Good morning! The rain continues pouring, pouring . . . and the weather lady said she thought she saw an Ark outside the station.
It’s a good thing I got those Birthday Tree photos when I did! Not sure how it will appear after all this. Sad that Art has to drive out in this mess. I had two partial containers of hand sanitizer in the car that I gave him for the office. Stores continue to be out of it.
Yesterday I found the cat food I buy in small bags had gone up 2 dollars per bag at Publix. I felt they were taking advantage of people feeling the need to stick up. I would get a big bag, but with only one cat, it goes stale too quickly. I have found some half size cases of water that I can handle more easily by myself.
Good morning. Husband and daughter head out today to watch the two little ones. Exciting times to have all three little ones home and their daddy coming in!
I only had a wee bit of sanitizer left in the bottle in my purse and had mentioned stopping to get another a couple of weeks ago. I guess I should have moved a bit faster. I haven’t been to any stores recently, so can’t speak to any shortages. My husband did run in to buy some dessert for soup supper, since I was supposed to bake and was not able to do so. Just still not feeling good. He only noticed a whole lot of people around the bakery area. 😀
Roscuro, from last night, I agree with you that children working long hours in factories without safety features isn’t a good thing. At the same time, I think we’ve gone too far in the opposite direction, seeing “childhood” as a sweet, sentimental time for school and play and ideally no work, and have extended childhood to graduation from college or even graduate school. That was why I mentioned working on the family farm, as I once saw a TV piece that was tut-tutting about the evils of child labor (in America) and it didn’t manage to show anything egregious. Among the situations it showed were a little girl working as a greeter in her family store (“she should be out playing! she’s losing her childhood!”) and older teenagers working on a farm. Apparently farmworkers are required to be 19, and so they tried to trap workers into admitting they are younger than 19 now or that at least they started working when younger than 19–which, sorry, no, I just can’t get incensed about a 17-year-old doing a man’s work.
We have the idea that work must be 40 hours a week or less, minus six to eight weeks a year for sick time, vacation time, and holidays, between graduation from college and age 65, and often that only the husband ever works for income. If children work at all, it’s usually for free spending money, though sometimes it is to save for a car or for college–in America, a 15-year-old working to help put food on the table would probably result in that “child” being taken away by social services. I once sponsored a boy in South America through his teen years, and the death of at least one parent. When he quit school at 17 because he saw it as his responsibility to work and help support his younger siblings, I received a letter from the agency explaining with a sigh that they’d tried to talk him out of this choice, but couldn’t, so he would no longer be sponsored by the agency. Well, sorry, but “finish high school before you take care of your family” is a first-world mindset, and I think that boy–no, that young man–made an honorable choice. I would have liked to be able to keep sponsoring him, but that choice was taken from me.
We don’t like to see young children working to bring in food for the family–but for much of the world, that is reality. We can and should encourage children to receive kinder working conditions. But our culture in which children barely do any chores (and often get paid for what they do), get a free ride through college, and have no expectation ever to invest in their parents and their families, is a different extreme, and I’d argue it isn’t necessarily a better one. (Obviously many of us worked in high school years, worked our own way through college, etc., but this is held up as the cultural “norm” that parents pay their children’s way through college and “children” work only for a bit of spending money.)
So I think we need to start with the reality that children in most of the world are going to be working, that their families actually need their income, and that even children find value in being needed–but if that work is done outside of family farms and businesses, then companies need to be held accountable for how they treat their young workers. But we can’t hold companies to “first-world” standards–that may be the “ideal” in some instances, but an impossible ideal isn’t helpful. But any steps toward better conditions are a step in the right direction, and I agree they should be pushed.
Is Idaho turning a little blue? Primary might provide clues
By KEITH RIDLER
Idaho’s presidential primary on Tuesday could give an indication of the political leanings of all the newcomers to the state.
The deeply conservative state last year was the fastest-growing in the nation, increasing by 2.1% with nearly 37,000 new residents and approaching 1.8 million. In the last decade, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Idaho has seen a population jump of more than 200,000.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho last year was the fastest-growing state in the nation, with close to 37,000 new residents boosting its population to nearly 1.8 million.
In the past decade, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the deeply conservative state has seen a population jump of more than 200,000. Studies indicate many have come from liberal-leaning California, Oregon and Washington.
But are those new residents bringing blue-state politics? Or are they Republicans fleeing the coast for conservative Idaho?
