Word: harpooner
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...world. Whenever a fin whale rose up from the depths to blow out air in a watery spray, the inflatable would run brazen interference for the giant mammal, interposing itself between the whaler and its quarry. With growing frustration, Captain Thordur Eythorsson, 36, stood by his ominous-looking harpoon gun atop the whaler's bow, unable to make his kill...
...protesters. Finally, after two misses, the captain got off his shot when one fin surfaced directly in front of the catch boat. It was a painfully slow demise for the beast; to minimize the danger to the protesters, Eythorsson had removed the explosive cap from the harpoon. Cabled TIME Correspondent Erik Amfitheatrof of the grisly action: "The creature's struggle was unusually harrowing. Without the explosive, the fin lingered on until the captain fired a second 'cold' harpoon into it and then, at last, an explosive harpoon. It took 16 minutes to end the whale...
...suggestion, with one loophole: Eskimos in Alaska would be allowed to maintain subsistence hunting of the endangered bowhead whale under strict quotas (last year's ceiling: 18 kills). If the conference fails to act on the U.S. proposal or a similar one, Congress may toss out a legislative harpoon of its own: a bill sponsored by Senators Warren Magnuson of Washington and Bob Packwood of Oregon would deny U.S. fishing rights within a 200-mile coastal limit to any countries that ignore IWC rulings. Such legislation would strongly bolster any moratorium passed by the IWC, which has no enforcement...
Paxton's style guarantees the sincerity of his commitment. With a carefully distilled mixture of honesty and bitterness, Paxton reaches his apex in "White Bones of Allende." As he blames United States intervention for the collapse of Allende's government, he aims his harpoon at Kissinger's global politics of amorality...
...this piece, Tragedy taken too seriously becomes Farce, and forced Farce is Tragedy. Real laughter is indiscriminate in its intuitive understanding of the irrational, as well as its recognition of the ubiquity of absurdity. How then can the Lampoon take itself seriously? One might as well ask how a harpoon can harpoon itself...