HONG KONG — The ballyhoo, glitz and glamour of the annual Oscars awards had many people in the world waiting with baited breath to see if they could make even a tangential claim to knowing one of the winners. Newspapers cleared their front pages if someone from their town, sometimes even their country, won an Oscar.
But there was a notable exception this year. One tiny town won an Oscar almost all to itself and went into an angry sulk about it. The town is Taiji, a mere speck of 3,500 people in Wakayama Prefecture, whose claim to fame — or infamy — is portrayed in the winning documentary entry, "The Cove."
Every year Taiji's fishermen make a huge din to disorientate and herd hundreds of dolphins into its bay, select a few of the fittest females to sell to aquariums around the world and then slaughter the rest, bloodily turning the sea red.