Quick! Pass that sucker before anyone notices

It's really all about patronage jobs, according to this talk-show caller:

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/02/smoking-gun-caller-explains-stimulus-as.html

Of course, those of us who actually read the provisions of the bill already figured that out.

Happy birthday, Abe!

090209_01unionleague
Originally uploaded by lb_philly.

Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday is this Thursday. Here, the Union League begins to deck its halls for its birthday celebrations -- a luncheon followed by a march to Independence Hall, where our mayor is scheduled to read the text of the speech Lincoln made in front of that building in 1861.

Several of the PACSCL libraries are celebrating the bicentennial in appropriately literary fashion. The Rosenbach Museum & Library is launching a new site, 21stCenturyAbe,, with associated groups on Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. The major site will go live on Thursday.

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a feature including this slide show of representations of Lincoln in Philadelphia. Four are from the Union League, but that's just a fraction of the Lincoln representations in that building.

The League is throwing open its doors to the blue-jeaned and be-sneakered public on Saturday (kightp and karenkay: read that and marvel!), offering docent-led tours of the building and its collection of artwork. I will be stationed in front of the monumental Thomas Sully portrait of George Washington; Roy will be a "sweeper", herding tour groups like a border collie to make sure they keep up and don't stray. It's a pretty nice way to spend Valentine's Day -- in service to an organization whose motto is "Amor patriae ducit."

Wild Kingdom in the South Philly skies

As I was bringing in my bike from my morning of docent training (first the Flower Show, then the Union League), my eye was caught by a flock of pigeons apparently flying in circles in an agitated manner just north of the schoolyard. So I went back to the door to see what was up.

I watched a raptor -- one that shows a bit reddish on the underside -- run a flock of pigeons ragged. He didn't exactly chase them -- he was soaring with apparent ease while they flapped frantically -- but he kept them on the move for about 15 minutes. They finally got far enough ahead of him to land in a weed tree (my guess is about three blocks north of me) but he sure wore them out.

Pretty amazing... I wish I knew my raptors so I could tell you what it was. Maybe a peregrine? And maybe this explains why I haven't seen any pigeons in the backyard?

EDIT: I posted this locally as well, and a neighbor suggests a red-shouldered hawk, a species apparently in abundance here in metropolitan Philadelphia. Another neighbor volunteered that he recently sat on a bench in Rittenhouse Square, about eight blocks north of here, and was showered with pigeon feathers as a hawk sitting in a tree above him messily devoured his breakfast.