"Blanketing blizzard brightens the mood"
Right about now, everyone in Massachusetts is probably sick of the snow. With the record-breaking deluge Mother Nature dumped on our heads Monday and Tuesday, it is no surprise. Unlike others, I had a fun time on Tuesday morning romping around in knee-high piles of snow, attempting to unbury my car. And let's face it, there is nothing we can do about the weather. We live in New England - not Arizona - deal with it already.

But at the same time, the "Blizzard of 2003" has been a nice distraction for an otherwise dismal couple of weeks, marred by marches to war, ignored requests for peace, some hilarious and frightening media happenings, and bumbling Democrats trying to figure out how to uncrown "King George" W.

Last week was a pretty depressing week. The constant marching towards war with Iraq is getting just a bit scary especially when the Pentagon starts contemplating "limited tactical nuclear war" against Saddam Hussein. Now don't get me wrong, I know Hussein is a bad guy. But he hasn't threatened the United States and there is no direct link to his involvement with the tragic attacks of Sept. 11. In fact, if you look at Osama bin Laden's own words, you will see that Hussein is not an ally. That is, if you can find his words.

Interestingly, the mainstream press censored some recent comments bin Laden made attacking Hussein as a "socialist," and calling on Iraqis to rise up against him.

Huh? You didn't see that either? Yeah, I was too busy watching all war, all the time over at FoxNews and missed MSNBC - that bastion of media liberalism owned by Microsoft and General Electric - publishing bin Laden's comments on their Web site.

But according to author Williams Rivers Pitt [http://truthout.org/docs_02/021303A.htm], 20 minutes after posting the information to their site, the sentence about bin Laden calling on Iraqis to overthrow Hussein was deleted by the network. A bit odd, wouldn't you say? Must have been too much truth for the Total Information Awareness officials.

Of course, "Saturday Night Live" didn't miss it. They ran a whole skit with Jimmy Fallon acting as bin Laden and Horatio Sanz hilariously portraying Hussein asking bin Laden to lay off. I was LMAO, as they say on the Web.

Changing the subject slightly, did anyone check out the war rallies over the weekend? Millions here, hundreds of thousands over there. Gee, I didn't know there were so many "pinko commies" in Berlin, London, Madrid, Rome, New York City, or San Francisco, for that matter. All those socialists in the United States and somehow we can't get health care for the poor covered. It all makes you wonder. Especially when that nutty dictator from North Korea has been threatening Los Angeles with nuclear annihilation for weeks and our president is obsessed with Hussein? Hey, Kim Jong Il, be thankful your country doesn't have any oil. We would be planning to spend hundreds of billions blowing you to smithereens, too.

Sadly, C-Span, in a strange act of self-censorship, refused to cover any of the events in New York. Luckily, cable access was broadcasting "Democracy Now!" live so I caught some of the speeches. And then the conservative commentators came out with the usual nonsense. One, Fred Barnes, a former aide to Vice President Dan Quayle and a writer for The Weekly Standard, even compared the demonstrators to the America First movement of the early 1930s. This is a ridiculous contrast which has no historical merit. But FoxNews allows clowns like Barnes on television - without correction or balance - because of his gleeful embrace of future militarism gone amok.

Then, there are the Democrats, all jockeying for pole position so that when King George W. stumbles over a flat-lined economy and the gut wrenching flow of body bags from the Middle East, they will be able to capitalize on the misery.

Unfortunately, most of the announced Democrats for 2004 will have a hard time distinguishing themselves from Bush on issues like the war, free trade, corporate welfare, tax cuts for the lower classes, consumer rights, etc., leaving the Rev. Al Sharpton as the only announced candidate addressing the issues of ignored masses. No wonder the Democrats are scared.

So, enjoy the snow. Get out there a run around a bit with the kids. Take some solace in the fact that we are lucky to be alive and well in New England. Because soon it will be spring and all our white stuff will melt - and the flooding will begin.