Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Thursday Morning Herd Check-in

Tags:

  Make sure you let your peeps

  know where to find you!  

   


    PLEASE Do Not Recommend the check-in diary

        Fierces on the Weather Critter Comment are obligatory welcome.

The morning check-in is an open thread posted to give you a place to visit with the meeses. Feel free to chat about your weather, share a bit of your life, grump (if you must), rave (if you can). The diarist du jour sometimes posts and runs, other times sticks around for a bit, often returns throughout the day and always cares that meeses are happy … or at least contented.

For those new to the Moose, Kysen left a Moose Welcome Mat (Part Deux) so, please, wipe your feet before you walk in the front door start posting.

The important stuff to get you started:

– Comments do not Auto-refresh. Click the refresh/reload on your tab to see new ones. Only click Post once for comments. When a diary’s comment threads grow, the page takes longer to refresh and the comment may not display right away.

– To check for replies to your comments, click the “My Comments” link in the right-hand column (or go to “My Moose”). Comments will be listed and a link to Recent Replies will be shown. (Note: Tending comments builds community)

– Ratings: Fierce means Thumbs Up, Fail means Thumbs Down, Meh means one of three things: I am unFailing you but I can’t Fierce you, I am unFiercing after a mistaken Fierce, … or Meh. Just Meh. (p.s. Ratings don’t bestow mojo, online behaviour does).

– The Recommended list has a prominent place on the Front Page because it reflects the interests of the Moose. When people drive-by, we want them to see what we are talking about: news, politics, science, history, personal stories, culture. The list is based on number of recs and days on the list. Per Kysen: “The best way to control Rec List content is to ONLY rec diaries you WANT to see ON the list.”

– Finally, the posting rules for a new diary: “Be excellent to each other… or else”

(Some other commenting/posting/tending notes for newbies can be found in this past check-in and, of course, consult Meese Mehta for all your questions on meesely decorum.)

You can follow the daily moosetrails here: Motley Moose Recent Comments.

~

Let the greetings begin!

~


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 26 Comments

The Daily F Bomb, Wednesday 12/18/13

Tags:

Interrogatories

Have you ever been to a performance of “Nutcracker,” or is it a yearly TV viewing experience for your family?

Do you ever bake cookies or other foods as gifts? What kinds?

What magazines did your family subscribe to when you were growing up? Which were your favorites, and why?

What is the most boring sport?

The Twitter Emitter

On This Day

In 1787, New Jersey was the third state to ratify the Constitution.

In 1892, the premier performance of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet took place in St. Petersburg.

In 1961, EMI Records declined to sign a little band called The Beatles.

In 1970, Jerry Lee Lewis divorced his cousin, Myra Gale Brown, who, at 26 (and 13 years of marriage) was probably too old for him.

In 1971, Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park was established.

In 1996, the Oakland, California school board passed a resolution officially declaring “Ebonics” a language or dialect. This comes up every time racists think they can make a point.

In 2002, California governor Gray Davis announced that the budget deficit would be double what he had reported during his re-election campaign. This set the ball rolling for his recall (funded by Darrell Issa), and of course we all know how the winner of that election fixed all of California’s financial woes.

In 2003, singer Michael Jackson was charged with 7 counts of molestation of a child under 14. He was later acquitted.

Born on This Day

1633 – Willem van de Velde II, Dutch marine painter (d. 1707)

1768 – Marie-Guillemine Benoist, French painter (d. 1826)

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1820 – Carl Ludwig Friedrich Becker, German painter (d. 1900)

1835 – William Frederick Yeames, British painter (d. 1918)

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1837 – David Adolf Constant Artz, Dutch painter (d. 1890)

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1849 – Henrietta Edwards, Canadian women’s rights activist (d. 1931)

1863 – Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria (d. 1914)

1866 – Antoon van Welie, Dutch painter (d. 1956)

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1878 – Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union (d. 1953)

1879 – Paul Klee, Swiss-born painter (d. 1940)

1886 – Ty Cobb, American baseball player (d. 1961)

1888 – Dame Gladys Cooper, English actress (d. 1971)

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1888 – Robert Moses, American public works official who did a lot of damage to Manhattan neighborhoods. (d. 1981)

1898 – Giuseppe Viviani, Italian painter (d. 1965)

