According to Town & Country magazine, Kennedy once heard that a dead whale had washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port and “ran down to the beach with a chainsaw, cut off the whale’s head, and then bungee-corded it to the roof of the family minivan for the five-hour haul back to Mount Kisco, New York.”
“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kick Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy’s daughter, told the magazine then. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”
Personally, I'd keep the car windows rolled up if it were raining whale juice. But that doesn't mean Kick — who calls their kid Kick? — was lying.
It's interestingly similar to the story of Mitt Romney's dog on the car roof, which also involved kids grossed out by animal liquid leaking onto the window.
By the way, how scrupulous are you about the laws about collecting animal parts? I'm the pusillanimous type who admonishes my companion "Don't touch it!" when there's a feather lying on the trail.
पोस्ट्स
१५४ टिप्पण्या:
"Kick" is a Kennedy name from the past. I've forgotten the one who was nicknamed that. It was during WWII.
I think it is fantastic that he dragged home a whale head! Who WOULDN"T want to do that?
WTF… were they supposed to sit Shiva for the whale?
What happened to the whale head? And cut a whale head off with a chainsaw? What kind of whale are we talking about?
The story sounds... fishy.
Even church boys aren't church boys. I was a church boy, and I still tore the back ends off lighting bugs and put them in a jar to make a hobo glowstick. I remember once my brother and I used a stick to capture a garter snake in the church courtyard before mass and brought the thing into church with us. The reaction was priceless...had we had youtube then we would've gone viral.
Some boys grow out of playing with bugs and snakes and toads, and at different times of their lives. Bobby apparently never did leave that curiousity behind.
The snake lived by the way.
It was a nickname for little known Otis Kennedy, who was unceremoniously kicked in the head by a donkey, of all things. It’s true.
Not a joke.
Kick was one of Joe's daughters. Died in a plane crash in her 20s, maybe 1947. Or, I could use wikipedia. Memorable name, I looked once, she had a lot of pep to her step.
Uh - true or not - the whale was already dead.
Lock him up!
It was a Blue Husqvarna whale
My aversion to touching dead animals is all disgust-related and not at all adhering-to-law-related.
"Environmental group calls for RFK Jr. to be investigated for reportedly sawing off whale head"
Investigator: "Did you saw the head off a dead whale?"
RFK Jr: "Yes."
Investigator: "Okay then. I guess we're done here."
Does a whale even have a head? There's no neck making a head/body differentiation, but I guess when you have a chain saw, it's your call. I think I read a chapter in "Moby Dick" about this.
Still waiting for the media to be upset over Hunter's dealings.
Still waiting for the media to be upset over Cocaine found in Biden's White house.
btw - the Secret Service hack wanted to lie and bury the cocaine ordeal. When a whistleblower came out and said NO - he was punished.
wait - but whale head!
now if he harpooned pritzker, well you would need a diamond tipped one, to get through that carcass,
>>The story sounds... fishy. I think you mean... "mammally".
Hahaha 😂😂
A dog, a whale and a feather. It’s funny how when RFk was running for president all his stories were private. #What Trump did to presidential politics.
The small k is because his family has disowned him.
Hunter S. Thompson weirdness quote: "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
RFK’s daughter and his sister are both named Kathleen and nicknamed Kick after the original Kathleen (JFK’s sister)
I don't think it works as shark bait, maybe it does,
Got to respect a man who travels around with a chainsaw in the back, just in case some large limbs or whale heads need removing. But that's just me, my grandfather was a Montana lumberjack/mill operator.
If he can wield chain saw = hillbilly backwoods
not if I don't think it was a whale...
So what. I've got several friends of the artsy type with dead birds and small animals in their freezer because they have creative plans for feathers, fur, bones etc. Old friend who grew up very poor and very rural never let a fresh road kill deer go to waste. I find them all perfectly normal.
The reason a political hit piece like this won't work is because RFK Jr. isn't running for President anymore in the swing states. He's already told his followers to vote for Trump in the swing states. He also has not been promised any position in the Trump administration.
