I've written a little bash script to make this just a little bit easier (and in one step). It's included below in the hopes others may find it useful.
#!/bin/bash[IMPORTAND NOTE: The "export" line must be entered as one line, not two; just replace the line break with a space...]
echo "Getting server..."
export SERVER=`whois $1 | grep -i whois\ server: |
awk '{print $3'}`
echo "Searching server: $SERVER"
whois -h $SERVER $1
Copy the above text to your clipboard (Command+C), then fire off Terminal.app to create the script. Start a pico session, as root, and create the script with sudo pico /usr/bin/mywhois. Use Command+V to paste the above text into pico, and save and exit. Now, just make the script executable, by entering sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/mywhois, and you're done!
Now when you run a mywhois macosxhints.com, for example, the first few lines will show:
Getting server...[Editor's note: I tested this an it ran just fine as is in my relatively standard tcsh shell environment.]
Searching server: whois.godaddy.com
The data contained in Go Daddy Software, Inc.'s WHOIS database,
while believed by the company to be reliable, is provided "as is"...

