Everybody else is doing it...

Yeah, OK. 98% of my friends in Boston who blog posted on the blizzard. I suppose I will too. But that does NOT make me a lemming. I'm doing it for those of you who don't read those other people's blogs. Consider it community service.

Well, what can I tell you that the news and the weather channel and everyone else hasn't told you? It snowed. This was my first blizzard, so I was really excited. Most of the hurricanes I lived through in Florida were mild, not much more than big thunderstorms when they finally passed over me. I'm told this "blizzard" is also mild...which I guess I can buy. The tricky thing about blizzards is not the snow, per se, but the wind. For example, from my apartment windows it looked like there was hardly any snow at all for a number of hours. However, if you were to go look out the building windows in the hallway, you'd see cars completely covered in snow. Some were lucky, some were not. Very, very random. Again for example, my car was completely free of snow at the end of the blizzarding. However, two cars down from me, the cars were completely buried. Bizarre. This is apparently called a "snow drift." In the end, Kate and I rented 5 movies, bought a few tasty treats (I made york peppermint patty brownies), and hunkered down for the night. A good time was had by all. The next day, when we didn't have cable, my friend Brianna sent her very kind roommate Steve over to pick us up (our parking lot had not yet been plowed) and we watched football at Bri's house. Really, if it hadn't snowed, this weekend wouldn't have been too different from other weekends Kate and I have had. We only noticed a difference when we lost hot water (since restored) and cable, and when we walked outside to meet Steve and turned into instant ice sculptures.

So, yeah. Not bad. My final analysis is this: if you're going to go through a blizzard, spend it with friends and pray you have power and it can be a really good time.

One of the movies Kate and I watched while huddled away in our apartment was "Bowling for Columbine." I am familiar with Michael Moore in that I know who he is and what he does, but I've never read any of his books or seen his movies. Whether or not you agree with his politics, I must say that he is a powerful storyteller. Now, I've admitted before to being a fairly liberal gal, so a lot of what he had to say rang true to me. But that's sort of like going to a pep rally - it gets you to think a little about a subject, but it doesn't present the opposing side. What I'd really love is if there was a super conservative documentarian making movies on the same subjects that Michael Moore does, so I could see more than one side of the argument. I'd feel better about agreeing with Michael Moore if I knew what the counter argument was (and his presentations of Charleton Heston and other conservatives don't count, because he could arguably be editing their comments).

In this movie, he brings up an interesting question (my apologies to those of you who have already seen the movie, I'm very slowly catching up on movies I've wanted to see for a long time, and no I haven't seen "Farenheit 911" yet, that's next): Why are there so many gun-related deaths in the United States? The stats presented in the movie were sick - I'm not sure what the year was, but get these stats of number of gun-related deaths in different countries for one year: Japan - 39, Australia - 65, UK - 68, Canada - 165, France - 255, Germany - 381, United States: 11,127. Seriously? That's crazy. I haven't had time to investigate criticism of these statistics, but I'm assuming that there's some sort of argument about things averaging out when you factor in population size. But it just doesn't seem right. Hang on.

The population size of Japan is roughly125,000,000. The population size of the U.S. is roughly 295,000,000. OK. So we're somewhere between 2 and 3 times the size of Japan, population-wise. Our gun deaths are 28 times Japan's. WHY?

Moore presents several possibilities, the one I latched onto was the media. This actually really interests me, because he posits that the U.S. media is largely negative information which somehow may lead to more violence. I'd love to hear from others (Pat, if you still read this, or pass it on to Andy) who have lived in other countries...what's the media like there? Is it really that different? I'm also torn on this presentation because, well...there's lots of stuff. I feel like better parenting could solve this problem even if the media remains negative (parents control their children's viewing habits, and teach them non-violence), for one.

Anyway, I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this. Those who know more about the stats, more about Michael Moore, those who have seen the movie, those who haven't. Those who agree, those who disagree. You're all welcome, and in fact encouraged. This is something I'd like to explore further, but I'm lazy...and in the end I feel the best way to really sort out one's thoughts on issues is to bounce them off of other people, hear what they have to say, and re-form your own thoughts.

That's all for now. This has gotten lengthy, and besides, I have to get off the computer at the resource center at MGH now because my allotted time is up. But think about it, and let me know. And in the meantime, hug somebody you love, and listen to someone you think gets ignored most of the time. You might be surprised at the difference you can make by just doing that.