Like many a New Yorker transplanted to the Washington, DC area, I've spent a fair amount of time bemoaning the lack of high-quality bagel options in this town. Well, yesterday my friend Tom kindly brought a few of Bodo's Bagels over to our house from Charlottesville and while my keen bagel sense has probably eroded thanks to years of atrophy, I have to say that they're . . . pretty darn good. As they boast here:

We boil our bagels just before baking, per New York style.
(If they're not boiled first, they're not authentic "NY style.")

Quite so. And now for my modest proposal. American Jews are well-known for our proclivities for philanthropical activities. It seems to me that what we need to do is set up a bagel foundation or something that could finance the establishment of traditional bagel-making facilities America's top metro areas. Here in DC we have a Museum of American Jewish Military History which, frankly, nobody cares about. A Society for the Preservation of Decent Bagels would do the world much more good.