1904 – George Stevens, American film director (d. 1975)

1907 – Lawrence Lucie, American jazz guitarist (d. 2009)

1908 – Celia Johnson, English actress (d. 1982)

1916 – Betty Grable, American actress (d. 1973)

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1917 – Ossie Davis, American actor and activist (d. 2005)

1920 – Enrique Grau Araújo, Colombian painter (d. 2004)

1933 – Lonnie Brooks, American musician

1935 – Jacques Pépin, French chef

1938 – Chas Chandler, English musician (The Animals) (d. 1996)

1943 – Keith Richards, English guitarist (The Rolling Stones)

1946 – Steve Biko, South African anti-apartheid activist (d. 1977)

1946 – Steven Spielberg, American film director

1948 – Mimmo Paladino, Italian painter

1948 – Bill Nelson, English musician (Be-Bop Deluxe)

1953 – Elliot Easton, American guitarist (The Cars)

1958 – Geordie Walker, English rock musician and lead guitarist for post-punk band Killing Joke

1963 – Brad Pitt, American actor

1980 – Christina Aguilera, American singer

Died on This Day

1737 – Antonio Stradivari, Italian violin maker (b. 1644)

1828 – Joseph Rebell, Austrian landscape and seascape painter (b. 1787)

1902 – Bengt Nordenberg, Swedish painter (b. 1822)

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1971 – Diana Lynn, American pianist and actress (b. 1926)

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1980 – Gabrielle Robinne, French actress (b. 1886)

1990 – Anne Revere, American actress (b. 1903)

1991 – June Storey, American actress (b. 1918)

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1997 – Chris Farley, American actor and comedian (b. 1964)

2000 – Kirsty MacColl, English singer and songwriter (b. 1959)

2011 – Václav Havel, playwright, philosopher and dissident, last president of Czechoslovakia, and the first president of the Czech Republic (b. 1936)

Today is

International Migrants Day

National Roast Suckling Pig Day

Bake Cookies Day

National “I Love Honey” Day

Wear A Plunger On Your Head Day


Categories: General.

/ 23 Comments

Wednesday Watering Hole: Check In & Hangout for the Herd

Tags:

Good morning, Moosekind.


  PLEASE Do Not Recommend the check-in diary! 

        Recs on the weather jar comment are still welcome.

The common Moose, Alces alces, unlike other members of the deer family, is a solitary animal that doesn’t form herds. Not so its rarer but nearest relative, Alces purplius, the Motley Moose. Though sometimes solitary, the Motley Moose herds in ever shifting groups at the local watering hole to exchange news and just pass the time.

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The morning check-in is an open thread and general social hour. Come back when time allows through the day – the conversation continues.

It’s traditional but not obligatory to give us a weather check where you are and let us know what’s new, interesting, challenging or even routine in your life lately. Nothing is particularly obligatory here except:

Always remember the Moose Golden (Purple?) Rule:

Be kind to each other… or else.

What could be simpler than that, right?

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Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 22 Comments

Jersey City Mayor Gives Best Response to Gun Control Equals Holocaust Meme

Tags:

Many conservatives have invoked Holocaust comparisons – and claimed that if European Jews only had guns in the 1930’s and 1940’s there would have never been a Holocaust – when it comes to any effort to implement new gun control laws.  This time, the focus of their anger is Jersey City mayor Steven Fulop, himself a grandchild of Holocaust survivors.

Mayor Fulop’s offense is that he supports a measure which would require gun vendors that seek contracts with Jersey City to fill out a gun safety questionnaire.  For this, his grandparents ordeal in the Shoah was invoked by Scott Bach, a member of the National Rifle Association’s board.

Mayor Fulop’s response to the claim that if only his grandparents, and other Jews, had guns when the Nazis came for them:

If my grandparents had guns in their house when the Nazis came, my grandparents would be dead and I wouldn’t be here. (emphasis my own) So that’s probably the reality of the situation. But I don’t think that you can equate religious persecution to a manipulation of the intent of the Second Amendment.

These conservatives seem to forget exactly what would happen if you had one or two people go up against fully equipped soldiers.  Maybe one or two or even three soldiers would get killed, but, in the end, it would be the ordinary people that were killed.  No, it wasn’t a lack of guns that caused the Holocaust, but the complicity of millions of people in Germany and occupied Europe who actively assisted in the Shoah and those, throughout the world, that turned a blind eye to what was happening and the countries that closed their doors to Jewish refugees fleeing for their very lives.

