Many are the holidays observed by the Americans, and most of them are in some way strange. Smallpox and slavery sailing over on a boat; green-dyed Hibernians heaving freely in the streets; pounding big nails through a man’s wrists and ankles to affix him to an upright stick—if it is in any way weird or wrong, the Americans, they will wrap a holiday around it.

And so it is natural that on February 2 the Americans everywhere pause in their labors to await word from an oracular rodent who comes up from out of the ground to deliver climate wisdoms.

“Zoomancy,” that is the fancy Science Man word for such: humans scrutinizing the parts, patterns, particulars of non-human beasts, for clues as to past, present, future. This has been going on forever, from before even there were Americans. The Incas, they would rip the lungs out of a llama, then inflate them by blowing into the trachea; priests studied the distended veins of the blatted llama lungs, discerning thereby what the Incas should do in the politics. A Babylonian with a question, s/he would walk up to a sleeping ox, and splash water on its head. The reaction of the ox would then be compared to a Chart outlining seventeen possible meanings: if the beast opened both eyes, that would be a “yes”; if both eyes remained closed, that would be "no answer, try again later"; if the animal rose up and drove a horn through your groin, that would mean “oh shit." Etc. The Lombards, they would bake the head of an ass, and then burn a piece of carbon on it. The names of suspected criminals were recited: if, as a name was pronounced, the judge heard a certain distinctive crackling, sounding from the carbonized ass-head, that meant the person was guilty. It should surprise no one that Confederate General Sheets is currently circulating a memo proposing that this practice be revived in the Americans’ immigration courts.