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Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Sunday, Sept. 14

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Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings diaries 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.

In lieu of daily check-ins, which have gone on hiatus, Welcomings diaries will be posted at the start of each week (every Sunday morning) and then, if necessary due to a large number of comments, again on Wednesday or Thursday to close out the week. To find the diaries, 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?

…


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 155 Comments

155 comments

  2. Portlaw

    a concert last night and am not awake but hope the birds are big and I will see them through half closed eyes. Have a good day, Meesies. Will check in later to see the news and how you are in your part of the pond.

  3. DeniseVelez

    feel like it is afternoon already.

    51 going up to only 66 today.

    My plumber is coming to figure out why my furnace is blowing cold air instead of heat.

    Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

  4. anotherdemocrat

    I’m actually going wear a long-sleeved shirt to church – high today only in the 80s

    Eating breakfast & watching Up. ISIL, football, back to Syria…sigh. Yesterday was nice. I visited my friend in the hospital — she can move her leg a little. I don’t know if she’s going home this week or not, but she does have a caregiver hired. Her daughter is doing fine in college, so that’s good. It rained most of the day, and I had a nice nap in the afternoon. Went to a party at a friend’s house – it was a ’70s theme. Pretty fun. As new songs came on, we’d try to remember who the band was, and people would talk about what grade they were in, what was going on, etc.

    Today: take my friend a pimento cheese sandwich, buy groceries, cook, watch Dr. Who & the Knick.

  5. Diana in NoVa

    Thank you, Goddess! And many thanks for the rain yesterday. Being too hard of hearing to listen to the sound of the rain falling (one of my favorite sounds, along with ocean waves breaking and wolves howling), I simply took a blissful nap.

    Wish I’d stop doing laundry. Writers will do anything to avoid writing! Feeling a bit discouraged about my writing anyway.

    Today–finish reading the newspaper, tidy the front room, drive out to Upperville with Dearly Beloved and a friend to enjoy lunch at the Hunter’s Head (a quaint white building that looks more like an English countryside pub than English pubs do). Home again to write! Some stories have an overlong labor and a difficult birth but turn out just fine in the end.

    Hope all Meese will have a good day!

  6. princesspat

    As expected Maggie is and has been on my lap or right beside me since arriving yesterday, but she’s a small dog and good company for home alone me.

    My surgeon called yesterday and the pathology report is good, yay! So I’m on the mend, trying to remember not to lift or stretch with my left arm. And I’m very relieved.

  7. DeniseVelez

    today – will be live-streamed later on

    http://new.livestream.com/acco…

    The Forward Together Moral Movement has launched a Moral March to the Polls Campaign with Get-Out-The-Vote rallies, canvasses, voter education programs, and Moral Monday actions across the state. The Moral March to the Polls campaign has come to Wilmington! There are only 8 weeks until the November election and we are organizing, registering, and getting out the vote! For more information, visit naacpnc.org Join with us in Wilmington to say Forward Together, Not One Step Back!

    NAACP leader Barber to speak at local Moral Monday march

    WILMINGTON | North Carolina’s NAACP leader will give the keynote speech at the Moral Monday march in Wilmington on Sept. 15, said Deborah Dicks Maxwell, president of the New Hanover County NAACP.

    The Rev. William Barber III was last in Wilmington in November 2013, when he spoke out against perceived excessive use of force by police after several high-profile officer-involved shootings. Maxwell said she does not know what Barber will speak about.

    The rally will begin at 5:30 p.m. Monday at Wilmington’s Riverfront Park. It will be the first such event in Wilmington.

    http://www.starnewsonline.com/…

  8. DeniseVelez

    later in the day. So happy my plumber got the furnace fixed yesterday.  Am now able to sit here and type without being bundled up in multiple layers of clothing.

    Have an eye-doc appointment this AM – hope the glaucoma pressure is down.

    News:

    ]I see the Queen of England has finally said something about Scottish Independence

    Scottish independence: Queen urges voters to ‘think carefully’

    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9b93…

    In a rare intervention into the political arena, the Queen has urged Scots to “think very carefully” before they vote in Thursday’s independence referendum.

    Speaking after a Sunday service near her Balmoral estate in Scotland, the monarch was careful not to endorse either side but told a small group outside the church: “Well, I hope people will think very carefully about the future.”

