Unknown Bird

Maybe overdid it a little today. Took a long cut -- Parkers Mill to Ft Springs-Pinkard to Old Versailles to Rosalie to Bosworth to Elkchester to Redd instead of Van Meeter to Elkchester to Redd -- to Old Frankfort. Then Paynes Depot to Waizenberger Mill through Midway to Spring Hill Station. Then KY 1685 back to Old Frankfort to Pisgah Pike to Military. 41.9 miles, 3h29m, 1 stop, max speed 33 mph. I thought about taking 1685 across US 60 north of Versailles, then coming back through Versailles from the north-west. Glad I didn't, pooped enough as is.

Saw what I think was a new bird I think west of Midway. It was a small hawk (smaller than 2 crows sitting near it on a fence), stripes across its tail, and a light head. I think this might have been a sharp-shinned hawk, which looks like a cooper's hawk but is smaller.

Bill O'Reilly was interviewed in parade magazine today. Talked about Lincoln, and, if he were around today, he'd be a Republican: "I don't think he wanted a social welfare system. I think he wanted people to be self-reliant ..."

Quel bull. I will reproduce again this Lincoln quote that I like a lot. It sounds to me like Lincoln believed in "social justice". Try to get a modern republican to say those words without their head exploding.

It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, “You toil and work and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.” No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.

–Abraham Lincoln, Seventh and Last Joint Debate with Steven Douglas, held at Alton, Illinois, Oct. 15, 1858.

I became aware of this quote because it is in Copland's "Lincoln Portrait", at around the 10:50 point. I have the Philadelphia Orchestra version with Adlai Stevenson narrating. Here it is with what sounds like James Earl Jones narrating. The quote is at around 10:05.