Many fed up New Yorkers, when confronted by a soiled windshield, refer to pesky pigeons as nothing more than rats with wings. It’s an odd insult, since adding “with wings” to pretty much anything on earth immediately makes it better. Whether it’s your dog or your friend Dave, adding feathered, perfectly aerodynamic appendages to the equation puts each into the literal and figurative stratosphere.
Yet there are those confused Americans who’d have you believe that one wing is better than the other. That the left wing is all you need to fly. Or maybe the right wing is sure to put you on a better course. When we all know the truth: at best, a single wing will send you in circles, and at worst, into the ground below for an unceremonious crash landing.
Pigeons need two wings. The tension between the two is part of what makes them able to cruise around a bustling city of rats without wings. Equilibrium should be what we’re after. Instead, there are those activist types trying to bioengineer single-wing birds to do their bidding. I don’t understand it. Have you ever seen a plane with one wing? They even have two pilots, just in case one leans a little too much to one side.
I’m not a peacock partisan who’s in favor of adding ostentatious feathers willy-nilly for attracting mates and psychedelic meanderers alike. But find me a good bird and I’ll find you two good wings. That’s a fact. The one exception would be buffaloes. But it usually helps to get some air. And mammals are no different.
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