A Couple of New York Stories

The smell wafting its way through New York City and parts of New Jersey makes an awfully odd story. According to tomorrow's Newsday, the smell originated somewhere in New Jersey, but officials couldn't find a specific source location and so couldn't conduct tests to identify the odor's cause. The best Charles Sturcken, a spokesman for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, could come up with was, "We think it emanates somewhere between Secaucus and Jersey City." I haven't been following any of this, but it seems that this isn't the first time a smell has overtaken the city. Previous scents have been more pleasing (an unidentified maple-syrup odor appeared twice in 2005, and another scent came through in August of last year), but the whole thing has dangerous implications that no one quite seems to be voicing. The fact that it's happened more than a couple of times now (though there seems to be no suggestion that the various instances have been related) without anyone coming up with a reason why can't sit well with NYC residents.

While I was looking at that over at Newsday, I couldn't help but notice the following headline: "Warm Weather Translates to More Kittens." Now that we've upped the cute quotient on global warming, maybe we'll start paying more attention.