Winter is a good time to be outside. If you are in the woods, you can really see woods! If you are at the Battlefield, you can really see some gorgeous sunsets. Some are great, some not so much but it gets me out of the house and moving about.
I am hanging out in a different place now, at least every other day. I am hanging out at the Vint Hill Dog Park.
What a great place it is. It is privately owned and supported for the public. It beats PWC’s dog parks all to hell. There aren’t any public ones on this end of the county. I like it better than Fairfax County dog parks also. It is a huge park and there are always lots of dogs there. They provide water, bowls, toys, blast horns (in the event of dog fights), pet waste bags, and of course, the big and the little pen.
I have truly gone to the dogs, at least a couple days a week. If you want to give your dog a little exercise and socialization, try a dog park!
Meanwhile, let’s hear it for sunsets!
Happy New Year, Moon.
This is the time of year when the weather gets, well, odd. Days get longer, but nights get colder, wind gets sharper, and the backyard “seasonal stream” returns. I also love the “Hound of the Baskervilles” fog we get in the evenings under the right conditions, which evokes more Celtic landscapes.
Ditto on your comments re: sunsets, too.
Good description of January weather! I especially like the Celtic landscapes.
Maybe you have the heart of a Druid!
@MoonHowler
Funny, I don’t look Druish 😉
Truth be told, the Scottish and Irish run deep.
With me too as well as English, on one side at least. I have some French, Swiss also but from my father’s side and I don’t know much about it.
I think I have a druid heart probably. Who knows what the ancients did.
@MoonHowler
As a Scotsman I must say a pox on the English side of you, Damn that Edward Longshanks. The Surrender Monkey side must be a recessive gene and I never viewed you as having an air of Swiss neutrality on issues.
Very recessive. We thought those people were old Germans before checking their immigration records.
The Virginia side is all Scots and English. The other nationalities come from my father.
I like to think that it helps with the winnowing out part of being a southerner.
I have been fortunate to rent a home on Alleghany that faces a swath of PWC/undeveloped flood zone land. The back deck faces west and I enjoy marking the sunsets as they move along the horizon as the seasons progress. So many beautiful sunsets!
You are lucky to not be blocked by trees, although this time of year trees are neat. In summer, not so much!
Virginia’s ‘Minister of Private Parts’ deserves scorn for his dreadful transgender bathroom bill
By Petula Dvorak Columnist January 5
Apparently, Virginia has its very own “Minister of Private Parts.”
His name is Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), and the residents of his district keep electing him to keep talking about other people’s nether regions.
I’m not exaggerating here.
Marshall’s legislative record reads like a conversation between my 10-year-old son and his friends. It’s all potty this and p—y that. (Okay, my 10-year-old doesn’t say p—y, but the president-elect does.)
It’s hard to believe that Marshall is a 72-year-old man. He has devoted much of his public life to people’s sexual and reproductive behavior, questioning the intelligence of women who use long-term contraception, arguing that some incest is voluntary, pushing for women to be legally required to have transvaginal ultrasounds before abortions, worrying that U.S. troops would catch sexually transmitted diseases if they had to serve alongside gay colleagues, calling porn a public health hazard.
[Virginia lawmakers’ womb obsession is hard to fathom]
And this is from a guy who identifies with the party of small government. So much for personal freedom.
Just in time for the new year and a new session of the General Assembly, Marshall has crawled even deeper into the sewer and unleashed his version of a transgender bathroom bill. It will limit people, kids in school especially, to using the bathrooms of their gender at birth. Because he can’t stop worrying about kids going potty, I guess.
Marshall explained that his bill is based on his fear that men and boys will pretend to be transgender to infiltrate bathrooms and locker rooms used by women and girls.
“Some guys will use anything to make a move on some teenage girls or women,” he said. “Mere separation of the sexes should not be considered discrimination.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginias-minister-of-private-parts-deserves-scorn-for-his-dreadful-transgender-bathroom-bill/2017/01/05/8515af42-d362-11e6-a783-cd3fa950f2fd_story.html?utm_term=.92a5f4bd8cf6
@Starryflights
Marshal has a Bill looking for a problem. Has there been any document cases or statistics to support his Bill?
