Obama’s Place in History, and Ours

A man with a keen sense of history will make history Tuesday when he takes the oath as the 44th president of these United States, a nation now confronting challenges of historic magnitude.

Stealth Lawsuit

When they made a conscious decision to stay quiet about the lawsuit against Ralph Packer and Tisbury Towing and Transportation last October, senior managers at the Steamship Authority may have forgotten for a moment that they work for a public agency. They didn’t hide the lawsuit, but they also didn’t say anything about it.

The apparent rationale was that by keeping things quiet they could negotiate with Mr. Packer and reach a quick settlement.

Holy Real Estate

Many Island churches were founded, built and filled to the rafters more than a hundred years ago, when mainline religion held a central place in contemporary affairs. The prevailing culture on the Vineyard these days centers on real estate. More people are interested in the rock (or sand) on which the church was built than in the church message itself, it seems.

Setting a New Agenda

At about this time last year the Cape Cod Times, our respected daily counterpart across the Sound, laid out an ambitious editorial agenda for the year ahead. It was well-written and thoughtful and the very idea of such a thing was at once impressive and daunting.

Headline Makers

Good news is in awfully short supply these days, as a scan of any daily newspaper confirms. People are starting to wonder — is there anything left but bad news?

To that end we perused the Gazette over the last year looking for good news, and happily found plenty of it. And so what follows is a sampler of good cheer to end the old year.

Christmas 2008