As Holocaust survivor, and Anti-Defamation League head, Abraham Foxman explained:

No matter how strong one’s objections are to a policy, or how committed an organization is to its mission, invoking the Holocaust to score political points is offensive and has no place in civil discourse.

It is especially disturbing that in the debate over gun control in America, Holocaust analogies and references to Nazi Germany flow so freely off the lips of critics of gun control.  There is absolutely no comparison of the issue of gun control in the U.S. to the genocidal actions of the Nazi regime.

Scott Bach’s critique of Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop’s gun control measures undermines and trivializes the historical truth of the Holocaust as a singular event in human history that led to the murder of six million Jews and millions of others. That he did so by invoking Mayor Fulop’s family history makes it all the more offensive.

This, sadly, is far from the first, and likely far from the last, time that the Holocaust will be invoked in the gun control debate in this country.  It smacks of anti-Semitism and is blatant disrespect to the memory of all those that were murdered in an attempt to wipe us from the face of the earth.  I am fortunate to be a Jew that lives in 21st century America and I am only here today because my family fled the anti-Semitism of Latvia and Poland one century ago.  Their family that did not join them in leaving Europe vanished 40 years later.  I exist today solely because a few people decided to get on a boat rather than stay where they were.


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 3 Comments

The stuff that piles up and wears you down-microaggressions


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(photo: Kiyun)




Dr. Chester Middlebrook Pierce, Emeritus Professor of Education and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School put an academic name to racial stressors. He wrote about:

the effects of racism, first proposing the concept of racial microaggressions in 1970. Microaggression usually involves “demeaning implications and other subtle insults against minorities”. He described these subtle nonverbal exchanges as ‘put-downs’ of blacks by offenders and suggested they may also play a role in unfairness in the legal system as microaggressions can influence the decisions of juries.

Most of us are aware of racism. There are big, flaming in your face, cross-burning, spewing, blatantly racist moments in time that almost everyone you know can see, and react to. Those are easy-almost. But the things that wear at you, tear at you, day-in-day-out tend to be smaller, shrug-offable, till they pile up, drop by drop, irritation by irritation.

Those of us who are forced to bear with them and bear up under them rarely get a chance to be vindicated, and are often chastised for being “overly sensitive” or “imagining it all” when we finally speak up to put a stop to yet another “diss” or put-down.

For visual representations, take a look at 21 Racial Microaggressions You Hear On A Daily Basis


Photographer Kiyun asked her friends at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus to “write down an instance of racial microaggression they have faced.”




There are too many pictorial examples to post here so I’ve only sampled a few.




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Dr. Derald Wing Sue, author of Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life, explains what a microaggression is, how it manifests itself, how it impacts people, and what can be done to address it.


He illustrates microaggressions involving ethnicity, gender, and race. He explains that it is a world view of exclusion and inclusion.

Simply stated, microaggressions are brief exchanges that send denigrating messages to marginalized groups. Any group can be guilty of delivering microaggressions, but the most painful and harmful ones are likely to occur between those who hold power and those who are disempowered. Often times, microaggressions are unintended or come from a place from good intentions. For instance, a professor who says to a student who speaks with a foreign accent “I’m impressed you speak English so well” is guilty of a microaggression because although the professor means that statement as a compliment, the statement assumes that people with accents do not normally speak English well. A further example would be a female physician who is wearing a stethoscope being mistaken as a nurse, with the underlying assumption being that women in hospitals are more likely to be nurses.

He points to things each of us can do to combat it-learn from your own biases and fears, don’t be defensive, be open to discussion, and be an ally.

There are many more examples being collected and updated on the tumblr site “Microagressions: Power, Privilege and Everyday Life“.

