This past January, more snow than ever before fell in New York – and we still have to wait out February, which is always the coldest month. Luckily, February is 2 days shorter than other months, which is a blessing for humanity's mental health. 

Too much time inside the house makes us think, ponder, reflect, or, as people say in some parts of the Southern Cone, we "rack our brains."  I haven't been able to get myself out of the mental state this winter has put me in, but at least it's better for my figure to ruminate than to be eating constantly. And certain things have occurred to me. 

While reporters spend all their time telling us about Egypt, politicians in the United States are taking advantage of the fact that nobody is paying attention to other issues; the politicians are up to their old tricks in the Congress and state senates. 

For example, anti-choice Republicans have presented a bill in Congress that attempts to redefine sexual abuse in order to lessen the number of rape victims that could get an abortion through Medicaid, which is already on a tight budget.  

If the bill passes, a woman would have to get government approval that her rape was indeed "forced" (as if a rape could be defined any other way) in order to meet the necessary requirements. 

Medicaid is a healthcare program that serves low-income people. This cruel and scandalous bill is nothing more than another act of aggression against poor women.

Luckily, although in the minority, there are Democratic legislators and perhaps even female Republican congress members who could not, with a clean conscience, vote for such a horrible measure. 

While politicians in Iowa are trying to repeal the state law that allows gay marriage that was passed in 2009, the new governor of New Mexico, Susana Martinez, a Republican Latina, has given the green light to police and state patrollers to ask about the immigration status of anyone they arrest. 

To get my mind off of Hosni Mubarak – (Does he ever pray to Allah that the snow that has fallen in New York falls on Cairo? Will he de-mummify Cleopatra and put her on a boat to float down the Nile to distract the Egyptian people so they will stop throwing rocks at his palace?) – I went to see an old black-and-white film in which the men still shave with a penknife. I had a little epiphany and understood why men are so conceited: 365 days a year, they spend close to an hour looking in the mirror and caressing their faces with a white weapon.

I don't know, I think. 

Well, God willing the snow melts very soon and that not another snowflake falls. I don't want to end up eating my own boiled shoe like Charlie Chaplin in "The Gold Rush."