Tuesday, October 8, 2024
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Time to hit pause on high school fields 

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After following recent events regarding the High School fields controversy and the budget votes, it seems as if the general public is still left confused and in the dark. To begin with, although the...

Preserving the Island’s history

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Is it historic, or just old?  The answer isn’t always so clear when it comes to houses and other buildings on the Vineyard. Some are indisputably past their useful lives, and should be demolished for...

Forgiving student loans and the court

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Have you ever heard of a legal theory called the “major questions doctrine?” Most people, including lawyers and law students, have not.  It’s a made-up theory.  It was crafted five or six years ago after...

Book burning in the 21st century

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Seventy years ago, Ray Bradbury published his dystopian novel, “Fahrenheit 451,” depicting the duty of firemen to burn books regarded by the government as dangerous or subversive. Written during the beginning of the Cold...

A leaky Supreme Court

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Should an institution like the U.S. Supreme Court objectively investigate itself after wrongdoing is discovered? And why should we care about this? After the Politico website posted Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v....

At stake: Native American sovereignty

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With the nation’s attention focused on abortion, gun safety, and religious liberty, and more recently the lengthy struggle in the House of Representatives to choose a new speaker, one issue that may have escaped...

Just how bad are things for teachers?

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My wife and I had dinner in a Vineyard restaurant last week. Our waitress, a very pleasant young woman, appeared to be in her mid-20s. In a short conversation as we were finishing up,...

Equal rights, fair elections, and the court

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This past June, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority made a huge mark: It ended the constitutional right to abortion, restricted the states’ ability to enforce gun safety laws, narrowed the federal government’s authority to...

The court and the death penalty

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The Supreme Court, in the week of Nov. 13, declined to hear or halt the execution of four prisoners on death row in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama, respectively.This sets a record, allowing so...

Now comes the hard part

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Five years ago, the leaders of our town energy committees came together to establish an all-Island energy committee to address the climate crisis. Focused on joint projects and sharing of best practices in furthering...

Ending affirmative action?

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Like the debate over abortion rights, affirmative action in college admissions procedures is one of the most controversial political and cultural issues in the U.S. today. Most observers believe that the current super-majority of...

Will Martha’s Vineyard continue to ignore the future?

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One year ago, this newspaper published my photo essay on the sad condition of the Island’s neglected bike and pedestrian paths, most of which have continued to deteriorate without intervention. The piece was intended...

The court: Narrowing voting rights

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The bedrock principle of a democratic order is the right to vote. When election officials restrict an eligible citizen’s voting rights, they take the first steps toward authoritarian government. This is especially true when...

Transportation summit reports Island challenges and solutions 

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The recent Older Adult Transportation Summit (convened Tuesday, Sept. 20) shed a bright light on the challenges facing the Island's older adult drivers as they attempt to navigate the Island using alternate forms of...

Let’s keep things impersonal

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The adult and child walking in front of me were complete strangers, people I had never seen before. The man, who looked to be in his early 30s, was casually dressed. He was holding...

Ron DeSantis’s good fortune, Greg Abbott’s reversal

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“Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.”  –President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, address to the Daughters of the American Revolution, 1938   Two governors, Ron DeSantis...

SSA is performing ‘pretty well’

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I am here to give you an update on the Steamship Authority at the end of a very busy summer. Through August 2022, 11,406 trips, of 11,677 scheduled and available, operated on the Vineyard...

Should the United States have a new Constitution?

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The question posed in the title recently surfaced in the New York Times. A conservative House Republican from Texas, Jodey Arrington, introduced legislation directing the archivist of the U.S. to “tally applications for a...

Tackling the mental healthcare crisis

Founded in 1961, Martha’s Vineyard Community Services (MVCS) was one of America’s first rural Community Mental Health Centers (CMHC). The community mental health movement of the 1950s and 1960s had the dream that communities...

The postal service and abortion

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Most women seeking abortions today now go about self-medication by ordering two pills through the mail. According to the Guttmacher Institute, medication abortion is the chosen method for women to end a pregnancy in...