Institute encourages "Urthers" miffed by melting to just go with the flow!

Just an aqua-mannequin--not the fin-ished product--depicting a future aqua-dad on his way to aqua-work in the new-fangled submarine corporate world*

While Erdens fret about the global warping problem that was recently detected on our lovely planet (see earlier article in May of 1957 issue), "da Urth" is also a little (and we do mean a little) concerned about sea levels rising since all the ice sitting on top of places like Greenland is melting fast. [Contrary to popular belief, the ice floating in the North Polar waters--much like the solid coolant in a scotch and soda--once melted, will not add a single millimeter to overall sea levels due to complex and abstruse laws of physics that we lack the space to explain comprehensively. That "meltage" (not a real word) will, however, cause toilet bowls, above-ground swimming pools, and tumblers full of scotch and soda to overflow].

At any rate, our mad scientists were very impressed with a Top Secret study commissioned by Pez-head-ent Boosch and the Merkan TSA (Top Secrit Agency) following the Katrina response debacle failure disaster. Knowing full well that the Merkan city of N'orleens-Jass was, to paraphrase the study's conclusion, "fooked," imaginative solutions were sought by the best brains in intelligence and we agreed the most imaginative (and cost-effective) was creating genetically mutated under-sea-worthy-men-and-women-of-color, or Blaquamen, who could not only survive but flourish in blighted urban areas doomed to be twenty feet under water. Well, why not create an entire multi-ethnic civilization of bottom-feeding boys and gilled girls who could dwell among the fishies? The benefits are multitudinous, variegated, and innumerably undelimited:

• Pollution involving the atmosphere would no longer be a concern to anyone, not that it is anyway
• Oil prices (and oil) will become irrelevant as aqua-persons, or people-of-water (as they will inevitably be called by the lexically-obsessed), learn to ride fuel-efficient dolphins and porpoises
• Proper sanitation and water supplies become non-issues as humans, like fish, would be able to simultaneously use their immediate surroundings as both reservoirs and pissoirs
• Traffic jams in major cities will become a thing of the past when humans abandon major cities and the past
• Urthy-crunchies can "birth" their infants in all-natural salt water just as Mommy Nature intended and that should make them happy; perhaps they can learn to lay eggs again which is a concept so drenched in naturalness that it makes even us all wriggly with excitement
• Christians will be in a perpetual state of baptism and that should make them deliriously happy
• Annoying vegans, lacking major sources of anal-retentive fruits and vegetables, will face extinction unless they develop a taste for kelp
• Tremendous savings to taxpayers as they no longer need to spend money on sun tan lotion, lawnmowers, or toasters
• Costly EMF producing cell phones can be replaced with genetically engineered (and all-natural) sonar and ultrasonics
• Terrorism would be squelched since most bombs can't explode if they become moist and most religious fanatics--like wicked witches--don't like to get wet anyway
• Sushi would be as fresh as it can get (an additional incentive for yuppies reluctant to be turned into guppies)
• The national weight problem would be solved as the buoyancy of salt water will support additional heft and humans can naturally evolve into more pleasing walrus-like shapes
• Whales could be genetically altered to become land mammals again--sent safely out of harm's way
• Spongebob wouldn't be just a popular cartoon but a way of life
• Fishermen will be in their element
• No more mosquito problem

*We could simply cut-to-the-chase and mutate corporate types into sharks, sponges, monk-fish and various nautical invertebrates--ditto with politicians and religious leaders