false 1348234 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 1348234 4 1337888 17 10 2000 A Whale Hunt total:30|5:4|4:10|3:12|2:2|1:2| 30 102 44 8 6414 3.65 1258 326 57387532 1929917 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.37 27 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 3 0 false Sat Jun 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 26 11:46:38 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 25 09:15:35 -0700 2009
Sullivan account is mov...more...]]> 44264450 1098783 218234 0684864347 9780684864341 2 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt: How a Native-American Village Did What No One Thought It Could]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172795084m/218234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172795084s/218234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/218234.A_Whale_Hunt_How_a_Native_American_Village_Did_What_No_One_Thought_It_Could 3.67 3 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 0 0 false Sun Jan 25 05:16:51 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 25 17:06:33 -0800 2009 25391575 1150645 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 3 0 false Wed Jun 25 04:48:05 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 25 04:49:23 -0700 2008 135063 15146 218234 0684864347 9780684864341 2 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt: How a Native-American Village Did What No One Thought It Could]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172795084m/218234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172795084s/218234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/218234.A_Whale_Hunt_How_a_Native_American_Village_Did_What_No_One_Thought_It_Could 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 2 0 false Wed Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Thu Mar 01 16:25:01 -0800 2007 Wed Dec 16 16:14:58 -0800 2009 19574962 896909 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 4 0 false Tue May 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 06 09:35:07 -0700 2008 Tue May 12 11:32:55 -0700 2009 2423008 136985 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 3 0 false Tue Jun 26 18:15:23 -0700 2007 Wed Dec 16 22:48:58 -0800 2009 12664268 790715 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 5 0 false Wed Jan 16 09:06:30 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 16 09:07:24 -0800 2008 30478750 1437750 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 5 0 false Mon Aug 18 14:04:11 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 18 14:04:45 -0700 2008 80373472 2399579 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 0 0 false Tue Dec 08 21:10:49 -0800 2009 Tue Dec 08 21:10:49 -0800 2009 67444391 1854740 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 0 0 false Fri Aug 14 19:54:37 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 14 19:54:37 -0700 2009 67168643 339781 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 1 0 false Wed Sep 23 19:47:11 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 12 19:18:38 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 23 19:47:11 -0700 2009 60260753 2344410 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 4 0 false Thu Jun 18 22:07:41 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 18 22:07:41 -0700 2009 57068442 308727 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 0 0 false Sat May 23 11:21:14 -0700 2009 Sat May 23 11:21:14 -0700 2009 49110098 2114031 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 3 0 false Thu Mar 12 20:18:29 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 12 20:18:29 -0700 2009 48467962 185993 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 0 0 false Fri Mar 06 18:41:42 -0800 2009 Fri Mar 06 18:41:42 -0800 2009 44967920 1966333 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 3 0 false Sat Jan 31 12:28:44 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 31 12:28:44 -0800 2009 44794246 153677 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 2 0 false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 29 16:02:02 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 17 14:04:55 -0800 2009 44678299 1628770 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 3 0 false Wed Jan 28 14:33:19 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 28 14:33:19 -0800 2009 44642010 1416084 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 3 0 false Tue Mar 03 08:01:01 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 28 09:37:09 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 03 08:01:01 -0800 2009 44072295 1947023 1348234 0684864339 9780684864334 6 <![CDATA[A Whale Hunt]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856m/1348234.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182906856s/1348234.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1348234.A_Whale_Hunt 3.40 30 Whales breach and sound through our collective imagination. They're smart. They communicate across the seas by song. But for centuries whalers slaughtered them in unspeakable numbers. Eventually people called for an end to industrial whaling. Enter the Makah, a small tribe in an isolated corner of Washington State that seeks to exercise its treaty rights and revive an ancient tradition. Robert Sullivan (The Meadowlands) spent two years visiting the mist-shrouded Makah Nation on Neah Bay to record what the fuss was about. He got to know the whaling participants personally, and he also met the protesters. He even followed by car the 5,000-mile whale migration, the longest of any mammalian species, down the coast to Baja and the birthing grounds. The result of his reportage is a closely observed portrait of one community's transformation--its "blood transfusion," as an elder calls it--as well as the spouting controversy.

Sullivan tries not to take sides, but his sympathies are apparent. Animal rights activists come across as committed yet arrogant and self-righteous. For instance, the husband-and-wife founders of In the Path of Giants, a touring company and antiwhaling advocacy group, believe they can convince the Makah, with the aid of a slideshow, to take up whale watching instead of hunting, adding, "We can help them." More interesting to Sullivan than the controversy, however, is "what it would be like to try to kill a bus-sized mammal." He conveys the wonder of the Makah's enterprise (hunt a whale? in a canoe?) as well as the mundane chores (find the right harpoon shaft, pass a swimming test, practice paddling). It is this accumulation of detail rather than the politics or the acrimony that brings the book to life. Anchoring it is a narrative structure borrowed (with a few winks) from Moby-Dick as well as a series of footnotes drawing parallels between Melville's masterpiece and the Makah's endeavor.

Sullivan also aims a few of his own harpoons--primarily at the media leviathan--as rhetoric increasingly rules the day in the weeks and months leading up to the kill. "We're not any different from any other community in the world," remarks a tribal member, "except that now everybody's watching us." Despite the close focus, Sullivan suggests that one of the many ironies of global connectivity and media saturation is an even greater distancing between one and the other, expertly parodying this distance in the final moments before the kill:

With the whaling canoe moving closer and closer to one whale, with the specter of this whale moving closer and closer to the surface ... with the whale hunt about to become an actuality, a done deed, the morning television host announced the following to the commuter at home, as if he were calling a prizefight or watching the police chase a runaway car: "Time is clearly running out for this whale."

Indeed, there is a sense of the clock running out for everyone involved. A wistfulness for times gone by permeates A Whale Hunt like a coastal fog that will not lift. The land, marred by clearcuts and oil spills, is not what it used to be; the legendary salmon runs are nearly gone, victims of dams, overfishing, development; the tribal members are searching in vain for jobs and meaning. It is an altered landscape, inhabited by an altered tribe trying to hold on to the last vestiges of its once-great history. --Langdon Cook

]]> 2000 4 0 false Fri Jan 23 11:22:05 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 23 11:22:05 -0800 2009 8 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=1348234