An answer could emerge Tuesday when Idaho holds its presidential primaries. Democrats are using a primary for the first time after having used a caucus in 2016 to pick Sen. Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton. President Barack Obama handily won the Democratic contest in Idaho over Clinton in 2008. …
________________________
I am out running errands thinking it was suppose to clear up, but no. I am all soggy again. I took bills to the postal drop box at the mall. I had to get the vehicle tag sticker from the office where the supervisor just got arrested for bribery and blackmail.. I asked the clerk if they missed him and she gave a mixed reaction. I got gas at Sam’s and picked up some items and paid my Sam’s charge card bill. Now I am sitting in the car listening to the rain. Sam’s had a limit on water, only 5 cases per person. I forgot to ask about hand sanitizer, but did not see any.
Both Sam’s and my neighborhood Publix have just done a major switch around on everything in the stores. Sam’s is about halfway finished so it takes forever to locate things. I never did find the kitty litter.
The first corona virus case in TN is in the county next to the one my daughter lives in. My grandson had a competition at one of their schools, but all the counties schools have been closed for a few days. I don’t worry about them at all. However, her MIL and her husband live with them. Her MIL does have a very compromised immune system and the step-father-in-law drives a bus for a senior living facility. I would sure hate to see either of them hit.
I think Debra was at Chattanooga so should have not been hit by the tornado.
We’ve had more rain than Seattle. We have a whole bunch of sloshing going on, and a pair of rubber boots could be put to good use. And all the rain makes me perpetually sleepy.
Cheryl, you are comparing apples and oranges in speaking of the employment conditions in North America and those in developing countries. One documentary about U.S. working conditions is irrelevant to what is happening in other parts of the world. In certain neighbourhoods in South America, such as the favelas of Brazil, neighbourhoods where the youth would need sponsorship to be able to go to school, the work that a 17 year old would get to support their family is under the auspices of organized crime. The crime syndicates have no compunction about recruiting youth out of school to start in at the ground level, and no queasiness about using that youth’s sense of family responsibility to pressure them to work for them. These syndicates alternately protect and extort those under their jurisdiction, and law enforcement frequently has no control in these areas. Those charities and outreaches who go into such neighbourhoods must ask the permission of the crime lord of the district. It is a fact of life. Those who administer sponsorships in countries are aware of conditions that the sponsor in a wealthy country has no knowledge of. I made no mention of raising labour standards to first world standards, that is something you have chosen to read into my words. You often say you are not interested in what is happening internationally unless it affects someone you know, but here are a few links to what child labour in developing countries looks like:
In the late 1700’s, the abolitionist, William Wilberforce, galvanized the British public against the use of slavery in the production of sugar, in a bid to end the British slave trade. He did so by describing the appalling conditions faced by slaves on sugar cane plantations. The workers are now paid a scant wage, but the conditions remain the same: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/30/outlook.development.
The average lifespan of the West has been extended not just due to better nourishment, sanitation, and healthcare, but because our children are not poisoned from birth and not stunted by arduous physical labour. The work that causes such permanent physical scarring and long term damage has been exported to countries that do not have regulations or do not enforce regulations, in order that the products we buy should be cheaper. We benefit from this work; our lives are made easier because of their labour; we profit from their poisoning. This is not about bringing conditions up to ‘first world’ standards, this is about doing to others as you would that they should do to you.
We are supposed to get a bit of rain this weekend. We are all praying for rain as it has been over a month since we have had any. Come visit, Janice, it is plenty dry here.
Well, my husband has been officially diagnosed with the flu (type A). No idea if that’s what I have, since I don’t have body aches and that’s what I think of as the primary fly symptom. I’m mostly just lethargic, little appetite, with an occasional cough and a mild sore throat that I’m staving off with zinc and cold meds. As illnesses go, it isn’t a bad one–the kind C.S. Lewis loved, an excuse to sit and read and do nothing else. But periodically I also have burning eyes, and yesterday they were blurry and reading was difficult, so that wasn’t fun.
Oh, the flu, no fun for your husband, sorry to hear that. Hang in there. The cough is usually the last to clear up.
We’re supposed to have rain Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday.
We’ll see.
What a day, juggling two coronavirus stories (but one is w/another reporter who’s taking the lead). I have at least 4 other stories that are getting no attention as a result.