About This Project

this project is a response to “it’s not a big deal” – “it” is a big deal.  “it” is in the everyday.  “it” is shoved in your face when you are least expecting it.  “it” happens when you expect it the most.  “it” is a reminder of your difference.  “it” enforces difference.  “it” can be painful.  “it” can be laughed off.  “it” can slide unnoticed by either the speaker, listener or both.  “it” can silence people.  “it” reminds us of the ways in which we and people like us continue to be excluded and oppressed.  “it” matters because these relate to a bigger “it”: a society where social difference has systematic consequences for the “others.”

but “it” can create or force moments of dialogue.  

~~~~~~~~~

This blog seeks to provide a visual representation of the everyday of “microaggressions.” Each event, observation and experience posted is not necessarily particularly striking in and of themselves. Often, they are never meant to hurt – acts done with little conscious awareness of their meanings and effects. Instead, their slow accumulation during a childhood and over a lifetime is in part what defines a marginalized experience, making explanation and communication with someone who does not share this identity particularly difficult. Social others are microaggressed hourly, daily, weekly, monthly.

This project is NOT about showing how ignorant people can be in order to simply dismiss their ignorance. Instead, it is about showing how these comments create and enforce uncomfortable, violent and unsafe realities onto peoples’ workplace, home, school, childhood/adolescence/adulthood, and public transportation/space environments.

Knowledge and awareness are the first steps towards change. Let’s take those steps-together.

Cross-posted from Black Kos


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 24 Comments

The Daily F Bomb, Tuesday 12/17/13

Tags:

Interrogatories

Do you have any annual celebrations that aren’t on the mainstream radar? Besides your own birthday, that is.

Do you consider yourself patriotic? How patriotic? Love it or leave it, or change it or lose it?

Did you start to misbehave in class when the teacher left the room, or were you a virtuous child? What sort of things did you get up to?

What is your favorite book store, and why?

The Twitter Emitter

On This Day

In 1538, Henry VIII of England was excommunicated by Pope Paul III for dumping wife number one for wife number two and pillaging all the monasteries.

In 1777, the United States was formally recognized by France. I wonder if she would still recognize us?

In 1862, General Ulysses S. Grant (probably inspired by Ferdinand and Isabella) issued what was called General Order No. 11, which expelled Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky. This was revoked a few weeks later by President Lincoln, and when Grant ran for President years later he claimed he signed the order without reading it. The order was ostensibly to stop a black market in cotton that Grant suspected “teh Jooz” of being behind.

In 1967, Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared while swimming near Portsea, Victoria and was presumed drowned.

In 1969, The United States Air Force closed _Project Blue Book, its study of UFOs, declaring that sightings generally resulted from “A mild form of mass hysteria, Individuals who fabricate such reports to perpetrate a hoax or seek publicity, psychopathological persons, and misidentification of various conventional objects.” Fox Mulder was not amused.

In 1969, musician Tiny Tim married Miss Vicki on Johnny Carson’s show. They had a daughter (Tulip Victoria) and divorced after 8 years.

In 1989, the first episode of The Simpsons (not counting the shorts that were shown on The Tracy Ullman Show) was broadcast.

In 1997, the very brave U.K. passed a law banning all kinds of guns (and this was the second such bill passed during Tony “Poodle” Blair’s reign).

Born on This Day

1667 – Jean-Baptiste Bosschaert, Flemish still-life painter (d. 1746)

1770 – (baptism date) Ludwig van Beethoven, German composer and pianist (d. 1827)

1775 – François Marius Granet, French painter (d. 1849)

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1819 – Jean Baptiste van Moer, Belgian painter (d. 1884)

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1853 – Herbert Beerbohm Tree, British actor/theater manager (d. 1917)

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1859 – Paul César Helleu, French artist (d. 1927)

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1859 – Ettore Tito, Italian painter (d. 1941)

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1875 – Henri Émilien Rousseau, French Orientalist painter (not to be confused with the famous Henri Rousseau)  (d. 1933)

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1881 – Jan Sluyters, Dutch painter (d. 1957)

