Commentary
MCAS Scores: What Lies Beneath
Examining the results of the annual statewide standardized school exams can be like being a kid again and looking under a big rock in the woods. We all recall that sense of discovery, turning over something that from above appeared a lifeless shape of stone and finding that it sheltered teeming activity of all kinds. Suddenly there was much more to study.
Saltwater Heroes
The idea came from an eight-year-old Chilmark boy. Three years ago young Jack Nixon was reading journalist David Kinney’s book The Big One, the hot new fishing read of the summer that year about the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby. As Jack was reading, he gazed at a newspaper nearby and had a sudden thought: He wished that some of the men who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan could fish the derby.
BROADER VISION
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
Perhaps the best aspect of living in Aquin nah is that my neighborhood is under the beacon of the lighthouse. There is a constant peace and calmness just watching the beams of the light day and night. The lighthouse beams across our neighborhood in silence throughout the night and dances around during the day.
Oxen Free
From Gazette editions of 1964:
The Gazette has recently carried the report of the sale of the last pair of oxen on the Island by their owner, Granville Belain of Gay Head. They were not old cattle or particularly heavy animals, and the article quoted Mr. Belain as saying that they had become too frisky for him to handle.
Tornadoes, an earthquake, the edge of a hurricane — all in Massachusetts, all in one summer. This is unusual, as are the record number of recent floods, droughts and storms across the planet. The natural world is in a climate change flux and even the lush, green foundation beneath our sandy feet is shifting — invasive species are quickly and quietly changing the local landscape.