Most people will see this for what it is. A typical Democrat hit piece and it might even push a few more people towards Trump. (Just to get the Democrats out of the White House.)
A classic line.
I remember using that one with you a few days ago.
https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/whale-heads-and-tales/
The formatting is wonky, but if you cut and paste, it's an interesting article about working with whale heads in Massachusetts.
Seems like a light whale head is around 500 pounds, some over 1000 pounds, though the picture on the site shows a more manageable whale head.
I'm thinking what they got was a dolphin head. So still mammally but also still the story seems fishy.
Kennedys aren't exactly known for their telling things like they actually happened.
Have you ever seen an adult whale? I can't imagine how much effort it takes to get whale parts shipped from beach to house, never mind chainsaw one.
It won't help RFK with touchy Gaia drones, but then what on Earth would? In an era of threatened war with the Russians and Chinese, "climate change" has to take a hard backseat.
Why the obsession with what their opponents put on their car roofs?
This and the dead bear story just make him more interesting.
The sleazebag grifters of the "media" must have binders full of smears set aside just in case.
Meanwhile it's all hope, and joy, and forward Comrades!
Empty pantsuit Harris playing interview dodge ball and never being held to account for her previous stances. Nor for her price control and housing policies straight out of Venezuela.
I
If only Oregon State Highway division knew to saw the head off with a chainsaw... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6CLumsir34
People with a sense of fun and whimsy do head scratching things from time to time. One would think a "Party of Joy" would understand that, instead of squandering all their energy on how they can call people they don't like "weird."
Falconry enthusiast, dropping off a dead bear in Central Park, and now this! Everything I learn about this guy just makes him sound cooler.
Gather all the Kennedys at their Hyannis Port compound and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Motto of the Democrats: You Can't Do That!
PS: Freedom.
Kick Kennedy was JFK's sister, and married the Marquess Hartington. She was killed in a European plane crash.
it wasn't controversial then, we do seem to be amusing ourselves to death,
We have a government that rigged the 2020 election by censoring information they knew to be true, an economy in shambles, runaway debt, war in Europe and the Middle East, a sitting president forced to drop out of the race, a national media attempting to put an unelected presidential candidate that can't even do a simple press conference into the Oval Office, and this is the type of bullshit they're pushing on us.
We get what we deserve.
i'm reminded of Puzo's attempt at political fiction, the fourth kennedy, which had hagiographic elements, he was a dynast with the ruthlessness of michael Corleone, it was very cringy
Kathleen Kennedy Cavendish. Married the heir of the arch-Protestant Duke of Devonshire during the war against her family's wishes. He was killed soon after. Later, she took up with an arrogant married man who insisted they fly in bad weather.
you expect bezos etch a sketch to have any redeeming character it does not, now Leonard Downie, a long time editor under the Graham era, wrote a sort of a roman a clef, memory escapes me, where there was a corrupt character like the current candidate,
Rich kid shit.
It's stories like these that make Junior seem normal. Old school normal like Ed Ricketts and John Steinbeck
Up in New Hampshire they call Massachusetts folks "Massholes". What is it about Massholes like Romney and RFK Jr. toting animals or parts of animals around on the top of their cars. At least that whale head did not bark.
Wind turbines over blue fields with red smudges.
If he drove fast enough, the whale juice should have gone off the back. Minivans didn't have roll down windows behind the front doors back then. I think she embellished the story.
Disestablishmentarianism... finding your religion with Pro-Choice. Not novel.
I think JFK's younger sister Kathleen was called Kick.
That's what's so stupid about the whole thing. I can guarantee you that the local municipality was out there later that day chainsawing the rest of the carcass apart and clearinging it off the beach.
This is odd behaviour, mostly for the long drive with it on the roof - but it doesn't bother me.
