{"id":2779,"date":"2022-02-02T15:32:04","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T23:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/?p=2779"},"modified":"2022-02-02T15:32:04","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T23:32:04","slug":"groundhog-omen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/?p=2779","title":{"rendered":"Groundhog Omen?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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As if things aren’t bad enough, a minor celebrity from the Rodent Prognosticator World has met an untimely death. Yes, Milltown Mel of New Jersey, in what is surely a breach of contract, kicked the bucket right before getting hauled out to perform today’s duties. You can read about it here<\/a>. I was first alerted to this tragedy through a link on yesterday’s Crooked Media<\/a>‘s “What a Day<\/a>” newsletter. Besides shedding a tear, I had to wonder: Is Crooked paying their intrepid researchers enough? <\/em>How many others so diligently comb through humble, random Patch stories to bring you the latest news?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diligent Shrinkrapped readers may recall that I have a thing for Groundhog Day<\/a>, even going so far as proposing<\/a> it become our national holiday. Milltown Mel’s demise only increases my certainty that the day captures something quintessentially American. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the craziness: <\/em>It makes zero sense that we rely on disturbing hibernating rodents to forecast the duration of winter when there are a zillion microclimates in the U.S. Particularly when we can never remember whether the shadow means longer or shorter. Reminiscent of the insanity of our different election laws in a zillion places, Groundhog Day is obviously another example of federalism run amok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the dangerous celebration of magical thinking:<\/em> Sure, there’s Santa and all, but the risk of biting is low. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like how counting on something turns into something you can’t really count on:<\/em> Norms; the better angels of our nature; American Exceptionalism; Milltown Mel. Par for the course for another new year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like how Groundhog Day (especially the movie<\/em>) channels the Zeitgeist:<\/em> The last two-plus years have trapped us in an endless, repetitive cycle of Covid and mind-boggling politics. Again, why should 2022 be any different?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milltown Mel has escaped that cycle. Good for you, Mel. RIP. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As if things aren’t bad enough, a minor celebrity from the Rodent Prognosticator World has met an untimely death. Yes, Milltown Mel of New Jersey, in what is surely a breach of contract, kicked the bucket right before getting hauled … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":false,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[310,781],"class_list":["post-2779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-groundhog-day","tag-milltown-mel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2F8Ch-IP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2779"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2784,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions\/2784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}