Sometimes the best tool for probing a social malady is humor -
which is exactly what Michael Moore does in "Bowling for
Columbine."  At the last Cannes Film Festival, "Bowling for
Columbine," a shattering and hilarious documentary about gun
violence in America, received one of longest standing ovations
in the fest's history - almost 20 minutes by my watch count -
and that says something about both America and the ways we're
perceived abroad.  The news isn't all bad. I don't think the
hand Moore got was an outburst of anti-American sentiment. But
it was obviously an expression of solidarity with his homespun
radicalism, sardonic humor, underlying humanism and, most of
all, with his unflinching portrayal of the epidemic of violence
in our country - how bad it is and how we got there.  "If you
want to tell people the truth," someone once said, "you better
make them laugh or they'll kill you." "Bowling for Columbine,"
like all Moore's film and TV work since "Roger and Me," uses
that strategy. It's a fiercely opin