But the dead bear cub story lost whatever respect I had for RFK jr. Great if he was going to harvest it, if true, but he claims he got sidetracked meeting some friends at an expensive steakhouse. They all end up doing a juvenile prank, making it look like the bear cub was killed in a bike accident in Central Park. He mentioned that his friends were drunk but he was sober, as that some how mitigants his responsibilty. What bothers me is the lack of respect he has for the dead bear cub, either harvest it or dispose of it properly, and and the fun he gets at baffling the working people who have to clean up his mess. I could understand this rich kid antics if done in college, but this was when he was well into adulthood.
its a DEAD whale. So, we're supposed to respect the whale remains and give it a funeral - complete with clergy and flowers? It just would've remained there on the beach, rotting away. RFK actually helped whoever would've been tasked with cleaning up the Beach. Assuming anyone was.
Romney put his dog on top his car roof! His FAMILY dog. It wasn't dead. What kind of Pyscho would do that. No wonder Mittens loves war, and chortles over Russians dying in Ukraine. He's a wimp, and like many wimps is a coward and a bully.
It holds no attraction to me, but plenty of men/boys like to collect skeletons. I guess its more exciting then collecting stamps or rocks.
He's got a hundred pieces of baggage, but this ain't one of them. This story only serves to make him more interesting. Unlike Kavanaugh, they wouldn't have to research his high school yearbook to find damning stuff. They're coming for him with the long knives, but they're still reluctant to draw blood. It's very difficult for someone in the media to damn a Kennedy. It's like asking a Jesuit to rape a nun.
Gotta remember that.
Gotta remember that.
How is repeating this story a "smear" or "hit job"? You know what is a hit job, claiming Kamala Harris only got where she is by sleeping with Willie Brown.
It was most likely a pilot whales, adults range from 15 to 25 feet.
I had to look up the word pusillanimous. Thank you for that. About 35 years ago I was walking through the woods bird hunting in late fall in northern Wisconsin, and I found a dead snowy owl. It was freshly dead with know visible wound I could find. I stretched out it's wings and it had an enormous wingspan. It was so beautiful, and my immediate thought was to get it taxidermied and given to a nature center. But being pusillanimous I left it in the woods to rot, not wanting to get caught carrying a dead owl and my shotgun. Cure
Freder, I think what you a call a hit job regarding Kommie is more accurately called a "blow job."
but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us
Holy carp!
I’m not sure this is going to help to make them look more normal and less weird… a 70 year old guy with a brain parasite who drives around with a whale head on top of his vehicle.
The oil from that whale's head was true "green energy." Oil for the lamps of Hyannis!
"Roadkill" is an acquired taste. The doctor's office used to have the New Yorker in the waiting room. The only thing I could understand was the cartoons. The first time I read a story it was a piece by John McPhee about a woman who went around Georgia collecting dead animals from the roads. It grossed me out then and still does.
If you turn on the left, you will be punished. This is a lesson to others as well.
So, RFKJr's shenanigans with an already dead bear and whale are dreadful and shocking to the Democrats, but his uncle Ted's shenanigans with a live girl, ending up with a dead girl were never a BFD? Do I have that right?
My favorite Lily Tomlin quote is getting a lot of work lately: "No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up."
First of all, I want to say, Kick Kennedy is a cool name. We did not know that random verbs were available to us as options while naming our children.
How many stories like this does this family have…Infinity? These poor kids and all of the different stories.
To even think of chainsawing off the head of a whale…. I just think that in terms of how hard I've laughed, I liked watching the video of him tell the bear cub story to Roseanne is maybe the hardest I've laughed all election cycle. I was literally crying laughing. So there's so many holes in the story. And there’s still 70 days to go yet… 🍿🍿
I suppose it falls to me to remind the forgetful that the Kennedys are gonna Kennedy.
Know a person who has dead animal heads and dead fish on the walls of his living room, study, and recreation room. That is weird!
But frankly, he could have strapped fillets of blubber, even the whole whale to the car roof. Would not have changed my opinion of his stated government policy positions - most, but not all, of which I agree with.
Who cares? It doesn't make him any more or less of a kook. I wouldn't vote for him if he was running for dogcatcher. But if it helps Trump win then I'm OK with it. Hopefully Trump won't take any policy advice from him.
Did he shower with a daughter?
Home is where the heart is. Head is where the skull is.
Again America Hating Freder with the Lefty Lies. No one is saying seriously that Communist Kammalalala "only" got where she is by sucking Willie's willy. What is being said - and is true - is she got her start by sucking Willie's willy and he continued to help her by using his money and power. She was the ultimate friend who got long term benefits.
In Alaska, along highways, you see signs indicating wildlife zones. Those are for subsistence folks who join a roadkill list. If a moose or other large animal gets hit and killed by a car, the next name on the list has an hour to respond and the carcass is his.
Assuming the whale was dead when he cut it up with a chainsaw, what's the problem?
It makes me like him more.
This and the story of leaving a dead bear in central park, staged to look like it was killed by a bicyclist.
Oh, yeah. President trump, the Republicans and magistas need to embrace the wierd.
"you think that's weird, tampon Timmy? Hold my beer and watch THIS!"
MAWA!
John Henry
The original Kick Kennedy (JFK’s sister) married outside the faith. Neither parent was at the wedding. Her first husband died in WW2. She remarried, again outside the Catholic Church and to a man who was married when she met him. Neither parent came to the wedding. 4 months later she and her husband died in a plane crash. No Kennedy attended her funeral.
I thought the Dems were running on "Mind your own business." Well if I want to strap a whale head to the top of my car, I'm going to strap a damn whale head to the top of my car. Mind your own damn business.
This one is also named Kathleen, but uses the family nickname of Kick.
Ride, re the snake in church story
Ray Steven's beat you to it, albeit with a squirrel in "The First Self-righteous Church of Pascagoula. https://youtu.be/K16fG1sDagU?si=CxQSUG7avZ62LoUM
Later he ad his wife went to a church retreat involving rattlesnakes https://youtu.be/ffwc73mYzT8?si=rN29-qf75BVgJnb2
Althouse said…
Personally, I'd keep the car windows rolled up if it were raining whale juice.
Mountain Dew or Whale Juice?
https://www.facebook.com/rockbottomsimpsons/videos/1533768173347994/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v
Its fun watching you continue on pretending you actually believe the things you write when its clear its all performative art intended to distract from the horrific tandem your New Soviet Democraticals have installed!
I suppose there are some lefty little brains somewhere that buy into your schtick, but that's a very limited set of people....and I mean "limited" in several ways, naturally.
Why does anyone care what he did with a dead whale?
I read Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women they Destroyed by Maureen Callahan (recommended by Wendy Bar here on this blog). It’s very depressing and the Kennedy women were (maybe are) as ruthless as the men. That lobotomy everyone mentions? It’s probably the nicest thing one Kennedy did for another.
There was a comment on X about RFKjr keeping a journal and sleeping with 37 different women one year, and asking how evangelicals could vote for him?
Funny how the DNC press kept this quiet until now.
Junior's aunt Kathleen was Joe McCarthy's Goddaughter.
Grampa Joe was a huge McCarthy friend, fan and supporter.
Not a problem for me. I'm still waiting for so. Eone to tell me what McCarthy did wrong.
John Henry
Junior's aunt Kathleen was Joe McCarthy's Goddaughter.
Grampa Joe was a huge McCarthy friend, fan and supporter.
Not a problem for me. I'm still waiting for so. Eone to tell me what McCarthy did wrong.
John Henry
I read earlier that RFK Jr was somehow responsible for the tragic deaths of Fred Noonan and Amelia Earhart.
It was on X sot it must be true.
John Henry
I read earlier that RFK Jr was somehow responsible for the tragic deaths of Fred Noonan and Amelia Earhart.
It was on X sot it must be true.
John Henry
Calling her a communist is a smear, as is deliberately misspelling or mispronouncing her name. I guess that makes you an America hater too.
It's whaleshit.
Even lower than bullshit.
MAWA
This reminds me: since "weird" has been the province of über-lefties until just now, can I, as a good (if not native, though I did have a ovaries to ensure that two of my children are indeed native) Texan, hope that in this election cycle, we can "Make Austin weird" instead of "keeping Austin weird"?
Neither is a church boy. A church boy strives to improve his moral character guided by religion (i.e. behavioral protocol or model). Good luck... to us.
So calling her a communist, aka telling the truth, is a smear. Got it. No criticism allowed of dot Indian and slaveholder descended people masquerading as true American blacks allowed.
Cry more. After Calling Trump and his supporters Racists and Nazi's for the last 8 years, sit down if you are upset about poor little DEI Kamala getting called a name. Boo freaking hoo.
What is the problem? It was dead. People transport dead animals all the time and some even hang them in their house.
I am beginning to like him.
It just has me wondering. When I was little, we had a Buick station wagon that still had the 'new' smell when a bottle of milk busted, and 1/2 gallon of milk soaked into the carpet in the back seat. My mom frantically tried to clean it all up at home, soaked and shampooed the carpet, all that. To no avail - the car stunk of sour milk from that point onward, and it was strong. Even after about 10 years, it was still smelly.
So: What the heck happened to that poor minivan, with all the whale juice that streamed in? I imagine, after a few days in the hot sun, it must have taken on quite a quality of character, inside. I suppose it would get to the point where you could leave the keys in it, and still nobody would steal the thing.
“ "Roadkill" is an acquired taste”
Not always. Brother of my ex wife was a NJ state trooper, who spent most of his career in rural NJ, where he had grown up. One of their jobs was picking up road kill. If it wasn’t too bad, he made it into sausage. Everyone loved it.
One of his stories was partnering with a big black dude from the city. Guy put on gloves to do his part throwing a deer into the trunk of their vehicle. Then, after the guy took off his glove, BIL shook his hand for a job well done. Then realized that BIL hadn’t worn gloves. The rural NJ state troopers thought it hilarious.
It wasn’t all dirty work like that. Sometimes, during graveyard shift, in the middle of the week, on the Atlantic City Expressway, the guy riding shotgun would roll his window down, and unload a magazine at a deer. “At” is the operant word here because they were rarely accurate enough to do damage. And if they were so lucky, the road kill (after all, it was killed by the road) would be fresh enough to eat as venison. Win-win.
Actually, under the Marine Mammals Protection Act (16 U.S.C. 1361-1407), it is illegal "to transport, purchase, sell, or offer to purchase or sell any marine mammal or marine mammal product" ( CFR Title 50, Part 18, Section 18.13(c)).
As a supposed "environmental lawyer", RFK Jr. should know this. Heck, even Althouse knows it is illegal to possess parts of endangered species.
Kamala Harris is not a communist. Where and when has she called for land reform or nationalizing industries (or turning over the ownership of companies to employees rather than investors).
You apparently don't know what a communist is, so you probably shouldn't accuse people of being one.
Calling someone a "dot Indian" is a racial slur, right up there with "towel head" and "sand n-word"
Jack Smith has been notified.
Calling her a communist is a smear, as is deliberately misspelling or mispronouncing her name. I guess that makes you an America hater too.
Ooh, Freder. Such a high moral ground that you slide on, depending on the party.
But, you were always a loyal Party guy.
RFK Jr. is not unlike the soldier who mutilates enemy corpses or takes body-parts as trophies in war.
Dynasts are even more despicable than thespians, aren't they
Dynasts are even more despicable than thespians, aren't they
"Kamala Harris is not a communist. Where and when has she called for land reform or nationalizing industries (or turning over the ownership of companies to employees rather than investors)."
Not exactly, no. But Obama screwed stockholders and gave auto unions first crack at the money (by law stockholders have first rights), so pretty close to your second point. And Harris already promoted price controls which is a step towards government control of industry. And look at her young college supporters. So Kommie Kamala isn't that far off the mark imo.
Make that Kommie Kamala Kamelion for good measure.
But Obama screwed stockholders and gave auto unions first crack at the money (by law stockholders have first rights), so pretty close to your second point.
First of all, Obama and Harris are two entirely different people. Even if they are interchangeable, it is nowhere close to my second point.
And Harris already promoted price controls which is a step towards government control of industry.
You know who else promoted, and actually instituted, price controls? Are you calling Richard Nixon a communist?
There was a comment on X about RFKjr keeping a journal and sleeping with 37 different women one year, and asking how evangelicals could vote for him?
Did anybody respond by saying RFK, Jr. isn't on the ticket? Therefore the evangelicals won't be voting for him in any case?
You couldn't be more tedious if you tried, Freder.
if fish can have head why not whale?
now is State Fair time around the country?
Hillbilly Chainsaw demonstration with JDV and RFK should be a draw!
and pass the hat around!
It appears somebody has struck a nerve.
Really?! Providing factual information when no one else seems to know that what he did was illegal (assuming it was after 1990, and considering Kathleen was born in 1988, it is a reasonable assumption) is "tedious"?
I am often criticized (unfairly) for not providing links.
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
Being curious enough to take an animal head home to study seems good. And I am in no way a fan of RFK.
are all nuns equal in eyes of Jesuit?
nuns are found in the Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, and Anglican and some Presbyterian traditions, as well as other Christian denominations
Back in grad school at Oregon State, one of my fellow oceanography students complained that his major professor made him euthanize stranded whales with a chainsaw. A bullet just won't penetrate deep enough.
Freder Frederson said...
“Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”
I have no dog in this fight. But I think you meant to say “Fuck you and the whale you rode in on.”
Because we saw it fail under nixon and carter but lets keep pretending
Freder has become "Karen" and we didn't notice.
Obligatory Monty Python link: The Lumberjack Song
I would feel a lot better about the Kennedy Klan if I knew they were singing Roly Poly Fish Heads whilst tooling along in their Chevrolet with the leaky whale on top.
Leaky whale on top is not a description of sex with a late model Teddy K.
But it could be.
This story changes nothing as far as I'm concerned. Even when young and liberal, I wasn't part of the Kennedy Kult.
Reference for you youngsters.
I invite all my Althouse friends to listen for a few minutes.
“Nuke the Whale” is the name of a band. They have a Facebook page. And one video on their YouTube channel.
We talk about Fishheads, and Fishtails. So why not a Whale head. Imagined conversation:
RFK Friend - Now that we got this whale head, what about the other one?
RFK: The other one?
RFK Friend: Yeah, from that Whale over there.
RFK: That's no whale, thats Uncle Ted.
Here's the Moby Dick chapter, CHAPTER 70. The Sphynx:
"It should not have been omitted that previous to completely stripping the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded. Now, the beheading of the Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon which experienced whale surgeons very much pride themselves: and not without reason. Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a neck; on the contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in that very place, is the thickest part of him. Remember, also, that the surgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening between him and his subject, and that subject almost hidden in a discoloured, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear in mind, too, that under these untoward circumstances he has to cut many feet deep in the flesh; and in that subterraneous manner, without so much as getting one single peep into the ever-contracting gash thus made, he must skilfully steer clear of all adjacent, interdicted parts, and exactly divide the spine at a critical point hard by its insertion into the skull. Do you not marvel, then, at Stubb’s boast, that he demanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm whale?"
"When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a cable till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small whale it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with a full grown leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm whale’s head embraces nearly one third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend such a burden as that, even by the immense tackles of a whaler, this were as vain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers’ scales.
The Pequod’s whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the head was hoisted against the ship’s side—about half way out of the sea, so that it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native element. And there with the strained craft steeply leaning over to it, by reason of the enormous downward drag from the lower mast-head, and every yard-arm on that side projecting like a crane over the waves; there, that blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod’s waist like the giant Holofernes’s from the girdle of Judith.
