Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

But I Still Don’t Get the Giant Puppets

Edited to add:  I didn’t mean to do it!  I didn’t uncheck the box that says put this on the front page and OMG look where it wound up!  Please, someone who can, move it over to the sidebar where it belongs!

Over at Booman Tribune I got linked into this happy story at Huffpo:  

White House Brings Minimum Wage, Overtime Protections To 2 Million Home Care Workers

It’s definitely a BFD for the many hard-working, unappreciated, peon-wages-paid folks who take care of the most vulnerable among us.  As the article says,

In a move that will change working conditions for two million Americans, the Labor Department announced Tuesday the enactment of a new rule that will extend minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers, one of the fastest-growing occupations in the country.

As of Jan. 1, 2015, the long-awaited change will end a 38-year-old carveout that excluded workers who attend to the elderly and disabled in their homes from the basic labor protections enjoyed by most Americans.

“Now, waitaminnit”, I hear you say, “just where do the giant puppets come into this?”  Thusly:

Dogs! On the Beach! Another picture diary

Oh, joy!  Oh, bliss!  Oh, happy happy day, when a dog may romp and run free, unfettered by leash or law!  Poor dogs; they were made to run – well, most of them; I daresay a bulldog would beg to disagree; but for most canines in modern times, time off the leash, unfenced, unfettered, is hard to come by.  A free-roaming dog can be a nuisance, occasionally a menace, sometimes, sadly, a pathetic heap in the road.  We confine and circumscribe them for their good and our own, and mostly they adapt and cope.  But do they not, now and then, pine for freedom to run?

 In my town of Ipswich, there is a time and a place for such glorious liberty.  The vast sandflat sweep of Crane Beach is thrown open to Canine Americans and their attendant humans every year, from October 1 through March 31, and while part of the beach still requires the four-legs to be leashed (though there are always owners who ignore such strictures), one end of the beach is officially a leash-free zone.

The day after Thanksgiving, brilliantly blue-skyed, tolerably warm, light-breezy pleasant, I went for a walk there, and had a ball watching the dogs have a ball.

Another (Mostly) Irrelevant Horsepix Diary

I don’t know why you guys put up with this, but you do, so here’s another bit of silliness if you feel like wasting a few minutes of your time (and if you slog down to the comments you’ll find Chris turning my frivolity into thoughtful musings):

Gee, I haven’t posted anything for a while.  Maybe because I had nothing of note to say?  And you, yes, you over there, hush up about never having….

 Anyway, it’s time for another pointless but amusing (to me, anyway) photo essay.  This one goes way-way back, back before the Serious Photographer/Serious Camera (stop snickering, dammit) to the point-and-shoot days.

And a Little Child Shall Lead Them

And let’s hope the adults follow these little children’s lead.  

With a hat tip to BooMan for alerting me to the story of Romney’s photo-op foray into West Phillie in search of education cred and “I like black folks, really I do, for Pete’s sake!” images; with a further hat tip to Bob Stanley down in the comments, who linked me to the hat-trick hat-tip Obama Diary, wherein Chipsticks compares and contrasts the sort of reaction kids have to the two contenders for the man who gets to decide for the next four years what their future’s going to look like.

I’m not saying that children have an inerrant BS detector, a spot-on radar for good guys and bad guys (that would be cats, of course), but the images below the fold tell their own story, doncha think?

Genesis of a Photographer – today’s apolitical diary

Here we go again:

I love photography — love to see it well done, love to try to do it well.  At age 63 I’m getting reasonably good at it and continuing to learn to do it better.  I’ll never be in the same league as really gifted photographers, but I’m happy with the progress I’ve made.

How far back does the shutterbug go?  Way, way back to my gawky awkward teens, when I found a battered old black and white camera in the attic.  It was all manual, not a bit of auto this or that; there was a flaw in its innards that left streaks on the negatives and thus the images; I had to learn how to use a handheld light meter and dial in all the settings; but I persisted, and had fun.

Spring Fever — Another Apolitical Eye Candy Diary

Hey, you know me by now — snippets of more or less thoughtful blither in the comments, and the occasional pointless diary.  Here’s another one for ya, this time about spring and ponypix:

It seems a bit odd to be burbling on about spring fever, after a winter so lacking in wintriness.  Ever since the shocker snowstorm of October, we’ve been devoid of the white stuff here in coastal Massachusetts north of Boston.  We finally had some pathetic few inches of the stuff last week, but even that got mostly rained away on the tail end of the storm.  Shriveled scraps of dirty whiteness linger here and there in sheltered spots, but with temperatures climbing toward 60 in the next day or two, they’re not long for this world.

And speaking of temperatures — what’s left to say?  Unseasonably warm to barely chilly, a spot of real cold now and then, but mostly so mild that outdoor horse chores have been far from the usual frigid misery of our typical January and February.  It’s hard to get excited about SPRING!!!! when the winter’s barely noticeable.

Well, it’s hard for me.  For the horses, however….

Cowed; or, An Apolitical Giggle

What — again, you say?  Yet another frivolous diary?  One that advances the deep and nuanced discussion of the world’s woes (and occasional joys) not a whit, let alone a jot and tittle?

Well, of course!  It’s what I do best, right? Other than industriously tapping that “Fierce” button for all of the insightful, incisive, thoughtful, shrewd, well-reasoned, passionate, witty, snarkalicious posts of other Meese whose dust I am not worthy to sweep up after.

But at least this time I’m forgoing the poll, since I can’t think of one worth slaughtering electrons for.  So over the fold we (or at least I) go, for today’s bit of irrelevance:

Because we need a good laugh, dammit!

Or at least I do.  Pointing and laughing at the current parade of horribles in the GOP nominating marathon is sort of like sniggering about the tree branch sticking out of the mouth of the elephant that’s charging your Land Rover, after all.  Suffering and injustice continue their longstanding engagement worldwide.  That neighbor’s dog still won’t stop barking.

So here are some things that made me crack a laugh loud enough to scare the cat off my lap this morning.  I hope they’ll do the same for you, even if you have to borrow a cat.

Treat it as an open thread, share whatever else brings a smile to your face in the depths of this weary winter.

Liberal with a Gun

I’m an unabashed liberal, and I’ve got a gun.  Two, in fact.  And one of them is a real prize.

‘Twasn’t always thus.  I grew up and have lived most of my life in a weaponless family and friends milieu where gun ownership was not only nonexistent but often held in contempt.  I continue to regard parts of the American gun world with dismay.

And yet, here I am today, owner of two pistols and member of the local fish and game club.

And now for something completely different

I’m stressed out, worn out, hollowed out by the debt ceiling/deficit drama.

I’m bummed out, grossed out, skeeved out by the monstrous fools and poltroons running this country headlong into disaster.

I’m checking out of caring about the whole hideous horror show for a while.  Got to recharge, refresh, reanimate the spirit before taking up the fight once more.

I’m going to the beach.