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1883 – Raimu, French actor (d. 1946)

1887 – Josef Lada, Czech illustrator and painter (d. 1957)

1900 – Katina Paxinou, Greek actress (d. 1973)

1929 – William Safire, American columnist (d. 2009)

1930 – Bob Guccione, American magazine publisher (d. 2010)

1935 – Cal Ripken, Sr., American baseball coach (d. 1999)

1936 – Tommy Steele, English singer and actor

1937 – Art Neville, American musician (The Neville Brothers)

1942 – Paul Butterfield, American musician (d. 1987)

1945 – Chris Matthews, American journalist, serial interrupter

1949 – Paul Rodgers, English singer (Free; Bad Company)

1958 – Mike Mills, American musician (R.E.M.)

1974 – Giovanni Ribisi, American actor

1980 – Eli Pariser, American political blogger and activist

1987 – Chelsea Manning, incarcerated American soldier

Died on This Day

1686 – Liéve Pietersz Verschuier, Dutch painter (b. 1630)

1765 – Ercole Graziani II, Italian painter (b. 1688)

1830 – Simón Bolívar, Venezuelan military leader (b. 1783)

1833 – Kaspar Hauser, German foundling (b. 1812)

1957 – Dorothy L. Sayers, English mystery writer and personal favorite of mine (b. 1893)

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1978 – Don Ellis, American jazz band leader (b. 1934)

1992 – Dana Andrews, American actor (b. 1909)

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1998 – Allan D’Arcangelo, American artist (b. 1930)

2004 – Tom Wesselmann, US Pop artist (b. 1931)

2009 – Jennifer Jones, American actress (b. 1919)

2010 – Captain Beefheart, American musician (b. 1941)

2011 – Kim Jong-il, wacky North Korean leader (b. 1941)

Today is

Saturnalia, in honor of Saturn

National Maple Syrup Day

National Underdog Day


Categories: General.

/ 17 Comments

Tuesday Morning Herd Check-in

Tags:

  Make sure you let your peeps

  know where to find you!  


    PLEASE Do Not Recommend the check-in diary!   

        Fierces on the Weather Critter Comment are obligatory welcome.

The morning check-in is an open thread posted to give you a place to visit with the meeses. Feel free to chat about your weather, share a bit of your life, grump (if you must), rave (if you can). The diarist du jour sometimes posts and runs, other times sticks around for a bit, often returns throughout the day and always cares that meeses are happy … or at least contented.

For those new to the Moose, Kysen left a Moose Welcome Mat (Part Deux) so, please, wipe your feet before you walk in the front door start posting.

The important stuff to get you started:

– Comments do not Auto-refresh. Click the refresh/reload on your tab to see new ones. Only click Post once for comments. When a diary’s comment threads grow, the page takes longer to refresh and the comment may not display right away.

– To check for replies to your comments, click the “My Comments” link in the right-hand column (or go to “My Moose”). Comments will be listed and a link to Recent Replies will be shown. (Note: Tending comments builds community)

– Ratings: Fierce means Thumbs Up, Fail means Thumbs Down, Meh means one of three things: I am unFailing you but I can’t Fierce you, I am unFiercing after a mistaken Fierce, … or Meh. Just Meh. (p.s. Ratings don’t bestow mojo, online behaviour does).

– The Recommended list has a prominent place on the Front Page because it reflects the interests of the Moose. When people drive-by, we want them to see what we are talking about: news, politics, science, history, personal stories, culture. The list is based on number of recs and days on the list. Per Kysen: “The best way to control Rec List content is to ONLY rec diaries you WANT to see ON the list.”

– Finally, the posting rules for a new diary: “Be excellent to each other… or else”

(Some other commenting/posting/tending notes for newbies can be found in this past check-in and, of course, consult Meese Mehta for all your questions on meesely decorum.)

You can follow the daily moosetrails here: Motley Moose Recent Comments.

~

Let the greetings begin!

~


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 25 Comments

The Daily F Bomb, Monday 12/16/13

Tags:

Interrogatories

What is your favorite thing to dip in chocolate?

What’s the biggest earthquake you ever felt?

Did anyone ever give you a stupid toy? What was it?

Are you re-gifting anything this year? What is it?

The Twitter Emitter

On This Day

In 1707, the last known eruption of Mount Fuji in Japan occurred.

In 1773, the original Tea Party took place in Boston when members of the colonist’s rights group, the Sons of Liberty, dressed up as Mohawk Indians, and proceeded to toss overboard hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbor in protest against the Tea Act. (I wonder if the fish in the harbor got a buzz from the caffeine?)