    President Barack Obama to reveal plan to boost his country’s involvement in mitigating Ebola

    http://www.standardmedia.co.ke…

    NEW YORK: US President Barack Obama is expected to detail on Tuesday a plan to boost his country’s involvement in mitigating the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. The plan would involve a greater involvement of the USmilitary in tackling the worst recorded outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the proposal.

    Headed over to Wonkette for some humor and got this scary story instead

    New Texas Schoolbooks: Moses Wrote The Constitution For Slavery, Segregation

    Read more at http://wonkette.com/560133/new…

    Well here’s a heck of a surprise! You may remember how Texas re-wrote its standards for history books back in 2010, to make sure that kids learned the important parts of history, like who Phyllis Schlafly is and how the Constitution was inspired by the Bible, while downplaying the importance of that nasty deist Thomas Jefferson. The standards adopted by the State Board of Education were so awful that the conservative Fordham Institute called them “a confusing, unteachable hodgepodge” and criticized the SBOE for its “blatant politicizing” of history – especially in its approach to the role of religion:

       Biblical influences on America’s founding are exaggerated, if not invented. The complicated but undeniable history of separation between church and state is flatly dismissed.

    Not surprisingly, we learned this week that the textbooks that have been written to comply with those standards are just plain awful, according to detailed scholarly reviews sponsored by the Texas Freedom Network. TFN had professors of history, religion, and political science look over textbooks submitted for 6th to 12th-grade history, government, and geography classes in Texas, and the reviewers found that they included some pretty clumsy attempts to shoehorn the BOE’s favorite rightwing talking points into the texts. Dr. David R. Brockman, who reviewed the coverage of religion in world history and geography texts, said,

       The path of least resistance for publishers would be simply to “write-to-the-standards,” the textbook equivalent of “teaching-to-the-test” That is, the option was to give the SBOE what it seems to want to hear, instead of sticking to what is historically sound. Sadly, some publishers have done the former in certain instances.

  9. JanF

    I got sidetracked replying to Dee’s comments and forgot to report on my weather!

    It is 52 degrees here in Madison on its way up to 56 degrees; rain in the forecast.

    I have not had time to look at the news yet but I noticed in football games yesterday that the deactivation of the guy who beat his 4 year old with a tree branch led directly to his team’s loss and the deactivation of the player who beat up his girlfriend did not appear to impact his team at all. And on CBS, their broadcasts showed the name of the Washington DC football team as “Washington” while continuing to call the other teams by their team names. Small progress.

    I am going to try to find an old Great Speeches post to put on the front page to freshen it up. Where are all of our writing mooses? 🙁

    See you later!!  

  11. anotherdemocrat

    I took today off from work, planning a lazy day. Just some cooking. And this evening is Dining for Life, where restaurants are donating a portion of their proceeds to AIDS Services, so I’m having dinner out with some friends.

    Got a busy week ahead: tomorrow an extra coaching session from my workout group, Wednesday an endorsement meeting for the City Council election (& there are 10,000 people running for office since we’re switching from at-large to districts; it’ll take forever); then Saturday the 2nd half of that meeting.

    And we have rain chances Tues, Wed & Thurs, so that’s exciting.

  12. bfitzinAR

    bad for electricity generation – and cool enough to keep the A/C off but not so cool as to turn on the furnace.  I did build my first fire of the season on Saturday (a rainy, chilly day for the most part although the sun did come out during the afternoon and generated almost 9 KWHs).  More teenage snit from my lodger – maybe I’ll get used to it.  Parents of teens who do that eventually do, right?  Maybe it’s just that my kids didn’t that’s causing the problem.  Yeah, right (as my younger son used to say when he was 14).

    QC Budget Committee tonight and tomorrow.  The Sheriff gets to explain his budget – and since his budget is one of the reasons everybody has to cut back you’d think there’d be a whole lot of whooping and hollering and scrutiny.  If so you’d think wrong.  The sheriff just has to explain it – it’s the sheriff’s budget and that’s justification in itself to Rs.

    Hope the week is starting off well for all teh Purple People.  {{{HUGS}}} bf

  13. princesspat

    I’ll have to close the windows soon but I want to enjoy the fresh air for as long as I can. Funny how 56° seems fine now but in the winter it’s cold!