“I don’t have a train of thought. I have seven trains on 4 tracks that narrowly avoid each other when the paths cross and all the conductors are screaming.”
I really feel for those poor people stuck on the cruise ship … How miserable would that be? Cruise industry is going to take a big hit with this virus I think.
Went walking on the streets after my doctor appointment today and then, later, went walking in the woods. I stopped to make a phone call or two. My cell phone has no reception here, but in the trails through the woods I do get reception.
ok, I need some help. I contacted the church office because I wasn’t getting any tv reception. They are on the contract, so I can’t call. Well turns out they decided not to have the simple tv service with gets just ten stations.
We have a Chrome cast. It attaches to the TV, I think through a USB port. The computer/Ipad is then synced to the device and I click on “cast” and it works.
I didn’t set any of this up, however, so I don’t know the details you’re looking for. Is it a smart TV? That would be the first question.
~ A smart TV can access WiFi and run the apps just like a smartphone where your normal TV can’t. A smart TV can access the internet which is the main source of media content like YouTube, Netflix ~
Wandering Views 
Morning! 😊
LikeLiked by 3 people
Good morning NancyJ and every one else out there.
CULOM
LikeLiked by 3 people
Good morning! The rain continues pouring, pouring . . . and the weather lady said she thought she saw an Ark outside the station.
It’s a good thing I got those Birthday Tree photos when I did! Not sure how it will appear after all this. Sad that Art has to drive out in this mess. I had two partial containers of hand sanitizer in the car that I gave him for the office. Stores continue to be out of it.
Yesterday I found the cat food I buy in small bags had gone up 2 dollars per bag at Publix. I felt they were taking advantage of people feeling the need to stick up. I would get a big bag, but with only one cat, it goes stale too quickly. I have found some half size cases of water that I can handle more easily by myself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good morning. Husband and daughter head out today to watch the two little ones. Exciting times to have all three little ones home and their daddy coming in!
LikeLiked by 8 people
Those are the glorious, I-think-my-heart-is going-to-pop-out-of-my-body, moments Navy families live for.
We should be praying, too. It’s so over-the-top emotionally it’s hard to survive! LOL
LikeLiked by 5 people
I only had a wee bit of sanitizer left in the bottle in my purse and had mentioned stopping to get another a couple of weeks ago. I guess I should have moved a bit faster. I haven’t been to any stores recently, so can’t speak to any shortages. My husband did run in to buy some dessert for soup supper, since I was supposed to bake and was not able to do so. Just still not feeling good. He only noticed a whole lot of people around the bakery area. 😀
LikeLiked by 3 people
I need to do some shopping today and tomorrow. Should be interesting.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I do not need to go shopping. Hopefully, forever.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Roscuro, from last night, I agree with you that children working long hours in factories without safety features isn’t a good thing. At the same time, I think we’ve gone too far in the opposite direction, seeing “childhood” as a sweet, sentimental time for school and play and ideally no work, and have extended childhood to graduation from college or even graduate school. That was why I mentioned working on the family farm, as I once saw a TV piece that was tut-tutting about the evils of child labor (in America) and it didn’t manage to show anything egregious. Among the situations it showed were a little girl working as a greeter in her family store (“she should be out playing! she’s losing her childhood!”) and older teenagers working on a farm. Apparently farmworkers are required to be 19, and so they tried to trap workers into admitting they are younger than 19 now or that at least they started working when younger than 19–which, sorry, no, I just can’t get incensed about a 17-year-old doing a man’s work.
We have the idea that work must be 40 hours a week or less, minus six to eight weeks a year for sick time, vacation time, and holidays, between graduation from college and age 65, and often that only the husband ever works for income. If children work at all, it’s usually for free spending money, though sometimes it is to save for a car or for college–in America, a 15-year-old working to help put food on the table would probably result in that “child” being taken away by social services. I once sponsored a boy in South America through his teen years, and the death of at least one parent. When he quit school at 17 because he saw it as his responsibility to work and help support his younger siblings, I received a letter from the agency explaining with a sigh that they’d tried to talk him out of this choice, but couldn’t, so he would no longer be sponsored by the agency. Well, sorry, but “finish high school before you take care of your family” is a first-world mindset, and I think that boy–no, that young man–made an honorable choice. I would have liked to be able to keep sponsoring him, but that choice was taken from me.
