Martha’s Vineyard lost a lot of sand from its beaches, a lot of limbs from its trees, and electricity for varying periods, but otherwise came through Hurricane Irene largely unscathed.

The exception was along the south shore, where erosion brought several homes disturbingly closer to the ocean. Chilmark building inspector Leonard Jason confirmed that one house has become precarious.

Hurricane Irene is expected to pass west of Martha’s Vineyard this weekend, but Islanders still should be prepared for a very strong storm with sustained winds of 80 to 90 miles an hour with higher gusts, heavy rain, a storm surge of as much as eight feet, and seas off the south shore of 25 to 35 feet by Sunday, weather forecasters warned.

The warning was contained in a conference call briefing to a gathering of Vineyard emergency planners yesterday by Bob Thompson of the National Weather Service.

Next month an overwhelming majority of members of the United Nations is expected to vote in favor of recognizing Palestine, including areas now occupied by Israel, as a sovereign state.

In Chilmark this week, a much smaller group of people searched for signs of hope in this latest development in the long Middle East standoff. They did not find many, for Israel, Palestine or the United States.

Since 1968, the black middle class in America has quadrupled, Henry Louis (Skip) Gates told a packed house at the Edgartown Whaling Church on Thursday evening.

But that was the only positive news in an otherwise bleak survey of the state of black education by a panel of experts convened by Professor Gates and the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.