Ripple Effect
Nothing stirs up our summer like shark sightings.
Dear Arthur Smadbeck:
For better or worse, and all of we potential hors d'oeuvres hope it will be for the better, you apparently are The Shark Guy this summer. Back a few weeks, when a very big predatory fish not employed by Steven Spielberg was spotted off Martha's Vineyard, you were the go-to selectman for all the reporters and TV people who flocked to the island. You reassured anyone who happened by with a notebook and a camera crew that there was nothing to be afraid of and that folks should once again throw themselves onto the buffet tabl ... er ... into the water with abandon. This resulted in a great deal of beautiful video from the town of Liveshot by the Sea. Channel 7, God love its pointed little adolescent head, even wedged clips from Jaws into its news story. (Of course, I will not even get into the case of the poor sod who decided to take advantage of things and got busted for concocting a shark sighting of his own. Investigators got suspicious when the guy said his boat was owned by someone named "John Kennedy." When telling lies like this, it is always better to go with a more obscure president. "Frank Pierce," say. Or "My pal, Fat Jim Buchanan.") Now, I agree that it is now and always has been a very big ocean containing many very big things that can eat me. It was that way in April, and it's that way now. It was even that way back in 2001, which was the last summer dominated by a feeding frenzy around shark news. That summer did not end well, as you may recall, and the endless shark reports now look ludicrous in retrospect. But whoever said journalism was a day at the beach, anyway?
Charles P. Pierce