We don’t like to see young children working to bring in food for the family–but for much of the world, that is reality. We can and should encourage children to receive kinder working conditions. But our culture in which children barely do any chores (and often get paid for what they do), get a free ride through college, and have no expectation ever to invest in their parents and their families, is a different extreme, and I’d argue it isn’t necessarily a better one. (Obviously many of us worked in high school years, worked our own way through college, etc., but this is held up as the cultural “norm” that parents pay their children’s way through college and “children” work only for a bit of spending money.)
So I think we need to start with the reality that children in most of the world are going to be working, that their families actually need their income, and that even children find value in being needed–but if that work is done outside of family farms and businesses, then companies need to be held accountable for how they treat their young workers. But we can’t hold companies to “first-world” standards–that may be the “ideal” in some instances, but an impossible ideal isn’t helpful. But any steps toward better conditions are a step in the right direction, and I agree they should be pushed.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Idaho:
https://apnews.com/45486c6b90f7cae1b237248fef3f05bf
_____________________________
Is Idaho turning a little blue? Primary might provide clues
By KEITH RIDLER
Idaho’s presidential primary on Tuesday could give an indication of the political leanings of all the newcomers to the state.
The deeply conservative state last year was the fastest-growing in the nation, increasing by 2.1% with nearly 37,000 new residents and approaching 1.8 million. In the last decade, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Idaho has seen a population jump of more than 200,000.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho last year was the fastest-growing state in the nation, with close to 37,000 new residents boosting its population to nearly 1.8 million.
In the past decade, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the deeply conservative state has seen a population jump of more than 200,000. Studies indicate many have come from liberal-leaning California, Oregon and Washington.
But are those new residents bringing blue-state politics? Or are they Republicans fleeing the coast for conservative Idaho?
An answer could emerge Tuesday when Idaho holds its presidential primaries. Democrats are using a primary for the first time after having used a caucus in 2016 to pick Sen. Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton. President Barack Obama handily won the Democratic contest in Idaho over Clinton in 2008. …
________________________
LikeLike
Go Boise.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Go Moscow, while we are at it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Those Californians are going to make Moscow like Moscow.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am out running errands thinking it was suppose to clear up, but no. I am all soggy again. I took bills to the postal drop box at the mall. I had to get the vehicle tag sticker from the office where the supervisor just got arrested for bribery and blackmail.. I asked the clerk if they missed him and she gave a mixed reaction. I got gas at Sam’s and picked up some items and paid my Sam’s charge card bill. Now I am sitting in the car listening to the rain. Sam’s had a limit on water, only 5 cases per person. I forgot to ask about hand sanitizer, but did not see any.
Both Sam’s and my neighborhood Publix have just done a major switch around on everything in the stores. Sam’s is about halfway finished so it takes forever to locate things. I never did find the kitty litter.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Chas, they are well on their way. But it has always been a liberal island.
LikeLike
The first corona virus case in TN is in the county next to the one my daughter lives in. My grandson had a competition at one of their schools, but all the counties schools have been closed for a few days. I don’t worry about them at all. However, her MIL and her husband live with them. Her MIL does have a very compromised immune system and the step-father-in-law drives a bus for a senior living facility. I would sure hate to see either of them hit.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Anybody heard anything from Debra?
I know she wasn’t too far from the tornado area and I hadn’t seen her on the news thread. Just wonderin’……
LikeLiked by 2 people
I hope she is okay. The devastation is unbelievable.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think Debra was at Chattanooga so should have not been hit by the tornado.
We’ve had more rain than Seattle. We have a whole bunch of sloshing going on, and a pair of rubber boots could be put to good use. And all the rain makes me perpetually sleepy.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cheryl, you are comparing apples and oranges in speaking of the employment conditions in North America and those in developing countries. One documentary about U.S. working conditions is irrelevant to what is happening in other parts of the world. In certain neighbourhoods in South America, such as the favelas of Brazil, neighbourhoods where the youth would need sponsorship to be able to go to school, the work that a 17 year old would get to support their family is under the auspices of organized crime. The crime syndicates have no compunction about recruiting youth out of school to start in at the ground level, and no queasiness about using that youth’s sense of family responsibility to pressure them to work for them. These syndicates alternately protect and extort those under their jurisdiction, and law enforcement frequently has no control in these areas. Those charities and outreaches who go into such neighbourhoods must ask the permission of the crime lord of the district. It is a fact of life. Those who administer sponsorships in countries are aware of conditions that the sponsor in a wealthy country has no knowledge of. I made no mention of raising labour standards to first world standards, that is something you have chosen to read into my words. You often say you are not interested in what is happening internationally unless it affects someone you know, but here are a few links to what child labour in developing countries looks like:
Cobalt, a metal used in the manufacture of electronics mining conditions: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/dec/16/apple-and-google-named-in-us-lawsuit-over-congolese-child-cobalt-mining-deaths. Cobalt is toxic to the human body, so even if they survive the mechanical dangers, they will suffer permanent physical damage.
