COMMUNITY

JEWFRO

Fine Art Appraisers and Auctioneers — Since 1927

April Auction Dates

Friday the 1.5th

At 6:30 p.m.

Saturday the ilith

Sunday, the -17th

At I 1:00 a.m.

At Noon

GEORGE INNESS, OIL ON
PANEL, 6.22" X 8.26"

DESIGNER PURSES:
JUDITH LEIBER, PRADA

PATEK. PHILIPPE DIAMOND
LADY'S WRISTWATCH

QUEZAL ART GLASS
BUD VASE, H 2"

BALTIMORE STERLING SILVER, C. 1890-1915,
AN EXTENSIVE COLLECTION OF OVER 90 LOTS

409 EJEFFERSON, DETKOIT, ml 48226

TEL 313 963.6255

8 April 2011

IUD THREAD

www.DUMOART com

A Modest Proposal
for Our Community

By Ben Falik

n 1729, Jonathan
Swift wrote "A
Modest Proposal
for Preventing the
Children of Poor
People in Ireland
From Being a
Burden to Their
Parents or Coun-
try, and for Making Them Beneficial to the
Public"— in which he suggested impover-
ished Irish parents sell their children to the
wealthy to be eaten as delicacies.
In our community, too, desperate times
call for desperate measures. Our plight is
not a surplus of young, delicious children;
rather it's a scarcity of young adults that
threatens to sap the region of its vitality. In
that spirit, please consider my own mod-
est proposal.
First, the time has come to tap the stra-
tegic reserve of perhaps our most abun-
dant natural resource: guilt. We are sitting
on a gold(berg)mine of guilt — guilt so
bountiful that it goes almost unnoticed.
And we've barely tapped this veritable
oyl well. Certainly, guilt has proven suc-
cessful in securing weekly phone calls and
visits for High Holidays and Passover, but it
could do so much more.
Parents and grandparents, arise (slowly
now) and unleash guilt! Tell your sci-
ons,"We're not getting any — (cough
... wheeze) — younger" and that, for
everything you've done for them over the
years, all you ask is they stay in town; or, if
they've sheepishly strayed from the herd,
to move home already.
Mind you, we should still aspire to send
our young to the finest institutions of
higher education. But once there, they
must systematically target weak-willed
future mates whose strained relationships
with their own parents will make them
amenable to settling here. Fortunately,
this group — like gefilte fish a barrel — is
easily marked; they congregate over-
whelmingly in the Greek system.
Second, we need to spark economic
activity so those guilt-ridden souls suc-
ceed here — and here alone. I speak of
matrimony's twisted sister/evil twin — less
celebrated, but just as valuable — divorce.
As profitable as weddings are, in all their
massively monetized momentary merri-
ment, the large-scale dissolution of those
marriages will have our recession receding
faster than you can say, "1111 debt do us part"
Terminating marriages that have not al-
ready come to their natural, lucrative end
will double the demand for everything
from appliances and sofa beds to Chanu-
kah presents and — most importantly —
real estate.
Lest we run the risk of our dearly
divorced ditching Detroit, we need only
ensure that those who are still stubbornly
married have children — the younger the
better — before they untie the knot.
Finally, what will keep our elderly, who
have such power to induce guilt, and our
young people, who are so susceptible to
it, from seeking refuge in sunnier climes?
Using the same determination that put a
man on the moon, and a nerd in the state
capital, we will do the only thing we can:
make Michigan warmer.
Luckily, we're already on our way. Let's
resolve to redouble our efforts and turn
up the heat on Michigan's future: Drive
ever-larger vehicles, generously heat your
un-insulated homes and let all trashcans
runneth over. As a bonus, we'll hasten the
submersion of those coastal cities kids
today seem so find so "hot" right now. It's
time, once and for all, to put an end to
the old saw: "Everybody talks about the
weather, but nobody does anything about
it:'ny

I

Editor's Note: For those of you
reading this in a dentist's office
months or years after it hit news-
stands, please accept Ben's hearty,
retroactive April Fool's — and feel
guilty about not subscribing .

www.redthreadmagazine.com