    I enjoyed some time in the garden yesterday…a careful clip here and there and the ivy that was creeping over the back steps is now in a pile waiting for someone else to pick up. Ron will be home later today so I’ll have both company and assistance, which will be very nice.

  14. DTOzone

    more money, better benefits, less time commitment.

    Then four hours later, they rescinded the offer. CEO decided he was going to eliminate the position instead.

    Such is life, and it’s only Monday.  

  15. JanF

    It is 43 degrees in Madison WI with an expected high of 65 degrees. Sunny.

    Kind of an interesting approach to schooling from ISIL:

    The extremist-held Iraqi city of Mosul is set to usher in a new school year. But unlike years past, there will be no art or music. Classes about history, literature and Christianity have been “permanently annulled.”[…]

    It recently imposed a curriculum in schools in its Syrian stronghold, Raqqa, scrapping subjects such as philosophy and chemistry, and fine-tuning the sciences to fit with its ideology.[…]

    The new Mosul curriculum, allegedly issued by al-Baghdadi himself, stresses that any reference to the republics of Iraq or Syria must be replaced with “Islamic State.” Pictures that violate its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam will be ripped out of books. Anthems and lyrics that encourage love of country are now viewed as a show of “polytheism and blasphemy,” and are strictly banned.

    The new curriculum even went so far as to explicitly ban Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution – although it was not previously taught in Iraqi schools.

    I think they must have found the Texas State Board of Education web site and copied/pasted — much like our states copied/pasted ALEC model legislation. Or maybe it was ALEC? Their plan for American children is to keep them dumb and working at McDonalds for minimum wage so that they don’t have time to wonder about why Mitt Romney has enough money to buy elevators for his cars. It is a good strategy for oligarchs and dictators.

    It was good to see that some Mosul parents are resisting:

    … pupils have uniformly not shown up for class, according to residents who spoke anonymously because of safety concerns. They said families were keeping their children home out of mixed feelings of fear, resistance and uncertainty.

    “What’s important to us now is that the children continue receiving knowledge correctly, even if they lose a whole academic year and an official certification,” a Mosul resident who identified himself as Abu Hassan told The Associated Press, giving only his nickname for fear of reprisals. He and his wife have opted for home schooling, picking up the required readings at the local market.

    See all y’all later!

  16. DeniseVelez

    Have school today – should be an interesting day – the topic today in women’s studies is women and white privilege.  

  17. Diana in NoVa

    and cloudy. The news is depressing as usual. I’ll have to catch up with it later.

    Feeling discouraged about my series at GOS. After Friday I will have completely run out of ideas for open forums, and no one seems to want to contribute a diary so the series will have to die or simply become something else.

    Oh, well, I shouldn’t inflict my troubles on the people here! Would like to come back to look at some of the front page diaries later, if Mr. Baby will just take a nap. Have a good day, everyone!

  18. anotherdemocrat

    it’s not what I’d call “cool” 0 still wearing short sleeves, capris & sandals, but no 100 in the forecast. We might even get rain again today. Actually, we might get rain all week. Yay!

    Yesterday was nice – just hung out, put my food for the week together, then dinner with friends.

    I have an extra coaching session from my workout group after work – brought my rain jacket just in case.  Earworm is now the much more energetic California from my babies’ new album. I couldn’t find a video for it on youtube (several claiming to be were just silence with the lyrics); but I love the bounciness & the “there is no, there is no end to love” chorus.

  20. Portlaw

    out the door. Check back later to read of the news Meeses have put up in their comments. Hope the pond is peaceful for its residents today!

  21. bfitzinAR

    Last night was worse than I thought – not because anybody went after the Sheriff to reduce expenses or even because the Sheriff is actually increasing expenses (contracting a medical provider company for the jail – which we actually need to do, we need a wide array of services some 50-75% of full time and what we’ve been doing is hiring 3 nurses and 2 doctors and then hauling the inmate to any specialist, mental health or otherwise, as needed – hiring the company will get us all the services we need since they provide services to multiple places and their full-time employees can meet our part-time needs – but this adds a minimum of $200K to his budget), but because somebody pointed out the obvious fact that we cannot keep subsidizing the jails from the General Fund without increasing revenue, also known as raising taxes.  The LieberDem immediately started her song-and-dance about cutting budget before we ever even discuss raising taxes with the TPs around the table nodding.  Nobody seems to notice how unfair it is for other departments to have to cut to the bone because Jails (and Roads) have inadequate revenue streams.  Probably because this group doesn’t acknowledge that any other departments are actually needed services – and this comment is already too long to start listing those yes actually needed services.

