Delaware

How many times do you hear any references to the state of Delaware? Think hard now.

For myself, I hear Delaware referred to when some company that is incorporated in Delaware finds itself on the financial page because they're doing badly. It seems tons of corporations are incorporated in Delaware's Chancery Court because it is favorable to their structure. A New York based health insurer that I once worked for was incorporated in the state of Delaware.

There are no major league teams for any sport located in Delaware. There don't even seem to be any top-rated college teams located in Delaware. The Dutch, in the New World, named the river that separates what we now call Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the Delaware River. When the Dutch discovered the river that separates what is now New York and New Jersey they named it the North River, because it was north of what they had already discovered and named, the Delaware River.

Of course, the body of water between New York and New Jersey was eventually named the Hudson River. In the 60s, there were still old-timers at the flower shop who referred to the Hudson River as the North River. Old maps show that name as well.

Delaware is somewhat famous for being one of the mid-Atlantic states that contain the Perdue chicken processing plants in the Delmarva region, a peninsula formed by the states of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

For me, that's it for Delaware. So when a chunk of Antarctic ice broke off from Antarctica's Larsen C Ice Shelf and started to float on its own, it was described as being as large as the state of Delaware. Finally, Delaware gets some fresh recognition.

I suspect for some their sense of geography is so bad they couldn't find Delaware on a map. The size of the new iceberg is 2,240 square miles. And if it is hard to imagine this being something as big as the second smallest state in the Union, then think of it as being equal to 56 Orlando Disney Worlds. Try and visit 56 Disney Worlds on vacation, and you start to get a sense of proportion. (And you would certainly run out of money, no matter how much you started with.)

An iceberg of course is an island of ice. So being an island of ice, it is also an offshore island. I believe Antarctica is off limits to development, with only scientific presence allowed. But imagine if this iceberg could be seized by larcenous financiers and mobsters and established as the greatest offshore island to hide money.

They could freeze their assets before the authorities could catch up to them. A future Meyer Lansky could then say to a future Bugsy Siegel, "Benny, we're as big as the state of Delaware."

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