DN Editorial: An editorial snow angel

THE LATEST snow dump on the city was rude, obnoxious and mean. Rain, sleet and snow weren't enough, but we had to have thunder, too?

It was like being nudged by Nature, who was saying, "So you thought I was tough last year with two 3-footers? Yo, I was just getting started."

Maybe we've eaten too much wet snow, but we find ourselves taking a Zen approach to it this time. Like clouds with silver linings, storms like the one we just got through have their own joys and mysteries. For example:

* The fact that we can still achieve,

despite the beeping, honking, pinging, ringing 21st century, a moment of that profound silence of an empty, snow-coated street at 11 p.m. (or 6 a.m.). The silence is so satisfying, so comforting, that it must harken to some primal gene in our animal selves where that silence signals safety from being eaten.

* The Code of the Snowblower: You

know the code: You own one, you help your neighbors. One Knight of the Snowblower who spent hours digging out his neighbors yesterday defines the code like this: If you spy someone bent over a shovel, you are required to give aid with your special snow-removal powers. Do not accept gifts or thanks, do not turn off the machine; just keep moving, to the next house.

* Then there are the mysteries:

Who has the right of way? Pedestrians forced to walk on the street, or the drivers who lose their tentative traction trying to avoid hitting them?

And of the 3,000 or so cabbies in the city, how do the Nigerians and other warm-climate immigrants learn to drive in this stuff?

Then there's the greatest mystery: The fact that in a big city with huge needs, complex issues and thorny problems, political fortunes really rise and fall on one thing: how fast the snow is removed from your block. *