Eostre on April 1st.

Eostre is an ancient goddess of spring, and because of some weird dating mechanism based on a lunar calendar, this year the religious holiday superimposed upon this honorable pagan celebration occurs on April 1st, which is often called April Fools Day, a widely disliked display of foolishness.  The religious holiday has no significance for this writer, and it wasn't something that was part of mix of messages, and it was more like Mother Nature was playing an April 1st joke on all of us.  TPP always looks forward to spring, and usually by this time 30 to 40 plants in our gardens have commenced blooming (or even come and gone).  This year, 2018, only 17 plants have started flowering, and three of these events were recorded yesterday on 31 March.  And today will be a sort of joke about spring because it is cold and tonight the temperature may be cold enough to be damaging  to even quite hardy plants.  This morning in the local newspaper an article about houseplants quoted a  horticulturalist as saying "the mental health benefits of plants are obvious."  TPP would concur, growing plants is highly therapeutic, and TPP can think of no person he deeply dislikes who also grows plants, and some of the worst would have to be coached "green side up" if they were laying sod.  So today's weather, and its impact on TPP's plants is rather depressing.  So come on Eostre, some fancy bourbon has been sacrificed (spilt) in your honor, and yet we get more cold, and even snow is possible.  OK TPP admits that the upper Midwest's weather may be beyond the abilities of an ancient goddess (but it was well-aged bourbon).  At any rate let's get this last gasp of winter over with.   TPP will attempt to cheer himself and others around him by cooking something semitropical and warming.  Maybe even indulging in a rum-based cocktail.

No April fools around here

The governor of Hoosierhome, the state that keeps Lincolnland from bumping into Ohio, really tried to put a prank over on us in this morning's news by saying that the Religious Freedom Act he recently signed into law wasn't about discrimination.  Wonder if he fooled anyone? As an April 1st prank it was too obvious. After all the language of this law was carefully changed from versions passed in other states to clearly allow individuals to engage in discrimination by simply saying their sincerely held religious beliefs to be a bigot were being infringed upon. And as governor he surely read and understood the language in the bill prior to signing it surrounded by some of Hoosierhome's up standing religious freedom advocates who he didn't want to identify to the press.  No sir, around here everyone knows that religious freedom is a euphemism for bigotry Hoosier style (and AK style too). So try harder next time because there are no fools around here, well, actually there are, just not as many as live next door, maybe.

Paul Ryan. Budget proposal. April 1st?

Oh, those funsters of the GnOPe!  All those cuts to social welfare programs and federal pensions; no one could seriously propose such a thing, so it's an April Fools joke!  Why if it's not, you'd get the idea that the GnOPe doesn't think people need any public assistance ever.  And certainly let's do away with Pell grants so that people who can't afford college will have one less way to better their position.  Why you'd think Ryan Paul (brother/cousin of Rand?) doesn't understand the cost-benefit analysis in terms of what helps the economy. Hint: tax cuts don't return enough to cover their costs, while unemployment benefits and food stamps generate 130% to 170% returns on money spent. Guess that's too many facts that would get in the way of his ideology.