    Tonight will be worse.  IT and the Animal Shelter are up and those two are the ones the Rs would most like to shut down.  I wish I’d gotten more sleep last night.  (Reflux attack, as usual after a Budget meeting.)  {{{HUGS}}} to the Purple People.  

  22. princesspat

    It will be in the mid 70’s today, with a cool breeze so it’s very pleasant. Fortunately RonK is home now and can haul the hoses around because the garden is getting dry. I’m counting the days until the stitches come out (6!) so I can clean up my container plantings, plant some winter pansies, and have some time off from tending so many plants.  

  23. JanF

    Feels like it should be Friday, though.

    It is 45 degrees in Madison with an expected high of 69. Sunny skies … when the sun comes up at 6:38am. Seems like not that long ago, the sun was coming up at 4:30. I do like working in the dark of the morning (dark makes things feel quieter) but it is a bit sad to see the evening light shrink. Oh, well – the cycles of the earth pause for no one. Autumn Equinox is next week! The 23rd at 2:29 UTC time.

    I am glad that the Minnesota Vikings decided to put Adrian Peterson on the exempt list. Yes, our country has due process and he will not be convicted or acquitted until he has his day in court. But, as the inestimable Wonkette  points out, the NFL has a code of conduct that does not require waiting for conviction and all appeals to be exhausted; conduct detrimental to the game is enough and getting indicted for beating your 4 year old with a stick is detrimental. Apparently also detrimental to the game was the general manager of the Vikings appearing at a news conference declaring their commitment to their player … with the Vikings and Radisson Hotel logos in the background. Aghast, Radisson dropped its sponsorship and now Budweiser is threatening to pull the $2.5 billion (with a b) in ads on NFL shows and SURPRI$$$$E … NOW it is bad optics to have a child abuser on the field. I guess it is good that there is something that gets their attention. The same can’t be said for Republicans in Congress, who, despite knowing that they have a woman problem, still voted down the equal pay act. Maybe they’ve just given up and are working to lock down the straight white male southerner vote … because the gender gap is one of the big reasons that Nate Silver now says that Democrats will likely hang onto the Senate.

    See all y’alls later! I want to rant on Dee’s post about Debo Adegbile (it is difficult to rant from my phone because the keyboard is too small to pound on effectively so I had to wait). But first I have to get some work out the metaphorical door.

  24. Portlaw

    clear off the kitchen counters that are buried under mail and old newspapers.  On my mind…….Syria, Syria, Syria.

    Will check back later. Hope it’s a good day for all.

  25. Diana in NoVa

    today. Might have to put on a warmer jacket to walk Miss Pink Cheeks to school.

    Haven’t looked at the news yet. I know it will be bad, so it can just wait.

    Yesterday was a good day in my new campaign not to let Miss Pink Cheeks use my iPad to play games. Steve Jobs apparently limited his children to half an hour on the weekends, so I decided we would have a new regime. Yesterday I picked her up from school, we came home and made Peg’s Molasses Cookies, had them with tea on the screened porch. She then went picking in the backyard, returning with a bowl of tomatoes and raspberries.

    Her father wrote to me last night saying that she’d told him today is “Hump Day.” He was alarmed, but I explained that I told her about “over the hump day.” 🙂

    Will have another look at Denise’s diary today. Last night was so exhausted I couldn’t make sense of anything I was reading. One good thing happened–someone offered a diary for my series on Friday and it’s wonderful! He saved me from a Goodbye, Cruel World diary announcing the demise of the series–for this week.

    Early morning tea is waiting on the nightstand so will say cheerio for now, Hope Meese everywhere will have a good day!

  26. anotherdemocrat

    Well, it’s still warm & muggy, but they promise rain – even thunderstorms – later today.

    So it turns out that last Saturday was the long endorsement meeting with all the candidates. Tonight, we’re just arguing & voting. Oh well. I’m kinda bummed I missed the big meeting, because there would have been a lot of people there for me to ask for Walk donations. Also, I still haven’t decided on the mayor race. Actually, I’ve barely thought about the mayor race.

