Commentary
Story Misses the Mark
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
Regarding the recent Gazette article title: “Bikram Yoga Puts Sweat Over Spirituality in a Heated Workout:”
Wikipedia defines Spirituality as: “Matters of the Spirit.” The definition of Spirit is cited as: “Spirit, like soul, forms a natural part of a being: such people may identify spirit with mind, or with consciousness.”
CORMORANTS AND FAIR GAME
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
Perhaps Capt. Buddy Vanderhoop’s choice of words and his efforts to diminish the population of cormorants sound a bit callous to many, but he has pointed out a very real problem the Vineyard and many other seaside communities are facing. (You mention that 24 states allow measures to control their cormorant population. Needless to say, landlocked states with no waterways have no need for regulations, so this number is obviously misleading.)
Bird of Paradise
From Gazette editions of July, 1959:
CONTRADICTIONS
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
The following letter was sent to the Environmental Defense Fund:
I have just received a reminder to renew my membership in the Environmental Defense Fund. I have been a member for a number of years and have made donations from time to time. I admire EDF’s work and look forward to your continuing success.
On and off, for almost 50 years, my family and I have been returning to the Island for at least one month every summer. My first rental in 1962 — a ramshackle old sea captain’s cottage — is still there, isolated and sea-swept, not far from the Gay Head Light. I was 30 years old and recently divorced against my husband’s wishes; I had come to the Island with my four young children, little steps ages seven to three for a summer of healing. There have been many other rentals since then.
The anti-conservation comments made by fishing charter Capt. Buddy Vanderhoop in the July issue of Martha’s Vineyard Magazine about shooting cormorants are outrageous.
“They have no predators here — except me. It’s so much fun to shoot ’em!” Mr. Vanderhoop told the interviewer. Recounting shotgunning a large number of cormorants in 2003 on Wampanoag land, he continued: “Because it was done on tribal property, the state couldn’t prosecute me, but the tribe banned me from the herring creek for a year.”