By now, you might be hoping that Punxsutawney Phil considers a different career path other than meteorology before next February.  People have been blaming him for the less-than-spring-like temperatures that most of the nation has been having this month after he predicted an early spring.  Did they call him a fraud last year when he said there’d be six more weeks of winter, but then we had summer temperatures in March?  Probably not—the poor critter can’t get a break.  He’s even got an Ohio lawyer on his tail.  Butler County prosecutor Mike Gmoser issued an “indictment” against him today, accusing him of “misrepresentation of spring”.  Gmoser alleges that Phil misled people to believe that spring would make an early arrival and that he acted “with prior calculation and design”.  He even wants Phil’s punishment for his “crime” to be the “death penalty”.  It sounds like Butler County, OH is running low on criminals to prosecute…surely this is all just for fun.  However, I wouldn’t want to jump to conclusions—people, after all, have gone to court for some pretty petty reasons.

One of Phil’s long-time handlers, John Griffiths, stands by his furry friend, confident that he’s innocent of these “charges”.  He added, “Maybe there’s just a dark cloud over Ohio.”  Mr. Griffiths may be onto something.  I’ve driven from one end of Ohio to another many times, and no matter how sunny it may be when I get there, by the time I hit Columbus, the weather seems to take a turn for the worse.  That said, when it comes to predicting the weather, people shouldn’t put too much faith in what a groundhog says about it…but he does have a better track record than Al Gore.

Another animal that may have to look for a new gig is the Easter Bunny.  He’s been banned from at least one elementary school’s Easter—oops—HOLIDAY festivities…in Madison, Alabama of all places!  The principal of Heritage Elementary School, Lydia Davenport, in the interest of “religious diversity” has banned not just the Easter bunny, but also the eggs!  Davenport told WHNT that because kids love the bunny, “We just make sure we don’t say ‘the Easter bunny’ so that we don’t infringe on the rights of others because people relate the Easter bunny to religion.”

HUH???  So what we have here is a holiday egg hunt without the eggs and a generic creature walking around that looks like a rabbit, but he’s not an Easter Bunny?  Since when have a bunny or an egg ever been religious symbols?  If she were really trying to teach religious diversity to children, Davenport and her teachers would welcome the opportunity to expose them to various religious traditions, of which colorful eggs carried by a giant bunny wearing a bow are included.  Ms. Davenport, like so many public educators before her, is just bowing to the god of political correctness.  It’s the same political correctness that brought us “holiday trees” and “holiday sales” at Christmastime.  They’ve already successfully taken the “Independence” out of Independence Day by using the generic Fourth of July name, but maybe we can soon expect to see “holiday fireworks”.  Things no longer make sense.

If you are one to welcome religious diversity and want to celebrate the real story of Easter, be sure to watch the last episode of The Bible this Easter Sunday on the History Channel.  The story of the death and resurrection of Jesus will be shown, as will select stories through Revelation.  It’s well worth the time and has been a ratings winner for the cable network.  As of March 21^st, the series has reached 70 million viewers, which should prove to the politically correct crowd that people are starving for the Word of God.