    So, tonight I have a contentious Dem club meeting. But also people to ask for Walk donations.

    Still no youtube for California, my new earworm, but here’s a link to the lyrics: http://www.u2.com/discography/…

  27. bfitzinAR

    than yesterday (just under 4 KWH).   Considering what I was expecting I have to say last night went better than I expected.  But the LieberDem and the Rs are getting crazier by the minute.  Foiled by significant decreases in the IT and Animal Shelter budgets from demanding we shut them down, they turned on the Road Dept – the department we’ve capped the funding stream on with the promise that we’d always make it up from the General fund – and told them if they can’t live “within their budget” they need to cut back on maintaining the County Roads.  That got an immediate and bi-partisan response from the rural JPs with one R going so far as referring to the Rs who proposed the cutback as “you city people”.  🙂  No QC tonight, thank Goddess, although tomorrow night we get to see if enough people are foresighted enough to give the Drug Court Judge her staff attorney – the one she wants who has FINS experience but asks that she be paid what she was being paid when she worked in the County Defense Attorney’s office.  (Basically treat it as a transfer within the County, a concept the LieberDem, attorney though she is, does not seem to get.  But then, the LieberDem hates the Drug Court Judge’s guts and would do anything to mess with her no matter what it would do to the Drug Court diversion program.)

    Heigh ho, it’s Wednesday and feels like it should be Saturday except I’m at work.  {{{HUGS}}} to the Purple People.

  28. princesspat

    I’m enjoying watching Ken Burns film, The Roosevelts, this week on PBS. The old photos and the narrative are helping me remember long forgotten history lessons. I’ll miss tonight’s episode so I’ll watch it on line.

    THE ROOSEVELTS: AN INTIMATE HISTORY chronicles the lives of Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, three members of the most prominent and influential family in American politics. It is the first time in a major documentary television series that their individual stories have been interwoven into a single narrative  This seven-part, fourteen hour film follows the Roosevelts for more than a century, from Theodore’s birth in 1858 to Eleanor’s death in 1962

    .

    http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/th…

  29. JanF

    50 degrees in Madison with an expected high of 66. Partly sunny skies.

    The Scots are voting Yes or No for independence today. I found a link to the Guardian’s live coverage on the voting:

    When will we know the result?

    Voting goes on until 10pm BST tonight, though anyone still in the polling station queue at that cut-off time will get the chance to put their cross on the ballot paper.

    Counting starts immediately after that, with the first results expected around 2am, with Eilean Siar, North Lanarkshire, Inverclyde, Orkney, East Lothian, Perth and Kinross, and Moray vying to be the first local authority to declare.

    The results are cumulative – it’s a simple question of who gets more votes: yes or no.

    But we probably won’t know for certain until the final results come in for three big cities that make up around a quarter of the electorate: Edinburgh and Glasgow at around 5am, and Aberdeen at 6am.

    BST (British Summer Time) is 5 hours earlier than EDT so the polls will close at 5pm Eastern and the vote totals from the big cities will be known about 1am tomorrow Eastern time.

    In closer-in news, the ACLU Voting Rights division has filed a petition to have the full 7th Circuit review their request to stay the Wisconsin Voter ID law. The three judge panel, which included Scott Walker’s “favorite judge”, ruled that the Voter ID law must go into effect for the November election even though a Milwaukee federal court declared the law unconstitutional and issued an injunction barring the implementation. Chaos has ensued since absentee ballots have already been cast and are now null and void because they did not include a photocopy of the person’s drivers license. Some DMV locations in northern Wisconsin are only open a few hours a week. The planned implementation had been an 8 month ramp-up to our low turnout February primary then adjustments before the next election, not 5 weeks before a hotly contested gubernatorial race. Here is the ACLU:

    CHICAGO – The American Civil Liberties Union filed a petition late last night asking that its challenge to Wisconsin’s voter ID law be considered by the full Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge appeals panel reinstated the voter ID law last Friday after hearing oral arguments earlier in the day. The ACLU had presented arguments asking the court to uphold an April 29 federal court ruling striking down the law as unconstitutional and in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

    Frank v. Walker – Emergency Petition for Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc of Panel Order Granting Motion to Stay

    See all y’alls later!!

