The Cynic Express(ed) 3.07: The Coral Collar

     I can picture the scene in Tampa in July, 1997. A misty, moonless night on the waterfront, the scent of the salted air musty like the contents of so many illicit cargo holds. A man in a pea green trenchcoat stands in the headlights of a white Buick LeSabre. His calm stance belies the tension in his belly. Suddenly, another pair of lights flash twice in recognition. Another boxy car, this one a 1986 Chevrolet Caprice, crunches to a stop before him. As if on cue, the four occupants of the car open their doors and step out. One of the men, shorter and dressed a little more dapper than the others, approaches. The man in the pea green trenchcoat reaches into his inner pocket. Startled, the three men behind the car doors reach for their hips, but the man in the coat withdraws an envelope thick with the new ugly Franklins. He passes the envelope with the money to the dapper man, who thumbs through the currency, and nods. Another man from the Chevy steps from behind the open car door. He's got a briefcase in his hand. He holds it up for the man in the trenchcoat to inspect. The man in the coat clicks the latches on the briefcase, opens it, and takes out a forty foot container. Suddenly, lights burst upon the dock. "Freeze, police!" echoes from the warehouses around and dozens of men with pistols raised descend upon the scene. The diabolically-named Petros Leventis has finally been captured for conspiracy, smuggling, and violations of the Lacey Act.

     Okay, so that's how it would have happened if it were a movie. Except for the pulling a forty-foot container of illegal coral from a briefcase. Regardless of how Leventis was arrested, he was convicted Tuesday, August 10, for smuggling illegal coral into the country. He faces over a million dollars in fines and five years in the federal prison system for his violations. Which goes to prove that life is not like a movie; it's actually more like an absurdist theatre piece written by one of those goofy Englishmen like Friel, Schaffer, or Ayckbourn.

     Let's examine more closely what Leventis did. He broke the Lacey Act, which makes it a federal crime to stock your gift store shelves with certain types of seashells and coral. Like organ pipe and staghorn corals, which the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species ban because, as abcnews.com put it, the "species ... may become threatened with extinction unless their trade is subject to strict regulation." That is, because an international body outside of the United States government has decided a species might become threatened with extinction. Not that the species is threatened with extinction or is endangered. It might become so if not regulated by that same self-important organ of international over-regulation. Great. Now, will someone explain to me how selling the dead calcium shell left behind after a little sea creature dies will lead to the species' destruction? After all, the coral is already dead.

     Lois Schiffer, the Justice Department's assistant attorney general for environment and natural resources, explained it thusly: "The world's coral reefs are the tropical rain forests of the oceans. Trafficking in protected corals harms biological diversity and degrades our environment."

     Just the facts, ma'am. I think you're reaching into that bulging collection of bad metaphors that members of the current administration pass around like a bag of Tootsie Rolls. Just like the rain forest, the coral reefs. Except they don't produce oxygen and that they're underwater and .... At least she cracked open the Spin Cookie and pulled out defensible and suitably malleable buzzwords in "degrade" and "harm," which might be bad if an international convention does not regulate everyone's behaviors immediately.

     Lest the Citizens worry the lose of good surfing halfway around the globe, Schiffer also pledges: "We will use all the resources available - both nationally and internationally - to put an end to the black market in protected corals." Hot diggity! One hundred thousand new policemen on the streets, perpetrating stings to prevent the potential coral holocaust. Double up the wiretaps! Round up the usual suspects! Pull some Special Agents off of the Internet Child Exploitation Task Force!

     Maybe I am just cynical, but I think incarcerating a man at the taxpayers' expense for bringing 350 pieces of clandestinely-manufactured calcium at the behest of an international convention is a bit much, but then again, I do not have an eight-word title like assistant attorney general for environment and natural resources, an annual budget, and my own assistant-sized portion of Machiavellian Principality to justify to myself and others.