Opinion
Although it can’t quite match the excitement of the Super Bowl for beating back the winter blues, mid-January also marks the beginning of budget hearings for West Tisbury and other Island towns. The discerning reader might ask, so what?
On Sunday afternoon, Occupy Wall Street-Martha’s Vineyard held its first general assembly at Howes House in West Tisbury. The purpose of the assembly was to refine ideas generated by a previous meeting at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center and introduce Islanders to the so-called circle process, which is designed to encourage “high quality listening and a safe supportive space for all of us to share ideas,” as Chris Riger explained it.
Speeding down the roadway of life, warning signs posted along the way give us an indication of what lies ahead. One signpost in particular lies so far ahead, way off over the horizon, that we hardly pay it any heed. But it’s moving up fast, this speed bump on the highway of life.
The next episode of that reality TV show known as The GOP Bumper-Car Presidential Campaign is this Saturday, Feb. 4 — the Nevada primary. So we have to ask: Is Nevada more like America?
They said Iowa was, but then it was too white. They said New Hampshire was, but then it was too Yankee. They said South Carolina was, but then it was too Southern. They said Florida was, but then it was too Hispanic — or too Jewish.
The swirl of news in Edgartown and Oak Bluffs this week around the two town wastewater treatment plants, both managed by superintendent Joseph Alosso, is a tale of two towns with strikingly different approaches to handling a problem.
Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway, a well-known boatbuilding operation on Beach Road in Vineyard Haven, has a new partner. Ross Gannon and Nat Benjamin have been running the boatyard since 1980 and together have built 50 wooden boats and a far-ranging reputation in preserving the heritage of wooden boat building.
Now, Brad Abbott, who has worked day to day in the shop for nearly two years, has joined with the two in running the business.