     

  30. Diana in NoVa

    Will keep my fingers crossed that Wisconsin’s voter ID law will be tossed out in time for the election. What fiends the Republicans are!  In Baltimore a few years back they put up posters in low-income areas telling people the election was on Saturday at the fire house rather than Tuesday at their local precincts. Rethugs will do anything to win.

    Keeping an anxious eye on the Scots vote. The Union Jack will not look the same without Scotland’s blue cross of St. Andrew. I’m not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, it would be great for Scotland to have more autonomy. On the other hand, being old, I’m resistant to change. Hope this won’t turn out like the situation of a popular actor leaving the TV show that made him popular–how often does that work out? As a rule, said actor sinks into obscurity.

    Not much news on the home front, except that I feel very tired and Miss Pink Cheeks’ parents have reason to believe that she has been put into the “advanced” class in kindergarten. The teacher would like the parents to write a letter about their kindergartener to her. I’ll do it, as (1) My English is better than that of daughter-in-law, who speaks English but does not write it well; and (2) from the time she was ten weeks old until she was three I spent more time with her than her parents did.

    Hope everyone will have a good day and remember–tomorrow is “talk like a pirate day”!

  31. Portlaw

    to 75.

    Not sure how I feel about the vote in Scotland. Guess I hope that the results are in the best interests of the people there. I am very definitely not an Anglophile so some part of me wants the Scots to separate but it’s their choice. I remember once on a visit there sitting near the beach in gorgeous Iona, leaning against the back of a cow, as I looked to America. It was a great moment for me but perhaps not for the cow.

    And now to read about Syria.

    Hope it’s a good day throughout the world.

  32. anotherdemocrat

    Well we got that rain. Thunderstorms, lightning strikes, flash flooding……. Even the major street I drive into work on, I could tell had had water wash over it. And really loud thunder in the 2-3am hour. Several water rescues & a couple of fires from lightning strikes. I don’t know if my tea will be enough. I might end up actually buying a coke, though I hate all that sugar.

    Last night’s endorsement meeting was just awful. I deal really poorly with conflict, and there was a big fight about whether or not the rail thing was supposed to be on the ballot. I thought it was, and I’m not sure why it wasn’t, but there were people who were really, really mad that it wasn’t. I came home, watched a few minutes of Lawrence & was in bed before 10. I really become a turtle around conflict.

    Glad I watched Lawrence, though. My friend – and the best Congressman in Congress, Lloyd Doggett, was on. He voted “no” yesterday & was on to say why. His part starts about 3 minutes in: http://on.msnbc.com/1r0uaS6

    Earworm is still California. I love the chorus: “there is no end to love”  

  33. bfitzinAR

    got almost 10 KWH yesterday but generating something like 14 watts – that’s watts not kilowatts – right now.  Presupposing my lodger remembered to turn off her lights and fan when she left and the fridge doesn’t kick on, that’s more than enough to run the nightlight bug trap I keep on all the time.  🙂

    Had a calm evening last night, rain at night with a minimum of thunder boomers (as my kids called them) is very pleasant.  Not enough rest, I got up tired, but it was still nice.  Got QC tonight.  Won’t be pleasant or even vaguely restful and Goddess knows when I’ll get home.  I know we’ll pass what the Sheriff needs for the jail.  It may take Brigid’s (or Somebody’s) intervention to pass what the Drug Court judge needs for her diversion program.  There’s irony for you.

    It’s nice to have a calm place to visit, check in, and vent.  (And even nicer to have a place where I can refer to The Big Good Thing(s) any which a way I want to and won’t get jumped on.)  {{{HUGS}}} to the Purple People.

  34. Diana in NoVa

    Another, glad to hear you got rain, and bfitz, ditto!

    Grandpa is watching Mr. Baby for 15 blessed minutes so I can make phone calls.

    Everyone take care!

  35. princesspat

    Yesterday was a busy day so a rainy recovery day is welcome. I’ve got lots to do, but I’m going to proceed slowly.