Most of his bills are looking for problems.
I love the luv canals video of him taken about 10 years ago.
Excellent.
Bob keeps getting reelected despite his extreme agenda because he comes out and “helps” the common man. At election time, people remember that Marshall didn’t want the trial county parkway and helped residents oppose the power lines going to Amazon, through their own property.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/politics/betsy-devos-education-senate-hearing.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&referer=http://m.facebook.com
Ms. Devos knows nothing about public education. But she has become very wealthy with public dollars. Her brother is Erik Prince of Blackwater.
Protesters mob provocative Va. governor candidate as he defends Confederate statue
Republican gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart came to this town to defend its statue of Robert E. Lee in a downtown park, only to be swarmed by dozens of protesters who shouted him down everywhere he went.
It was the harshest reception yet for the provocative chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, who is campaigning for the GOP nomination for governor as Virginia’s Donald Trump, with a hard-line stance against illegal immigration.
A divided Charlottesville City Council’s decision last week to remove the statue of the Confederate general gave Stewart an opening to appeal to his base. On social media, he urged people to “defend Virginia’s heritage,” likening those who wanted to remove the statue to tyrants and Nazis.
But when he tried to take his message to this college town Saturday morning, protesters shouting “White supremacy has got to go!” drowned out his interviews and conversations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/protesters-mob-provocative-va-governor-candidate-defending-confederate-statue/2017/02/11/400facda-efdd-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5_story.html?hpid=hp_local-news_vastewart-200pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.0b42b3115e16
Girls is back. (Lena Dunham) Once again, I am mortified for the actors and the characters.
I hope Steve isn’t cringing too badly. I just want the show to be over. It is like a freight train. I have to watch to be grossed out.
The women got up in Brat’s grill, and then some
Some constituents of Congressman Dave Brat, R-Va., held signs as he answered questions during a town hall meeting in Blackstone, Va., Tuesday. (Steve Helber/AP)
By Jenna Portnoy February 21 at 9:46 PM
BLACKSTONE, Va. — Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), who drew national notice after complaining that women were “in my grill” because he was reluctant to hold a town hall meeting, finally relented and came face to face with those women — and plenty others — at a raucous public event Tuesday night.
[“The women are in my grill no matter where I go,” Brat says ]
Brat held the meeting in a tiny town in Nottoway County, a rural community carried by Trump in November. It’s about an hour south of the most populous part of Brat’s district, but that didn’t stop a stream of people from driving into town and filling up the town hall, with scores shut out on the sidewalk.
For a little more than an hour, Brat was heckled nonstop as he fielded questions on health care, President Trump’s policies and the border wall.
His answers seemed to antagonize most in the crowd of 150, who yelled back at him, at points drowning him out and prompting a few of his supporters to leave early in disgust.
Congressman Dave Brat, R-Va., speaks to constituents at the town hall. (Steve Helber/AP)
Some of the loudest jeers came over Republicans’ promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act as people held up red cards signaling their discontent.
“The problem is Obamacare has just collapsed,” said Brat, who stood at a podium in the Blackstone Herb Cottage. The crowd began shouting: “No, it has not!”
The town hall came after constituents, many of them organizing online, made daily calls and sent repeated emails to Brat’s office to ask for a public meeting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/the-women-got-up-in-brats-grill-and-then-some/2017/02/21/9e8db1fa-f855-11e6-be05-1a3817ac21a5_story.html?hpid=hp_local-news_vabrat-10pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.c6b61d198540
Bratt gets a faceful
Secret Service is asking for $60Million more to protect the First Family. Meanwhile, Secret Service agents are nanny’ing the grandchildren around Manhattan – without he parents (Don Jr) present. So – we the tax payer – are paying for Donny’s Nanny. Nice. So – maybe that is why Big Bird is cut – so that the grand kids can have their own Big Bird watching.
That is inexcusable. Why is the secret service having anything to do with grandchildren? Were Ike’s grandchildren squired around by the secret service? I seriously doubt it.