During the last hour of the 152nd Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Fair on Sunday, a drizzly rain began to patter the ground. The exhibit hall closed and the animals in the barn and fiber tent were loaded into their trailers. Someone played Taps on a bugle. But the midway remained open and active, and rides still zipped and zoomed, flashing their colorful lights. Fairgoers continued to roam the booth area, eating corn on the cob, burgers and cotton candy. The fair comes only once a year, after all, and it was only a little bit of rain.

Black Americans on average die four years before White Americans, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistic released last month. “When America gets a cold, poor black folk get pneumonia,” said Dr. David Williams, professor of public health at Harvard, in a panel discussion last week.

Politics are poisoned by bitter partisanship, economic disparities between whites and minorities are widening and trust between these groups seems to be eroding, complicating efforts to bridge America’s divisions. These were among the many observations by panelists at the annual Hutchins Forum Thursday evening in Edgartown.

Even President Obama turned ou

For two weekends in August Oak Bluffs goes dancing. The beating of drums begins around 7:30 p.m., beckoning people to the corner of Grove and Narragansett avenues. Inside Union Chapel dancers sway and stretch and leap, warming up to the drumbeats.