Editorials
Labor Day 2011
Summer comes to an end on Monday — although not strictly by the calendar. The official close of summer, the autumnal equinox, is still three weeks away.
Hurricane Watch
Will Irene, lumbering up the coast earlier this week, lose her gumption and shrink from landfall as Earl did last Labor day weekend? Or will she gain momentum and pack a wallop the way Bob did two decades ago? As we go to press, the first hurricane to threaten New England this season seemed likely to spare the Vineyard a major disaster. But despite big advances in hurricane tracking over the past 20 years, weather patterns remain just capricious enough to keep the skeptics among us skeptical and the planners preparing for the worst.
Summer White House 2011
Marine One touched down at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport yesterday afternoon just before six o’clock as the sun began to sink on a blue-sky August day, delivering President Obama for his third consecutive summer vacation.
I have mixed feelings about going to the Agricultural Fair. This has nothing to do with the fair itself, which at 150-years-old has aged exceptionally well, maintaining its links to the past without a hint of mustiness. It is very much a thing of the present and this weekend I will bring my children to the fair many times.
Editor’s Note: The following story was published in the Gazette in August 1961 on the occasion of the fair centennial.
BY JOSEPH CHASE ALLEN
Every time I see President Obama autographing a piece of legislation in the Oval Office, I’m in awe of how neat his desk looks. I mean, here’s the head of one of the most powerful countries in the world — as of last week, that is — and there’s nothing on his desk but a telephone and a notepaper dispenser. That’s from my limited perspective as a television viewer, of course. Maybe he also uses a blotter, one he can doodle on while carrying on delicate negotiations with, say, Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai.