Families Helping Families

Recovery at a Snail’s Pace

The word economy — as in “the sluggish economy” — comes across as an abstraction. But an economy is made up of people, and the Island’s economy more than ever seems to be separating into two groups of people farther and farther apart.

Warding off the Chill

Tiny broccoli florets from the Farm Institute piled high in a bin and sold by the pound. Dark red romaine lettuce and huge heads of unblemished radicchio in shades of scarlet, cream and pale green from Morning Glory Farm. Soft white farmhouse feta from Mermaid Farm. Silky homemade cakes of goat-milk soap from Flat Point Farm.

Autumn Days

It was a flash of white foretelling the future, the fine white coating on the fields along State Road Wednesday morning. Kids in cars cried out, Is it a snow day? Not yet, thought their parents. The first killing frost came late this year; fall has been gentle and colorful and relatively peaceful, elections notwithstanding, and most of us are unwilling to let go quite yet.

Edgartown’s Too-High Horse

The six Island towns have long coexisted like members of a lively, diverse and sometimes scrappy family, each with its own character, personality and style, but with an unwritten inside rule: Never think you are better than someone else.

Lately Edgartown has begun to show signs of doing just that and it’s not wearing well with the other towns whose leaders are far too polite to say something about it.

Election Day 2010

How a prisoner is treated in the Island jail. How a wind power developer is greeted at the state house. How much sales tax you pay. These are only a few of the ways real individual human beings will be affected by decisions made in Tuesday’s election.