In 1811, the area around New Madrid, Missouri was struck by two major earthquake, first in a series of four. An estimated 7.2 to 8.0 magnitude, they did little damage only because the area at the time was sparsely populated.  The same events today would be cataclysmic. Seismologists are now divided as to whether any danger of another such event occurring on that fault remains today. One hopes not, since many homes and buildings in the area are unreinforced masonry.

In 1968, the Second Vatican Council officially revoked the Alhambra Decree (aka the Edict of Expulsion), which forced all Jews living in Spain to leave the country back in 1492. This edict was the brainchild of Ferdinand and Isabella, those same monarch who financed the slaver Christopher Columbus on his journey to ‘Murka. Not surprisingly, they were ordered to leave any money behind.

In 1997, 685 Japanese children allegedly had seizures induced by an episode of Pokemon. In 2011, millions of Americans were seized with fits of mirth when Herman Cain quoted Pokemon.

In 2012, a group of slimy turds gang raped and beat a young woman on a Delhi (India) bus. Even the bus driver joined in. The woman died of her extremely horrendous injuries 13 days later. There was a huge public outcry (while this sort of thing continued to happen and is still happening). The six men were arrested, one died (suicide or murder?) in jail before the trial, the minor was sentenced to 3 years, and the rest were sentenced to death by hanging.

Born on This Day

1485 – Catherine of Aragon, first in a series of six wives of Henry VIII of England (d. 1536) (collect them all!) (painting by Michel Sittow)

Catherine of Aragon by Michel Sittow photo CatherineOfAragon.jpg

1534 – Hans Bol, Flemish mannerist painter (d. 1593)

1597 – Pieter Deneyn (or de Neyn), Dutch landscape painter (d. 1639)

1668 – Constantijn Netscher, Dutch painter (d. 1723)

photo ConstantijnNetscher.jpg

1751 – Franz Schüz, German painter (d. 1781)

1775 – Jane Austen, English writer (d. 1817)

1832 – Jules Worms, French genre painter (d. 1924)

1861 – Antonio de La Gandara, French painter (d. 1917)

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1863 – George Santayana, Spanish philosopher and writer (d. 1952)

1866 – Wassily Kandinsky, Russian-born French abstract painter (d. 1944)

1899 – Sir Noël Coward, English playwright, actor and composer (d. 1973)

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1901 – Margaret Mead, American anthropologist (d. 1978)

1907 – Barbara Kent, Canadian-born American silent film actress (d. 2011)

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1908 – Remedios Varo, Spanish/Mexican painter (d. 1963)

1910 – Egill Jacobsen, Danish painter (d. 1998)

1915 – Turk Murphy, American trombonist (d. 1987)

1916 – Birgitta Valberg, Swedish actress

1928 – Philip K. Dick, American writer (d. 1982)

1936 – Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center

1937 – Edward Ruscha, U.S. Pop artist

1943 – Tony Hicks, English guitarist (The Hollies)

1951 – Robben Ford, American guitarist

1961 – Bill Hicks, American comedian (d. 1994)

1963 – Benjamin Bratt, American actor

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1967 – Miranda Otto, Australian actress

1979 – Flo Rida, American rapper and singer

Died on This Day

1698 – Simone Pignoni, Italian painter (b. 1611)

1853 – Johann Peter Hasenclever, German genre painter (b. 1810)

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1907 – Fritz Beinke, German genre painter (b. 1842)

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1935 – Thelma Todd, American actress (b. 1905)

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1937 – Glyn Warren Philpot, British portrait painter (b. 1884)

1948 – Denham Fouts, American gigolo and socialite (b. 1914)

1956 – Nina Hamnett, Welsh artist (but more often artist’s model) (b. 1890)

1965 – W. Somerset Maugham, English writer (b. 1874)

1980 – Colonel Sanders, American fast food entrepreneur (b. 1890)

1989 – Silvana Mangano, Italian actress (b. 1930)

1989 – Aileen Pringle, American actress (b. 1895)

1997 – Nicolette Larson, American singer (b. 1952)

2001 – Stuart Adamson, English-born Scottish musician (The Skids, Big Country) (b. 1958)

2007 – Dan Fogelberg, American singer/songwriter (b. 1951)

Today is

National Chocolate Covered Anything Day

Stupid Toy Day

Barney and Barbie Backlash Day

National Re-Gifting Day


Categories: General.

/ 7 Comments

Bachelet wins landslide victory in Chile!

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President-elect of Chile, Michelle Bachelet

Felicitaciones a los chilenos

Congratulations to the Chilean people, and to President-elect Bachelet.

Chilean Voters Return a Former President to Power

