phil must go free

Just when everything in the world seems to have gone topsy-turvy--for example the snow in late March and the unpredictability of the NCAA basketball tourney—weirdness has achieved a new hallmark.  It appears that prosecutors in Butler Co, Ohio, have indicted Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog who predicts the duration of winter and the arrival of spring every year.

The prosecutors (who apparently have nothing better to do) charged the groundhog with a felony against the peace and dignity of the state of Ohio.  The prosecutors want the death penalty.  Their problem is that Phil predicted an early spring and he was not correct.

I don’t know how well the weather prognosticators in Ohio do, but I can tell you that the meteorologists here are not always accurate.  They have weather maps and all sorts of data to use to make their guesses.  Poor Phil just gets dragged out every February second and shown the light of day.  Whether or not he sees his shadow is not of his own doing.

Now, the way I see it Phil is just another ninety-eight per center like the rest of us, being pushed and pulled by the powers that be and he doesn’t really have any control over his own fate, again just like the rest of us.  Phil doesn’t have any more influence on the weather than the prosecutors in Ohio have in enforcing the law equitably.

“Oh, Jimbo,” you are likely asking, “What can we do?”

Well, like I said, we are all ninety-eight per centers and there is not much we can do that will actually have an affect on anything, so I am suggesting a symbolic protest and here is what I want all of you to do.

Go online and find a small map of the United States.  Print it out on your computer.  Take a pair of scissors and poke one blade of the scissors through Indiana in the map you just printed.  Then start cutting toward the south through Kentucky and then east through West Virginia and north through Pennsylvania and continue across Lake Erie and west into the lower part of Michigan and then back south into Indiana.  You should come to the place where you originally started cutting, at which point Ohio should fall out of the map.  You should then have a somewhat circular piece of paper about an inch in diameter that will include the entirety of the state of Ohio.  Use the bulk of the rest of the sheet of paper to make notes, grocery lists, doodle, etc.

Take your inch of Ohio with you to the restroom next time you feel the need to go and drop the Ohio-containing wafer of paper into the toilet before you do your business.  At the conclusion of your call of nature, flush the toilet and speak clearly into the bowl the following line.

“That was for Phil, Ohio.  I did my business and you should mind your own.  Now leave our symbolic groundhog to his business.”

I doubt if your protest will do much to change the minds of the Ohio prosecutors, but at least you will feel you have stood up for the dignity of Punxsutawney Phil in a good, healthy way.