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The Underwater Issue

editorial

micheal rae-grant

Since mankind’s initial ascent onto dry land from the primordial depths of the Earth’s oceans, one question above all others has fixated our thumb-toting, higher-reasoning-enabled species: which would win in a fight, a Grizzly Bear or a Great White Shark?

The implications of such a deathmatch, were it ever able to be fairly fought, make one’s lymph nodes swell and ones testes and/or ovaries sing with happiness. Picture it: two stupidly dangerous animals kicking the shit out of each other, in a delightfully consumerist venue replete with popcorn and whimsical foam hats worn by spectators to display their predator of choice. Glorious. Of course, the hedonistic pleasure and the marketing schemes are hardly the point, no the important thing would be an answer...at last.

But such a scene could never come to pass on this, our sadly constrained planet. The two most glaring problems are these: first, where—which is to say, in what biome—would said title bout take place? And second, who would make the millions of whimsical foam hats necessary for success?

Were it held on land, the Grizzly Bear would clearly have an unfair advantage, since sharks on land are unable to use the lazer beams that normally shoot uncontrollably from their eyeballs. Were it held underwater, however, the Great White would have the upper hand, since bear fur turns into moths and flies off when exposed to water, thus exposing the Grizzly’s internal organs and turning incidental fin movements into mortal blows. Therefore, a fair fight between the two would require the development of some sort of forest that is underwater but isn’t, and doesn’t have trees so much as water where the trees would be, except not really water. One can imagine how easy that is to produce.

As to the hats, due to the number of anticipated spectators, the amount of foam necessary is equal to roughly half the mass of the earth, and therefore would require the full efforts of all the globe’s third world manufacturing nations, for the next 14 years. Although this second problem is more easily surmountable than the first, it would leave the world bereft of sneakers and cheap knick-knacks for an intolerably long time.

Due to these staggering logistical problems, even the greatest minds of humanity have been unable to predict a definitive victor. Modern-day computer simulations might be capable of providing an answer, unfortunately, however, all simulations thus far have used data on bears and sharks collected at a time when measuring equipment was vastly inferior to today, and the research funding necessary to re-conduct data-gathering crucial to the resolution of the issue is nearly impossible. High-paid lobbyists employed by business interests that prefer hastily-gathered, inexact data have secured a virtual strangle-hold on major world governments: hence missile-defense programs that can only guarantee an interceptor missile will pass within ten miles of its target; WMD locators that consider rivers over fifteen feet wide to be “severe, unignorable threats”; and Bear Vs. Shark simulators that occasionally predict victory by such irrelevant creatures as llamas, caterpillars, and former Heisman Trophy winner Eric Crouch.

So what do we here at The Record think? Well, we don’t really like fighting all that much, to be honest—there’s a little too much of it in the world already, isn’t there? We’d much rather spend the money on trying to find a way to get the Grizzlies and the Great Whites to mate, producing a super-race of fearsome bear-sharks, maybe with a single, giant paw protruding from their hairy, aerodynamic backs. We know, we know: we’re dreamers.

This page was last updated October 23 2010!

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