Paul Watson

The worst grade i ever got in a literature class was on a paper I wrote about "Moby Dick." The teacher's spin on the book was that it concerned a valiant man battling against inexorable and indifferent forces that had mutilated both his leg and his soul. Me, I was rooting for the whale. Some years later, I met Paul Watson. He, too, is rooting for the whale. And while he may be an inexorable force, he is not indifferent, and no one who encounters him is indifferent to him.

Kirkpatrick Sale referred to me and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in his Sept. 29 commentary on the Earth Liberation Front, "These Elves Are Up to More Than Mischief." He wrote that "ecotage," or eco-sabotage, began in this country in 1977 when I founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Sea Shepherd operates outside of the U.S. primarily, and the organization has undertaken only one action within the territory of the U.S., a completely legal opposition to illegal whaling by the Makah tribe in Washington state in 1998 and 1999.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, capitalizing on the tremendous success of their Animal Planet TV show, “ Whale Wars ,” has now taken on a new battle. With the Japanese fleet's Antarctic hunt finished for the season, the skull-and-crossbones crew have turned their attention on the Faroe Islands with a new show: “ Whale Wars: Viking Shores .” The second episode of “Viking Shores” airs Friday at 9 p.m. on Animal Planet, and the Faroese are fighting back in defense of their traditional whale hunting in unique fashion.

With his bushy white beard, stout figure and cargo pants, Captain Paul Watson looks more like a hard-edged seaman than the star of one of television's more popular reality shows. But at a busy restaurant in downtown Los Angeles this spring, the 59-year-old at the center of "Whale Wars" was being confronted by his new identity as a celebrity. After being seated, Watson was promptly greeted by a waiter, who presented him with a tray full of vegan hors d'oeuvres. "Compliments of the chef," the waiter said.

Body Bag No. 4 had a rectangular plastic window near the top. Through it, I could see a child's head, turned a little to the right, mouth slightly open. For some reason, when I saw the Kosovo Albanian boy's corpse on the floor of a morgue here, I thought of a space traveler, asleep in suspended animation, waiting to awake in a new world. His lips were pressed against the window, which looked fogged, as if he were still breathing. I imagined his mind somewhere far away, carried off in a dream.

Has your 4-year-old contribution to an anti-gay marriage law suddenly resurfaced on the Internet? Then you know exactly what Brendan Eich, co-founder of Mozilla, inventor of JavaScript, and general developer hero, is going through when it recently came to light that back in 2008, he made a $1,000 contribution to support Proposition 8 . The record of the donation has been available since at least 2008, but it was rediscovered by the...

Paul Watson is 25, an amateur soccer player from London, a freelance journalist and now, the youngest national soccer coach in the world. It's an impressive achievement until one realizes Watson is coaching perhaps the worst national team in the world, Pohnpei. Pohnpei, a tiny Pacific island with a population of 34,000, has never won a match. The closest it has come to victory was a 5-4 loss on penalties against rival island Yap. Despite a recent 16-1 thrashing by Guam, Watson and his friend Matthew Conrad believe they can turn the program around.

With a simple statement on Tuesday, State Farm Insurance became the latest company to withdraw its support from the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think-tank which claims a “realist” position questioning that humans are responsible for climate change. “State Farm is ending its association with the Heartland Institute. This is because of a recent billboard campaign launched by the Institute,” said the entirety of the statement, which ran on the State Farm Facebook page.

Wells Fargo named Executive Vice President Paul Watson as vice chairman in Los Angeles, where the bank expects to complete its $12.6-billion acquisition of First Interstate Bancorp in 10 days. . . . Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant Unilever said it has completed its acquisition of Chicago-based Helene Curtis Industries for $915 million. . . . Sherman Oaks-based Sunkist Growers is negotiating a licensing agreement to have Tampa, Fla.-based Lykes Pasco sell its juices nationwide.

Times staff writers Daren Briscoe, Bettina Boxall, Rich Connell, Cara Mia DiMassa, Robin Fields, Jessica Garrison, Megan Garvey, John Glionna, Christine Hanley, Kishan Putta, H.G. Reza, Nicholas Riccardi, Lee Romney, Tim Rutten, Beth Shuster, Doug Smith, Kurt Streeter, Rebecca Trounson and Paul Watson contributed to this report. * ON THE WEB: See video clips of the space shuttle Columbia and reports from NASA at www.latimes.com/shuttle.