Sentence of the Week: The Dark Side of Moby Dick

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Image: Wikimedia CommonsImage: Wikimedia CommonsTwo sentences, actually. Researchers have found the remains of a ship captained by the real-life inspiration for Captain Ahab. Josh Rothman writes:

After the Essex sunk, Pollard and his men drifted around the Pacific for weeks, eventually resorting to cannibalism – Pollard ate his own cousin. Incredibly, he went back out to sea, only to have his second ship run afoul of a reef off the coast of Hawaii.

Whoops! The initial reacton here is to wonder, “Why did he go back to sea?” but when you think about it, it doesn’t seem like Pollard had much of a choice. Cannibalism may not have been expressly forbidden in 19th-century Nantucket, but it was certainly frowned upon. Under normal circumstances, one’s family might be the group that’s most likely to look past such an episode, except in this case Pollard had literally consumed his cousin (Worst. Lifetime movie. Ever). If not broached with a certain level of tact, that’s the type of thing that can really tear a family apart.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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