Commentary
Vineyard residents have a unique op portunity next Thursday, July 28, to assess the state of civil liberties and justice in America as we approach the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
Two remarkable speakers — retiring federal judge Nancy Gertner, and national ACLU legal director Steve Shapiro — will discuss The Pursuit of Justice: Perspectives on Major Civil Liberties Issues from Two Sides of the Bench, as part of the ACLU of Massachusetts Roger Baldwin Summer Series at the Chilmark Community Center at 7 p.m.
Ometepe is as unlikely a place as you could ever imagine to catch a glimpse of the future. Although unique in the world, an island composed of two volcanoes in the midst of Nicaragua’s freshwater Lake Cocibolca, it is mostly a quiet backwater, both off the grid and the beaten path as well.
Some years back, my wife and I rented a tiny little cottage in Gay Head on Martha’s Vineyard. It was called the Binnacle. According to a story we heard, the Binnacle had been built with a keel for a foundation and a hurricane had floated it to where it was now, on the road from Lobsterville toward Red Beach.
Instead of moving it back to its original site, the Binnacle’s owner, Dorothy Scoville, had simply bought the lot where it had landed.
Stand here and there, old Vineyard homes,
All wrapped in deep content.
— Emma Mayhew Whiting
They’re painting all the houses white in Edgartown,
capping flat pickets to fences around resplendent lawns,
cut on a diagonal. The parade is just around the corner.
Sit at the spinning wheel in the keeping room, scrimshaw
on the mantel. The crane swings in the high fireplace
and the streets are filled with shouts for
Murky Waters
It’s been a delicious hot spell, the days sunny but not excessively so and the nights cool. Perfect Island weather. Perfect for summer. Perfect for swimming.
MONUMENTAL MOVE
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
Our selectmen have voted to move the little-known war memorial from its somewhat obscure site at the triangle across from Whiting’s Pond to the town hall. I feel this is such a great idea I have volunteered my time and equipment to make the move.