  36. anotherdemocrat

    I’m reading a book called The Gospel and the Hunger Games. It’s pretty good so far, and the author is speaking at my church next week. Anyway, she points out how mourning is dangerous to the Establishment, because it involves naming the thing that caused the death/injustice — and the Romans didn’t allow people they conquered to mourn, or families of people crucified…. Anyway, this made me think of the story of Antigone. And I know that many Greek myths were re-told in Roman terms, but – were other stories familiar to them? Would Romans or people living in Palestine have known the story of Antigone?

  37. DeniseVelez

    have no idea where the week went so fast.

    48 degrees here in the mountains – up to low 60’s later.

    Today is the day I do my annual “Teaching about Race” lecture for women’s studies – to demonstrate that “race” is a social construct.

    I’ve described it here:

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

    It’s one of my favorite classes to give.  We have all (including me)  been bamboozled by what we believe is science and fact.  

    Undoing these beliefs is going to take many many decades…perhaps even centuries…since the theories (false) have been embedded for hundreds of years.  

    Genetic ancestry is not the same as “race”

    Nor is phenotype (skin color, facial features hair texture)

    the same as “race”

    Time for more coffee.

    Good morning Meese.  

  38. JanF

    It is 54 degrees in Madison on its way up to 73. Partly sunny skies.

    I have not read the news yet but I saw a few things last night. The hyper-partisan Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach was smacked down by the Kansas Supreme Court and the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate will be allowed to withdraw. That means that the independent, Orman, picks up probably another 5-6 points and Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) may be kicked to the curb. I am a little itchy about another Independent in the Senate and hope he is not another LIEberman; he does promise to caucus with the Democrats if we hold the senate. But regardless of the outcome, the Republicans will be diverting time and money to Kansas. HAHAHAHA as bubbanomics would say.

    Kansas is fun to watch this election cycle. The Republican governor is losing, Kobach is losing and Pat Roberts is losing. Brownback turned Kansas into an experiment in radical teapartyism and, to the surprise of exactly no one with a functioning brain, trickle down does not work … and when you “starve the beast” of government you actually starve your own citizens. But don’t expect anyone to learn the lesson that was already learned in Colorado 15 years earlier. The zombie supply-side economics is called that because it can’t be killed by facts or reality. It is an exact match to what the Republican party overlords want.

    See all y’all later!!

  39. Diana in NoVa

    ye’ll walk the plank!

    It’s 54 F. here in NoVa this Friday morning, going up to 75 F. When I woke up and turned on the news I realized that I now owe my niece a loaf of pumpkin bread: that’s what she bet me that Scotland would stay in the Union. She originally was going bet a haggis, but when I asked her if she’d ever tasted that dish, we changed it to pumpkin bread. 🙂

    Another ominous video from ISIL, this time featuring a British journalist. Don’t know whether to be glad or sad that Scotland voted “No.” On one hand, I’m glad the flag will continue to bear the cross of St. Andrew. On the other, I think a Scotland modeled on the Scandinavian countries would have been a happy land. David Cameron and others of his ilk are entirely too in love with themselves and uncaring of the British people at large. It has ever been thus with the Tories.

    Feeling pleased last night that I wrote another scene of my story but somewhat apprehensive because this thing is going to be LONG. The prequel was long as well.

    SO looking forward to a child care-free weekend! Denise, I want to come back as soon as poss. and follow up your link. If only Mr. Baby would take a nap!

  40. anotherdemocrat

    More storms & flash flooding. One sad thing – a deputy has been missing since yesterday. They keep pointing out that she’s on the search & rescue dive team & a strong swimmer, but it’s more than 24 hours.

    I’m trying to decide about going to Pride tomorrow. I get up at 5:30 to be at the park at 7 for my training group. That takes till around 10, with the post-walk exercises & a talk about some aspect of what we’re doing, and breakfast tacos. Then groceries & visiting my friend. So, Pride. Several Methodist churches walk in the parade together — there’s enough different churches to make a rainbow with our shirts, a couple hundred all together. Dinner is at 6, the Executive Director of the national movement for inclusion of GLBTQ people into the Methodist Church is speaking. This is the part I am most likely to go to. But if you’re ever been in a Pride parade as either part of PFLAG or an inclusive church — you have not known love like that. It means so much to people. But the parade doesn’t even start till 8. No matter how well I nap Saturday, that is late for me.

    Well, for now, I just need to get through today. We’ll be even more short-staffed than usual. But call volume has been light. Maybe people will continue to have mercy on us.