Once electronics are worn out, they either can be put into landfill, or be taken apart and the components recycled. But, without proper equipment, the dismantling of the electronic produces deadly byproducts: https://theconversation.com/electronic-waste-is-recycled-in-appalling-conditions-in-india-110363.
In the late 1700’s, the abolitionist, William Wilberforce, galvanized the British public against the use of slavery in the production of sugar, in a bid to end the British slave trade. He did so by describing the appalling conditions faced by slaves on sugar cane plantations. The workers are now paid a scant wage, but the conditions remain the same: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/30/outlook.development.
The average lifespan of the West has been extended not just due to better nourishment, sanitation, and healthcare, but because our children are not poisoned from birth and not stunted by arduous physical labour. The work that causes such permanent physical scarring and long term damage has been exported to countries that do not have regulations or do not enforce regulations, in order that the products we buy should be cheaper. We benefit from this work; our lives are made easier because of their labour; we profit from their poisoning. This is not about bringing conditions up to ‘first world’ standards, this is about doing to others as you would that they should do to you.
LikeLike
We are supposed to get a bit of rain this weekend. We are all praying for rain as it has been over a month since we have had any. Come visit, Janice, it is plenty dry here.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well, my husband has been officially diagnosed with the flu (type A). No idea if that’s what I have, since I don’t have body aches and that’s what I think of as the primary fly symptom. I’m mostly just lethargic, little appetite, with an occasional cough and a mild sore throat that I’m staving off with zinc and cold meds. As illnesses go, it isn’t a bad one–the kind C.S. Lewis loved, an excuse to sit and read and do nothing else. But periodically I also have burning eyes, and yesterday they were blurry and reading was difficult, so that wasn’t fun.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Oh, the flu, no fun for your husband, sorry to hear that. Hang in there. The cough is usually the last to clear up.
We’re supposed to have rain Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday.
We’ll see.
What a day, juggling two coronavirus stories (but one is w/another reporter who’s taking the lead). I have at least 4 other stories that are getting no attention as a result.
We really can’t go on like this.
😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
My neighbor has been down with a very bad cold virus (or something, but no fever, she says).
LikeLike
Half my time is spent texting and making calls between parties to coordinate photo times. Argh.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So, if the facility goes on lockdown, to protect the residents, should daughter be there? If so, should her three month old?
LikeLike
Got new protocols from the state for the corona virus. Mask, N-95, notify, and terminal after ward.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Kinda cool to see granddaughter sitting on fence just watching a small herd of bucks as they perused the neighbors yard.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Posted by a friend on FB:
“I don’t have a train of thought. I have seven trains on 4 tracks that narrowly avoid each other when the paths cross and all the conductors are screaming.”
My day at work.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I really feel for those poor people stuck on the cruise ship … How miserable would that be? Cruise industry is going to take a big hit with this virus I think.
LikeLike
Went walking on the streets after my doctor appointment today and then, later, went walking in the woods. I stopped to make a phone call or two. My cell phone has no reception here, but in the trails through the woods I do get reception.
LikeLike
ok, I need some help. I contacted the church office because I wasn’t getting any tv reception. They are on the contract, so I can’t call. Well turns out they decided not to have the simple tv service with gets just ten stations.
So how do you do live streaming????
LikeLike
We have a Chrome cast. It attaches to the TV, I think through a USB port. The computer/Ipad is then synced to the device and I click on “cast” and it works.
I didn’t set any of this up, however, so I don’t know the details you’re looking for. Is it a smart TV? That would be the first question.
LikeLike
so… what is a smart tv?
LikeLike
~ A smart TV can access WiFi and run the apps just like a smartphone where your normal TV can’t. A smart TV can access the internet which is the main source of media content like YouTube, Netflix ~
LikeLike
hmmmm…. I think that is what this is.
LikeLike
Aren’t most (if not all) TVs now “smart”?
LikeLike