Ms. Bachelet received about 62 percent of the vote, compared with 38 percent for her opponent, Evelyn Matthei, according to preliminary results from the Chilean electoral service. Ms. Matthei conceded defeat.

Ms. Bachelet, who was widely admired as president from 2006 to 2010, when her policies helped shield Chile from a sharp downturn during the global financial crisis, has put forth an ambitious package of proposals that would, among other things, increase corporate taxes, expand access to higher education and overhaul the 1980 Constitution, which dates to the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

Her platform contrasted sharply with the anti-tax views of Ms. Matthei, a former labor minister who belongs to the most conservative wing of the governing coalition of President Sebastián Piñera, a right-wing billionaire. Ghosts of the Pinochet era hung over this year’s race; unlike Mr. Piñera himself, Ms. Matthei voted in favor of General Pinochet in the 1988 plebiscite that opened the way for democracy to be re-established in Chile.

The coalition that led her to victory is the Nueva Mayoría

The New Majority (Spanish: Nueva Mayoría) is a Chilean electoral coalition created in 2013 and composed mainly of center-left political parties supporting the presidential candidacy of Michelle Bachelet in the 2013 election.

The coalition consists of the four principal parties of the Concert of Parties for Democracy, namely, the Socialist Party of Chile (PS), the Christian Democratic Party (Chile) (PDC), the Party for Democracy (PPD) and the Social Democrat Radical Party (PRSD). In addition, the New Majority also includes the Communist Party of Chile (PCCh), the Citizen Left (IC), the Broad Social Movement (MAS) and centre-left independents

Queue exploding heads of wing-nuttia here in the U.S.

As a long time follower of Chilean politics, I am elated. I lost friends and comrades there during the time of the dictatorship, and am proud to see Bachelet in office again – for she understands clearly the importance of social democracy.

Under the fascism of Pinochet regime the Bachelet family underwent detention and torture, and she lost her father as a result.

Facing growing food shortages, the government of Salvador Allende placed Bachelet’s father in charge of the Food Distribution Office. When General Augusto Pinochet suddenly came to power via the 11 September 1973 coup d’état, Bachelet’s father was detained at the Air War Academy under charges of treason. Following months of daily torture at Santiago’s Public Prison, he suffered a cardiac arrest that resulted in his death on 12 March 1974. In early January 1975, Bachelet and her mother were detained at their apartment by two DINA agents (one of them being Miguel Krassnoff), who blindfolded and drove them to Villa Grimaldi, a notorious secret detention center in Santiago, where they were separated and subjected to interrogation and torture. In 2013 Bachelet revealed she had been interrogated by DINA chief Manuel Contreras there. Some days later, Bachelet was transferred to Cuatro Álamos (“Four Poplars”) detention center, where she was held until the end of January. Thanks to sympathetic connections in the military, Bachelet was forced into exile to Australia, where her older brother, Alberto, had moved in 1969.[7] Of her torture, Bachelet said in 2004 that “it was nothing in comparison to what others suffered”. She was “yelled at using abusive language, shaken,” and both she and her mother where “threatened with the killing of the other.” She was “never tortured with electricity,” but she did see it being done to other prisoners.

Bachelet spent many years in exile, returning to Chile in 1979, where she still faced discrimination for her leftist politics.

She served as President of Chile from March 2006, to March 2010, the first woman ever elected to that office.

In March of 2013, Bachelet stepped down as the head of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, which was created in 2010.


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Motley Monday Check in and Mooselaneous Musings

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  Good morning Motley Meese! Hope your weekend was lovely. Snow again here. 3rd accumulating snow so far this year, more than we had all last winter.


  PLEASE Don’t Recommend the check-in diary! 

        Fierces on the weather jar comment are still welcome.

The check-in is an open thread and general social hour. Come back when time allows through the day – the conversation continues.

It’s traditional but not obligatory to give us a weather check where you are and let us know what’s new, interesting, challenging or even routine in your life lately. Nothing is particularly obligatory here except:

Always remember the Moose Golden (Purple?) Rule:

Be kind to each other… or else.

What could be simpler than that, right?

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