The Skies

This AM was pretty cool out there and not just due to the mid-30s temperatures.  Venus and Jupiter were hovering near each other, pretty brightly.  And, almost like dotting an i, the Angry Red Planet, Mars, was just above Jupiter.  It was pretty cool to see so early in the AM.

We've had a fox or foxes around here the past few months.  After 25 years or more of seeing nary a one, now I've had half a dozen sightings.  I don't know if it's one or a family or where the den is.  One ran between our houses, right in the open, in midafternoon about a month or so ago.  Another (or the same one?), casually trotted down the adjacent street, turning right on our street, away from our house.  I saw one leisurely sunning him/herself in a culvert a couple of blocks away.  And, last Sunday, as Karen and I were out to bike, a fox was chowing down on a deer carcass on the main drag, two-tenths of a mile from the house.  Yes, it was, as Karen noted, "Gross!"  But the fox didn't run away as we passed, none too closely, though.

I'm just wondering why Congressional conservatives are referred to as "radicals," as in "one radical group of Republicans is being devoured by a more extreme radical group of Republicans." (My emphasis.)  I read that somewhere recently, maybe the NY Review of Books?  I'm not sure.  I find it odd that Democrats are never referred to as "radicals" or "extremists," not even Bernie Sanders.  And this despite the Democrat calls for free college education, free day care, free medicine, free everything.  (I know and I hope everyone knows that they really aren't "free.")

I'm reading a book of essays, Exploring Lincoln, that is reinforcing my views of him.  I find it reassuring, after all these years of being in a distinct minority in several views of Lincoln, to discover others reassessing.  Mostly, the relevant essays focus on Lincoln and his alleged (but not true) racism, his stance on abolition, and, esp, his brilliance as a politician.  I've been teaching these things for years in my classes, often running afoul of what students were taught in high school or even the same college(s) and even in some of the textbooks.  Perhaps I'll expand on that over the weekend.

In class last night, I brought up this great quotation from Joseph Ellis (His Excellency) about George Washington and Washington's greatness.  "Ben Franklin was wiser than Washington; Alexander Hamilton was more brilliant; John Adams was better read; Thomas Jefferson was more intellectually sophisticated; James Madison was more politically astute.  Yet, each and all of these prominent figures [Hey, they are all superstars and belong in the American Pantheon!] acknowledged that Washington was their unquestioned superior...the Foundingest Father of them all."  Yep......