lovers of the arts to gather, for those wanting to learn more about various forms of art, or anyone at all who might be curious about this nebulous thing called “culture”.

Wikipedia says:  

“…the word “culture” is most commonly used in three basic senses:

– Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture

– An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning

– The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization, or group

For as much as moose love to engage in serious political and philosophical debate, frivolity is a favorite pastime of ours as well. Longtime moose have always known this, and it looks like the newcomers have cottoned onto our penchant for silliness pretty quickly.

Since we’ve been waxing serious off and on the last couple of days, I thought it was time for a totally mostly pointless, completely bizarre, and unmistakably silly…

Open Thread.

It’s amazing that there’s pushback on raising taxes on the wealthy from anyone other than the rich, but there always will be, so long as the GOP can convince the middle and lower class rank’n’file that placing higher taxes on the rich is socialism or deadly to the economy. Sometimes phrasing matters, and it’s important to note that Republicans seem to have an advantage when it comes to controlling the narrative. I’ve never been sure exactly why this is: do we just not fight back hard enough, or is the reach of Fox “News” really that broad? My guess is that it’s a combination of factors.

Just seems to me like a pretty raw deal for most of the country when the wealthy don’t even have to pay their fair share.

So . . . Brit mentioned there may be some interest in this topic so here goes:

Can we talk about oppression?  Try to break it down, get our heads around it, and figure out constructive things we can do to dismantle it?

My own journey is distinctively Unitarian Universalist, and as a religion we pretty much can’t stop talking about it.  I’ve been fortunate enough to have participated in/facilitated the “Welcoming Congregation” [UU’s GLBT anti-oppression resource/process] process in two congregations and to have participated in or attended multiple anti-racism trainings, workshops, process groups, and the like.  Thus, I have quite a few print resources on hand as well as personal experiences that may be helpful.  I am by no means an expert.

My thinking, with the moose-like pace, there may be some good discussions, interactions, and learnings that we could share.

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE!

Here’s a nice long story about my anniversary trip.  You guys done messed around and encouraged me to do some sharing, and look out!  I got 100’s of them.  

August 3rd (last year : ) ) was our 25th wedding anniversary and my wife and I decided we’d go to Vegas. When we got there it was strange, but the town felt desperate, unhappy, it didn’t smell right, we weren’t feeling it. Anyway since it had been awhile since we’d gone to Vegas we decided to cruise the town, and although you could see lots of new edifices and gleaming pretty buildings it just felt icky so we just followed our bliss and hooked a right on Charlotte street and drove into red rock canyon. I’m really a city kid and although as a boy scout they let us run around the Vasquez rocks I’d never allowed myself to appreciate the natural spirituality of places like that I’d never really been in the desert. We spent the day driving around the canyon letting it impress itself on us, and when we got done and headed back into the city it occurred to us we just didn’t want to hang out. So we decided to just pack up and go to the Grand Canyon.

Ayup…summer’s gone.  It’s rainy right now in Portland, but still a beautiful morning.  I had a kitteh on my lap for a good while, which always makes for good start to the day.  He is so kyooot!  He lets me grab him by the nape of his neck to put him in my lap and everything.

Please read and follow instructions before opening.  Or consult your physician.

SPOILER WARNING: A latenight gathering for non-serious palaver that does not speak of that night’s show. Posting a spoiler will get you brollywhacked. You don’t want that to happen to you.

This vent-hole (hereinafter known as IVH), if lost or stolen will not be replaced or purchase price refunded. Violation of IVH rules will result in expulsion without refund. A copy of IVH rules can be obtained from one or more members wearing tie-dyed oxford shirts after written requests.

Admission to certain functions within the IVH may require additional innuendo, enter at your own risk. Frivolity and silliness are highly recommended for all riders. Flamewars are expressly forbidden and political ranting is strongly discouraged.

Please consult your counselor, magistrate or religious functionary before usage. Comment below if you agree with said terms.

MOOOOOOOOSE!  Still not done.  You guys want to take a really fun trip?

If you’ve ever heard of the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena chances are you associate it with the Rose Bowl host to several Super Bowls and home to the Tournament of Roses football game.  When they give the wide shot at those games showing the “chamber of commerce days” Pasadena is so famous for if they would just pan out a little more they would reveal another facility just north past the Brookside Golf Course and the Devils Gate dam that is the coolest facility on earth the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

I grew up a NASA kid able to mark periods of my life by the missions everyone was working on.  I remember going to the public open houses, and if you live anywhere near I highly suggest you attend, but I never got the backstage tour, so when I got an e-mail last week from one of the ladies I consider one of my parents asking if I’d like to check out the Mars Science Laboratory I couldn’t say yes please fast enough.

How am I supposed to keep up?  5 new diaries a day?  Introductions demanding welcoming responses?  And fogiv wants me to be banging on stuff and Peter’s gone on a nostalgia trip re-living MyDD by re-posting his ancient and profound reflections on progressive and democratic values…

How’s a Moose supposed to keep up?  This is why I never posted on KOS, though I always check the morning pundit round-up.  MyDD in its day was even a bit much for me to handle.  But at least a good percentage of the folks there were trolls who could be played with or ignored.  How am I supposed to handle this increase in thoughtfulness?

Welcome to all the newbies and those who have popped in over the years when I have been popped out.  If I haven’t gotten to your diary it’s only because of…well…that life stuff we all need to do in order to facilitate our blogging.  It’s not lack of interest.  However the KOS mess resolves, I hope you’ll keep MM in your rotation (or on your bookmark tool bar or whatever).  I’ve always enjoyed the relative intimacy of this forum (Blask, take your filthy virtual hand off my flabby virtual [I’ll let you finish that one in your heads so the visual will be partly your responsibility]) but I also have thought it a shame that more haven’t participated and benefited.  If I get a tad cantankerous, most of the time it’s me and not you (though not always).  Hope to see you all around for a good long time.

And now I need a good segue to show off my new guitar…hmmm…maybe…CONSERVATIVES HAVE TOTALLY GONE OFF THE RAILS AND WE NEED TO GET PERRY TO TAKE TEXAS AND SECEDE ALREADY AND…CHECK OUT MY AMAZING GRADUATION PRESENT!!!