They Should Only Sink

When I lived in Boston, I remember walking by the reflecting pools of the Christian Science Monitor building.  My parents said it was a wonderful newspaper but it was somehow “heavy” or scholarly, so they did not want to dig into it every Sunday. Although, they seemed happy to skim the issues I would bring home after my journeys to downtown Boston.

Recently, they ran a piece about how New York is going underwater.  Not that New York City is alone; there are plenty of cities that are slowly drowning.  There seems to be no sense of urgency whatsoever.  On the travel website above, for example, there is only a go-visit-it-before-it-is underwater kind of feeling.  I suppose it would be really nice to get some views under your eyelids before they disappear. If nothing else, this situation ought to serve to confirm that global warming is real science and not a political construct.  The polar icecaps are melting and sea level communities are sinking.  It might sound slow, but it is really quite fast, and things need to be done.

First, we need to applaud Mayor Bloomberg of New York City.  Last I heard, he was a Republican, and most Republicans believe that global warming is more Democratic propaganda than science.  All these storms upon the earth are sinking us pretty fast.  Bloomberg has appointed a commission to look at what this will do to New Yorkers.  I don’t necessarily believe that commissions actually work, but he is at least trying to do something.  That gets him points in my book.

There is an ancient Yiddish curse, which transliterates as “Eingesinken zol zey veren,” and pretty much means “May they all drown.”  This used to be reserved for crimes and sins like Sodom and Gomorrah, but contemporary American applications are starting to abound.

When I first moved to California, my parents cautioned me as we lived not too far from the San Andreas Fault.  Eventually, it would break off and set me sailing into the ocean and I would sooner or later die.  My Brother-of-Blessed-Memory held my hand and fought tears, simply not wanting “the sister” to die.

Later, my Father-of-Blessed-Memory told me that I did not live far from Bob Hope, and I was a veteran, after all. So I could probably at least go to him if there were some great drought and I needed some drinking water.  Now, they say even the global wine industry – including upstate New York – may be in some trouble.

When Katrina hit New Orleans, there were a lot of poor folks who got hit majorly and never quite bounced back, to put it mildly.  Oh, I remember visiting West Edmonton Mall, in Edmonton, Alberta, plenty of times.  Not just because it was the world’s biggest mall, but because it had lots of fun stuff.  One of the most fun things was a mock-up of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, with dark skinned mannequins, presumably representing pimps and whores and trumpet players of color.  Pretty flashy, I thought then and I do now, whenever I hear New Orleans style jazz.  I never thought, however, it was bad enough to merit an “Eingezinken”, even on the highest supernatural level.

Some of the solutions proposed for New York City are indeed reminiscent of ancient Dutch solutions for its ports.  Like the story of the little boy who used his finger to plug a hole in a leaky dyke to save his town, even though he knew he would be late to school.  But of course, it’s a myth.  I don’t think we are going to find a little kid in New York patriotic enough to do this, even if we are lucky.  I mean, the “hard” solutions, like higher and higher walls, could be satisfying to those who believe in simple mechanical solutions.

I love the biological solution.  Long before man came to New York City, the harbor outside was basically covered, if not made of, oyster shoals.  Oh, who cares if they are hermaphrodites!  Oysters have sex with each other, and humans cultivate and eat them.  Okay, so they are not for everybody; they live in the dirty sand so they are not kosher. Let’s just let them keep having sex and depositing shells that will raise the land level.

Even Cole Porter, one of the great lyricists and New York lovers of all time, sang about the oysters.  In the third line of the fifth verse of “Let’s do it/Let’s fall in love,” he alluded to the fact that “Oysters down in Oyster Bay do it.”  What he meant was falling in love – and having sex.  Oyster Bay is on Long Island, and these cute little traife (non-kosher) shellfish can fall in love like crazy.  Okay, here is the plan.  You know — or maybe you don’t — how everyone who lives in New York City would like to retire to Florida?  Just exchange folks for the oysters you use to get started on natural walls to protect New York.  Let them have all the sex they want, and they will build natural walls quicker than you can say “Mayor Bloomberg, you are very scientific for a Republican.”