An extraordinary group of right whales — some 95 living specimens of the rarest of all large whale species — was feeding in the waters between Martha’s Vineyard and Block Island this week, while two mother and calf right whale pairs were spotted even closer to the Island.
On Saturday, federal scientists in the air saw one mother and calf pair just a mile or two off Oak Bluffs harbor, and on Tuesday, a distinct pair was spotted in Vineyard Sound.
A classroom assault in which a 16-year-old girl was struck in the head three times at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School last week led to assault and battery charges against an 18-year-old girl and her suspension from school.
Meanwhile, the family of the victim is considering legal action against the school.
Earth Day, that boisterous, mass and grass roots celebration of the planet and how we can stop smutching it, began 40 years ago with millions of college students protesting, some wearing gas masks to show their concern about pollution. Now, some young singles are hoping to meet their eco-other in Earth Day Speed Dating (“Are you looking for a randy recycler? Do you consider yourself a charismatic composter?”), in just one of thousands of events registered with the Earth Day Network.
As home mortgage foreclosure notices began appearing, then multiplying, in the Vineyard newspapers, John Pearson grew concerned. When the notices began to include names he knew, including people who volunteered with him at Big Brothers/Big Sisters, he convened a group to take action.
Calling it a “complete break” with the past, Island Affordable Housing Fund executive director T. Ewell Hopkins this week revealed sweeping changes for the organization, from enormous board turnover, to the abandonment of its gala summer fund-raising events, to a refusal to take on new debt or break ground on projects without substantial money in the bank.
While Disney saturates the media with ads for its Tim Burton extravaganza Alice in Wonderland, young Island thespians are sending Alice tumbling through a television screen instead of a looking glass, in a play about the absurdity of media-saturated consumer culture, called Alice in Americaland.
