Editorial: Rolling up our regional sleeves
Island leaders gathered last week on the same night in two meetings, each held for a different purpose in a separate location, but linked in significant ways, not the least of which is the need for a...
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Op-Ed: It’s time to bag the plastic
We’ve all used them. If you are anything like me, you might have an unruly kitchen drawer, frustrating all attempts at properly closing, from which glimpses of plastic handles protrude. Or maybe it’s a...
View ArticleEditorial: Good job all around
We can understand breathless news reports when snow buries Washington, D.C., a city far more familiar with snow jobs of a different variety than piles of the white stuff. But the appearance of snow in...
View ArticleEssay: IGI helps to engineer a regional slaughter solution for Island farmers
At the Island Grown Initiative (IGI) annual Farmer’s Dinner in 2007, Island farmers and food producers asked IGI to help them develop local, safe, and humane slaughter options for their animals. In the...
View ArticleEditorial: What are we to make of it?
We report with cautious optimism this week that the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) says it plans to complete the unfinished community center that teams of Air Force reservists from Oklahoma and...
View ArticleEditorial: A boorish lesson
Saturday night, a group of several Coyle and Cassidy hockey fans watched their team take on the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) in a hard-fought match that ended with the embarrassing...
View ArticleEditorial: West Tisbury selectmen have an option
We find plenty of reason but not much rhyme in the manner in which two separate solar array projects are moving through the Island’s permitting pipeline. The Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC) will...
View ArticleEditorial: Vote Tuesday
Over the next eight months we’ll endorse a candidate for president on this page, but as a community newspaper, national party primaries usually escape our attention. Our emotional and intellectual...
View ArticleEditorial: Blue ocean, blue economy
It’s probably just a coincidence, but an emerging discussion about Martha’s Vineyard’s “blue economy” and a compelling approach to disruptive business and policy planning known as “blue ocean strategy”...
View ArticleEditorial: Wash-ashore nation
At the annual Class Night celebration this coming June, in excess of $1.3 million in scholarships is expected to be awarded to Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School seniors graduating the next...
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Essay: I don’t party for St. Patrick
Every day, I’m reminded of where I was born. I see my birthplace as a tree — my roots and foundation and the branches that shape who I am. These reminders come with a soft mist, a cup of tea, a tune,...
View ArticleEditorial: Bag ban heresy in Oak Bluffs
Last week, after listening to the concerns of local business leaders, the Oak Bluffs board of selectmen voted unanimously, 5-0, to withdraw from the annual town meeting warrant voters will take up on...
View ArticleAn appreciation: David Ogden Douglas (1941-2016)
He was my brother and best friend for over 65 years. You’ve heard the phrase “quality time,” well that’s what David and I had for three weeks in February in his beautiful new home in Ocala, Fla. We...
View ArticleEditorial: Contented voters
The political pundits and the national media tell us that the voters are an angry lot. They back that notion up with polls and trot out studio focus groups so that voters — Democrats, Republicans,...
View ArticleEditorial: Solar promise
The average Martha’s Vineyard resident pays attention to electricity when the power goes out or when the monthly bill arrives. For many, the specific source of the energy that powers their computers,...
View ArticleOp-Ed: We reap what we sow
After a period of relatively moderate growth between 2007 and 2012, the tax levy for the Town of West Tisbury has risen steadily and dramatically over the past four years: 5.5 percent in 2013 3.1...
View ArticleEssay: Strike up town meeting
We know the dates. We’ve known them for months. Nevertheless, the orchestrating of an annual town meeting with the deadline fixed and steadily marching closer is daunting, stressful, and sometimes...
View ArticleEditorial: You hold the reins
On Tuesday, it is a safe bet that one out of every 10 taxpayers in Tisbury, Oak Bluffs, Edgartown, and West Tisbury will decide how to spend money that belongs to the other nine. Conceptually, that may...
View ArticleEditorial: Time to make a difference
As the vacation economy heats up, the reality of providing housing on Martha’s Vineyard for those who form the bedrock of our community, never easy under the best of circumstances, is becoming harsher....
View ArticleEssay: Happy memories of Passover
So many happy memories of Passover when I was growing up: My cousin Dick and his wife, Dorothy, made the perfect Seders of my childhood. We would drive from Ridgefield to Bridgeport to join my cousins...
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