No doubt grumpy about being hauled from his burrow, Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow

Work

Fig. 1. Yeah, this is me. The sign says, “If you’re whining about a labor shortage, STOP ignoring my job applications!” And the QR-code leads here. Photograph by author, January 16, 2023.

There is a new blog post entitled, “Sympathy for those poor, oppressed upper classes.”

I don’t know about Punxsutawney Phil, who apparently did see his shadow,^[1] but my groundhog neighbor is highly unlikely to emerge from his burrow to see his shadow, though he most certainly would if he did, since the sun is shining quite brightly. As I write this, however, it’s all of twenty degrees (Fahrenheit) out, barely enough to open the automatic car washes I rely on, sometimes multiple times per day as I drive through heavily laid road salt. I’d hide in my burrow too.

But oh no, another day, another round of abuse from Uber: abusive pay, abusive treatment, abusive in every aspect of the relationship. Because, apparently, I’m useless for anything else.

Grace Dean, “A tech CEO apologized for quoting Martin Luther King Jr. when announcing layoffs, calling it ‘inappropriate and insensitive,’” Business Insider, February 1, 2023, https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-layoffs-pagerduty-ceo-apologizes-martin-luther-king-jr-quote-2023-2

Illiberalism

Fig. 1. Photograph by Joachim F. Thurn, August 1991, Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F089030-0003, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE.

Jeremy Sharon, “AG: Netanyahu barred from dealing with judicial overhaul due to corruption trial,” Times of Israel, February 2, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/ag-netanyahu-barred-from-dealing-with-judicial-overhaul-due-to-corruption-trial/

1. ^[1]Rob Tornoe, “Groundhog Day 2023: Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow,” Philadelphia Inquirer, February 2, 2023, https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania/groundhog-day-results-2023-shadow-winter-spring-20230202.html↩