Big Snow in the Social-Media Age

Here in Boston, we've gotten about seventy-two inches, or six feet, of snow in the past seventeen days, which is a record, besting the previous thirty-day total by more than a foot, with thirteen days to spare. It's been cold during this stretch, too, so most of the snow has yet to melt. What hasn't been trucked away remains in hulking piles, in neighborhoods from downtown to the city limits. The way we talk about the snow--mostly in passive verbs--expresses the general feeling of impotence and ...