Things Are Looking Up

Not so very long ago, we were promised that this year would find spring rolling in early. Punxatawney Phil the prognosticator indicated such a thing on his day when he saw his shadow (or didn't...I can never remember which one indicates an early spring). After a somewhat lengthy bout with the winter cold and flu season, we were all a bit more perky as we went about our tasks over the next week or so.

However, the awful truth soon dawned, and we were once again awash in nature's whitening ingredient and buffeted by northern winds: signs that Phil was, in fact, wrong.

Noted here at the time was Phil's somewhat abysmal record at weather prediction...something far less than 50% accuracy. Still, hoping against hope, we waited for the next high pressure system to usher in the bloomin' warmth of springtime. Now, just days away from April, things have turned ugly.

Phil has been charged with deliberately misleading people by a prosecutor somewhere in Ohio, and there was an unease surrounding what might be the end of Phil's sojourn here on earth.

Today, fortunately, Phil was pardoned...though under some suspicious circumstances as his handler took responsibility for the mixup. What? He was in charge of the sun rising? or not?

Anyway, what all of this says to me is that things are getting better here in this country. Sure, the Supreme court is facing a no-win decision concerning same-sex marriage. Certainly, the furor over guns has resulted in a single piece of legislation that actually made it easier to get and keep firearms without significant background checks. Sure, the government continues is partisan grade-school behavior, egged on by talking heads from both extremes.

All of that might be true, but if we can find time in the news to devote to a pardon for a weather-predicting groundhog, how bad can things really be?