News
President Obama and his wife Michelle will leave the Vineyard tonight, two days ahead of schedule, to attend the funeral of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in Boston.
Although the funeral mass, at which Mr. Obama will deliver a eulogy for his friend, mentor and ally, is on Saturday, the first couple will fly out the previous evening because of concerns about approaching bad weather.
Tropical Storm Danny is forecasted to affect the Island on Saturday.
The national media has descended, the Vineyard suddenly newsworthy with the arrival of a certain VIP: Very Important President. But a relaxing retreat leaves little room for groundbreaking news material, and colorful details become the preferred descriptors for the movement of the Obama family around the Island. The accounts pour in, in the form of press reports, dispatched intermittently throughout the day. President Obama is the star of the show, but the Vineyard provides a curious backdrop to those unfamiliar with our humble landscape and casual lifestyle.
Draft legislation backed by Gov. Deval Patrick has again placed the Vineyard front and center in the statewide push to build large-scale wind farms on land and at sea, sparking some concern here that the rush to adopt clean energy technologies could come at the expense of fishing grounds, scenic views and the Island’s unique powers to regulate development through the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.
During a brief swing through the Vineyard today, Gov. Deval Patrick will be the guest of honor at a groundbreaking ceremony for an affordable housing project in the heart of downtown Oak Bluffs.
Named Bradley Square, the project is planned for the site of the former Bradley Memorial Church, the first African American Church on the Island.
Currently unoccupied and run-down, the property was purchased by the Island Affordable Housing Fund two years ago, and was approved for redevelopment by the town and the Martha’s Vineyard Commission last year.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the senior Senator from Massachusetts whose broad vowels were synonymous with Boston and whose liberal legislative record towered over all others, died late Tuesday night at his home in Hyannisport after a 14-month battle with brain cancer. He was 77 and had served in the U.S. Senate for 46 years. And he had long been a familiar presence on the Vineyard, where he is both credited for the infamy of Chappaquiddick and for the pioneering federal land trust bill that ultimately led to the creation of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.
We are all the products of a series of accidents, really. Every human is a personification of chaos theory. As a butterfly flaps its wings and sets in train a hurricane, an act of generosity 50 years ago in Kenya gives America a President.
To explain. There were two American teachers, Helen Roberts and Elizabeth Mooney living in Nairobi in the late 1960s, and they had taken a shine to a bright young student. They wanted to foster his brilliance and they paid for him to fly to America to continue his education.
That Kenyan man was Barack Obama Sr.