Commentary
From a June, 1948 Gazette:
HELPING LISA BEN DAVID Scannell
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
The Devil’s Light, Richard North Patterson, Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., N.Y. 2011, 337 pages, hardcover, $26.
It could happen. It is not un thinkable. The detonation of a nuclear bomb on a major city by al Qaeda 10 years to the day after the Sept. 11, 2001 attack.
FLAG FIX
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
Let’s all give a big thank-you to whomever dredged up the so-called flag bylaw in Tisbury and indirectly brought it to our collective attention. Such faceless mischief-makers are rarely recognized for catalyzing unintended consequences.
In all the hubbub two questions go unanswered: Where is the value added, and how is the public served?
All winter, my venerable sailboat, Blue beard , has sat on her trailer in my Music street backyard. But as spring turns to summer, I have been sensing from the stirrings of the tarp that has kept her cozy on snowy days, that Bluebeard is longing to return to the water. Not that she controls the actions of the tarp. The wind does. But in my years of tending Bluebeard, I have learned a bit about her temperament — and mine.
Clam chowder, bay scallops, fried oysters. Wampum bracelets. Shellfish are the grand bounty of the soft, sparkling salt ponds that ring the Island shore. We’d be hard pressed to find a local cultural symbol more significant than the water-worn purple and white quahaug shell. Purple — the Island color.