When this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went below to their dinner. Silence reigned over the before tumultuous but now deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea.
A short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab alone from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he paused to gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains he took Stubb’s long spade—still remaining there after the whale’s decapitation—and striking it into the lower part of the half-suspended mass, placed its other end crutch-wise under one arm, and so stood leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head.
It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed—while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”
“Sail ho!” cried a triumphant voice from the main-mast-head.
“Aye? Well, now, that’s cheering,” cried Ahab, suddenly erecting himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow. “That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better man.—Where away?”
“Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her breeze to us!
“Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along that way, and to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! not the smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind.”"
Well, sure, except for the part that the whale isn't human, lives in the water, was not a war casualty, and wasn't wearing a uniform or holding a weapon. But aside from that sure - exactly the same, or almost similar.
I followed until the last sentence. Maybe that's why I never got very far into it.
- This passage in Moby-Dick is a paraphrase of Swedenborg†:
It has been given me to know from much experience, that in the natural world, and in its three kingdoms‡, there is not the smallest thing which does not represent something in the spiritual world, or which has not something there to which it corresponds."
You must mean his older sister, Kathleen K. Townsend. McCarthy was a teen when his aunt was born.
All these comments and no one has wrote, "Is anyone here a marine biologist?" Disappointed
A machete won't hack it. A scalpel won't slice it. A bullet would cause a headache, maybe. So, compassionate care?
“He was killed soon after”
Hitman, cyanide or traffic accident?
No one should have to deal with that size of an oil spill. We’re talking just this side of Exxon Valdez, for cryin’ out loud.
Perhaps he heard that whale heads can contain spermaceti, which is highly valued by perfume makers and -- when found -- normally sells for a lot of money. The whale whose head RFKJr severed probably was not a sperm whale and therefore would not have contained spermaceti, but he might not have realized that.
That's different to ambergris, isn't it?
If only Elon haad flamethrower aimed at all that blubber!
Ann Althouse said...
“…Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a neck…”
I briefly worked for a “night club” owner who was built like that.
The only Blue Husqvarnas I know of were the 1981 XCs. I had an XC 250 of that vintage.
Well, he's lost my vote.
Oh, we won't go to war with either. We'll abandon the Ukraine, and kowtow to China if they go after Taiwan and seriously try to grab islands in the South China Sea.
Walz is a China Fanboy, and if he gets into the VP office we may be looking at a lot of 'ideas' that China's already been pushing for their people like Social Credit scores and the like.
Considering the clan, that's pretty much a bonus instead of a liability.
Now lets all cry about all the whales and dolphins the Progressives have killed this year alone with their ocean wind mills.
It would take weeks to render him.
Hey, Freder. If it walks like a duck............
On my drive to NIU I drove by a windmill farm that were not only not turning, but one had a broken blade. What a monumental waste of money.
https://youtu.be/uEvOU2HKhzw?si=psYVOw8eSNwZ-AqL
I don’t want a former heroin addict conspiracy theorist whose wife committed suicide after finding his diary detailing sexual encounters with 37 different women to be in charge of mental health in this country. But that’s what will happen in a Trump Administration.
Freder, thank you for the link. If you scrolled down a little further you would note that for the purposes of that law, "marine mammal" is defined in a table which does not include whales. I think you wanted 50 CFR part 216
(https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-50/part-216) which deals with whales and dolphins.
As far as I can tell, there is no statute of limitations on this, although it does not apply to cetaceans taken before Dec 21, 1972. (I haven't read enough to know when Kennedy ostensibly went all Texas Chainsaw on the deceased cetacean.)
Then again, I'd love to see the fascists of the Deep State try to prosecute, as the only actual evidence of this alleged crime would be the testimony of the participants who would most likely plead the 5th.
Rich would much rather have a pedo who showered with his young daughter and cheated on his wife with the baby sitter running the country. Which is what we had until he was pushed aside by a woman who is where she is today only because she sucked Willie's willy.
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