Sunday Morning Post (V.2, #5) - 02/02/2020

It is Groundhog Day, the annual celebration when the loopiest members of our society puts all of their weather forecasting faith in a small rodent in western Pennsylvania.  In past years Punxsutawney Phil would have the spotlight all to himself.  This year he was upstaged by Moscow Mitch.

As we all know by now Moscow Mitch emerged from this shell on Friday and did not see his shadow.  Astute observers believe this means 9 more months of government corruption, unlimited Presidential power for the immediate future, increased expansion of the swamp, and an overall malaise on such concepts as truth and justice indefinitely.  Of course, none of this is disconcerting to Mitch, because he believes his side is still winning.  The joke’s on him: the traditional Republican Party has ceased to exist.

I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would be rooting for conservatives to take back the GOP.  Yet here I am hoping that the PAC founded by George Conway (spouse of White House spokesperson Kellyanne), the recent declarations of New Republic editor William Kristol and Senator Mitt Romney (you remember him) will get the GOP back on their traditional track of fiscal conservatism and overall nastiness to those less fortunate than themselves.

Good luck, gentleman! 

So, onto another topic we have no control over: the weather and our dear rodent weather predictor.  I watched the proceedings from Punxsutawney this morning and I won’t even give out a spoiler alert.  Phil did not see his shadow and “predicted” an early spring.  This year’s prediction was fixed; fixed like a Senate impeachment trial.

Phil was pulled, willingly or not, from his mid-winter slumber, held aloft to the thousands of cheering humans who ventured to Gobbler’s Notch,  placed on top of his hutch where the dozen or so top-hatted members of the Groundhog Council encouraged/cajoled/begged the critter to move towards one of two scrolled proclamations.   Phil didn’t move a muscle, save for his jaw continually chewing on something.  Finally, a human hand from one of the council members pushed one of the scrolls towards Phil and that was deemed good enough for everyone at the scene.

And that’s how Phil predicted an early spring on this palindrome date of 02/02/2020.   

This prediction was really a no-brainer.  The daily temperatures here in Pennsylvania have been overall above average since the winter solstice.   We’ve had maybe—maybe—an inch of snow in that entire time.  There have been very below freezing days the last few months.  It’s not so much signs of an early spring as a sign that winter never bothered to show up at all!

Oh, I forgot to mention that snowflakes were falling on Phil when he made his prediction this morning.   Fix, fix, fix!

Uh? What? There’s a football game today?

(Thank you for reading.   Happy Early Spring everyone!)