There are several dozen blogs that chronicle various aspects of life in Winnipeg, but only one of them has a perfect name: Slurpees & Murder.
As the folks at 7-Eleven love to remind us every year, this city is the North American epicentre of icy sugar-water consumption, which means we should also be a leader in the dental-bill department, not to mention the wanton disposal of non-recyclable cups.
Less amusingly, Winnipeg is often, though not always, the Canadian leader when it comes to per-capita homicides. And after 14 homicides in four months, we're well on our way to becoming Canada's murder capital in 2008.
That's why Slurpees & Murder is such a brilliant name for anything that has to do with Winnipeg: It encompasses both the banal and macabre aspects of a city still struggling with an identity crisis.
I'm not going to pretend Slurpees & Murder is my favourite local Internet gossip sheet. Curtis Brown's Endless Spin Cycle, Robert Galston's Rise & Sprawl and the anonymous Policy Frog are far more thoughtful reads and fine examples of the power of electronic self-publication.
But there's something about S&M that sobers me up as soon as I happen across the page, and it's not the accidental acronym.
It's the fact it encapsulates the notion Winnipeg is both a place where little kids bug their parents to buy them Dayglo-coloured glucose potions -- and not-so-little kids meet ignominious, violent ends.
Confronting the ugly side of Winnipeg is something local Pollyannas don't like to do too often, whether it's the massive chasm between the wealthy and poor or the apartheid-like divisions between ethnic communities in some neighbourhoods.
But nothing quite divides the locals like a debate over the level of violence in the city. I personally tend to argue this is no more of a violent place than any other city in North America, with the caveat that the most extreme crimes of violence somehow seem magnified.
When it comes to statistics, there is no way to hide the homicide rate. Unlike some other violent crimes -- such as armed robbery or sexual assault -- all murders tend to get reported to police.
That's why it's safe to suggest the total number of homicides accounted by the Winnipeg Police Service in any given year likely matches the actual number of homicides. You cannot say the same thing about any other criminal statistic monitored by police, with the possible exception of car theft.
So when the number of homicides spikes, Winnipeggers have a duty to be unnerved. To paraphrase the mass murderer Josef Stalin, a single death is a tragedy, but multiple killings are merely unfathomable -- or in other words, they become statistics.
But there's a mathematical irony in the hard, qualitative nature of homicide numbers. Despite the fact that every murder reported is most certainly equal to every murder that occurs, any change in the homicide rate is statistically insignificant, given the ratio of the number of murders in any given year to the population of the city, which is estimated to be 660,000 within the jurisdiction of the Winnipeg Police Service but likely 720,000 in the entire census metropolitan area.
For example, there were 26 homicides in Winnipeg in 2007. There could be 42 in 2008, assuming we continue to kill each other during the remainder of the year at rate we have during the first four months.
On paper, that would represent a 62 per cent increase in the number of homicides, a drastic-looking statistic. But the homicide rate would increase from 3.9 killings per 100,000 Winnipeggers to 6.4 murders per 100,000 locals -- which means your real-life chance of getting killed by another human being in this city remains extremely slim.
Factor in the ugly truth that most homicide victims know their slayers, and the homicide rate becomes an even more abstract statistic for the vast majority of Winnipeggers who are not connected to the drug trade or organized crime in any way.
It thus becomes easy for ordinary, decent human beings to view the most violent of violent crimes as something that only happens to bad people. We lose ownership of a statistic when it appears to have no bearing on our day-to-day lives.
Of course, those who commit violent crimes also tend to be victims of poverty, though the correlation is not precise and should never be used to apologize for the terrible choices made by terrible people who could easily choose not to kill other human beings.
That's why murders tend to have the same effect as extra-large Slurpees on ordinary Winnipeggers: They give us a rush but ultimately make us numb.
We all know this is unconscionable. But we're all helpless in the face of statistics.
Enjoy the summer. Go have a Slurpee -- and may you live long enough to suffer tooth decay.
bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca
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