In Praise of Punxsutawney Phil
It is gray and raining today, with perhaps a visitation of wet snow later in the morning. Weather extremes herald the approach of spring. The tilt of the earth provides incremental warming to us in the northern hemisphere–the slide begins to the awaited growing season. Natures rhythm is beneficent, a solace that we depend upon.
Not so with our affairs. I glimpsed a story on the front page of the NY Times this morning. A televised meeting with Republicans and Democrats yesterday, in the aftermath of the murder of seventeen at Douglas High School, featured the President advocating comprehensive gun control legislation, restricting sales to people younger than 21, and even discussing a assault weapons ban. All of this is contrary to the gun-fetish nurtured by the NRA for many years. Naturally everyone in the room, and the lawmakers seated around the table displayed a stunned silence. The President also proposed seizing guns from those who present a danger, and worrying about due process later.
So much “thrown against the wall,” and as everyone knows, the speaker is almost certain to change his mind about all of this tomorrow.
Punxsutawney Phil is dragged from his burrow every Feb 2 with the expectation of prognostication about the coming of spring. The groundhog, being a mere animal, a sensible expression of Nature, –never opens his mouth. The animal, without ego, has a sense of propriety, of decorum. There is never intemperate blather or empty, random bloviation.
What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time?
–Friedrich Nietzsche