  41. Portlaw

    Find I am a bit disappointed in the Scotland vote.

    Have to make coffee and read the news. Will check in later. I have much to do today and am already behind.

    Hope it’s a good day in Mooseland.

  42. bfitzinAR

    hope the fog burns off soon and I can get some real KWHs generated today.  Saw the Scots decided not to leave the UK, but haven’t read anything but the headline yet.

    Last night’s QC could seriously have been worse.  We didn’t fail the Drug Court staff attorney issue, but it didn’t pass with enough to settle the matter either.  The poor Judge, she showed up with data indicating the program itself is generating enough money from fees to pay for this so it won’t cost the County anything, thinking that would sway the people who keep talking about money.  I don’t know how a person so green in politics managed to get elected, but she’s a darned good judge and is doing a wonderful job with this diversion program (over 90% success rate in keeping people out of the over-crowded jail).  We’ve got 2 special QC meetings (in front of already scheduled Budget Committee meetings so it doesn’t cost the County anything) to resolve the matter but as long as we can keep 8 votes showing up (we have 9 people who will vote for this, but 1 was missing last night and another will not be here next week) we’ll have this done by Tuesday night.  Of course we passed by unanimous vote (of all in attendance) the $340K the Jail needs just to – maybe – get through the end of the year.  An irony not picked up by the newspaper – the reporter preferred to dwell on the cost of the jail program due to state prison overcrowding (we have to keep the state prisoners until there’re “beds” in the state prison to move them to – the state reimburses us for just under half the actual cost – and state prisoners are way up due to a new “tougher than you nyah, nyah law the R-controlled Legislature passed 2 years ago) and how this is going to cause problems as our revenues are projected to go down next year.  Of course they are, every time one of the cities annexes property, we lose the revenue – and we cut millage 3 years ago (which I protested at the time) and refuse to put it back.  At least he noted that other departments are going to have to sacrifice to save the jail, a “priority not given many other departments”.

    {{{HUGS}}} to the Purple People – and the peaceful purple place 🙂

  43. princesspat

    Just a few more days until the itchy stitches come out and I can lift more than 5 lbs! My garden is dripping, the flowers are spent and I’m ready to do the fall cleanup. I want to take care of the container plantings myself but I’ll have to arrange for some help with the rest of the garden. Fortunately I’m getting better at doing that!

  44. JanF

    It is 65 degrees in Madison on its way up to 78 … storms rolling through the region right now. What happened to fall weather????

    I just did a quick scan of the news. Alabama’s governor believes that every black child killed is the victim of her family’s dysfunction. Twenty-five percent of Americans want their state to secede from the union. Ohio Supreme Court approves strip mining in state wildlife areas. Anti-islamic ads will be allowed on New York City buses because hate speech is free speech.

    I think I will go back to bed. Here is one bit of good news: the Secretary of State of Kansas Kris Kobach (KKK?) blinked and the military ballots will be sent out today (as required by statute) with no Democratic nominee listed. I am still itchy about any independent who isn’t named Bernie Sanders but losing that seat would be a blow to the Republicans who thought that they could fool all of the red state people all of the time. I want them to wake up on the morning of Nov. 5th and say “what’s the matter with Kansas?”. 🙂

    See  all y’all later!  

  46. Diana in NoVa

    Wish we could get thunderstorms here, we’re dry as a bone.

    Popped over to GOS to read the APR and discovered that, no matter whether I’m on the iPad or the laptop, I’m seeing ads. Seeing that I paid good green cash to become a lifetime subscriber, I’m not pleased about that.

    Find myself growing weary with GOS and Facebook, though not with the Moose. Might have to take a break from the other two.

    Lunch with two of my Circle sisters today, which will be nice. Our ritual has been canceled since the other Circle sister decided that it was more important to attend a Nats game than to do a ritual on the date we’d all agreed on. Wish we had even one more member–then it wouldn’t matter. Oh, well.

    Got to get busy with breakfast, pent-up errands, and then lunch–later!

  47. princesspat

    I’ve finally got my sewing table cleaned off so I can actually use it, so while Ron is at the climate change march with Emma I’ll sew a pair of puppy and cheetah print pillow shams for Sophia. It’s fun to share our interests and time with the grand kids!

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