It’s time to change the conversation around substance use on-Island
As we round the corner on a year of living with COVID, most of us are aware of the impacts of the pandemic on our lives — isolation, anxiety, boredom, depleted savings, depleted tolerance,...
In the weeds
We supported the concept of a combination of synthetic turf and natural grass fields in 2017. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. School officials, with the help of MV@Play,...
Comparing 1861 and 2021
An astonishing and eerie chain of events chillingly links the pre-Inauguration days of two presidents-elect: Abraham Lincoln in 1861 and Joe Biden this year. All Americans witnessed on national television the Jan. 6 violent...
Listen to the experts
At their past two meetings, members of the West Tisbury board of selectmen have spent a lot of time talking about a culvert on Tiah’s Cove Road that experts say needs to be replaced. That’s...
White privilege and me
I am of the belief the majority of white people in this country — who care, that is — believe they understand what white privilege is. The majority of us do not. There are many...
Is this our best shot?
We need to stop talking about the “rollout” of vaccines for COVID-19, at least in Massachusetts. Here, it’s been more of a head-scratching, snail’s pace crawl. How can it be that we live in a...
Civics lessons can save our republic
One of the crazy juxtapositions about the attack on the Capitol was the sight of insurrectionists slowly wandering through National Statuary Hall like fifth graders on a field trip, wide-eyed, taking photos and videos...
Coalition seeks to create housing bank
In 2005, one of our local papers ran a story: “The housing bank initiative has cleared its first major regional hurdle, now that all six towns have thrown their support behind the idea, which...
Hope with change
Today is the second day of the Biden-Harris administration. There hasn’t been a lot to be hopeful about since the Nov. 3 election, despite the commanding win by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris over...
Wrong move, Tisbury
We understand it’s been difficult for the Tisbury School Building Committee to attract parents and taxpayers to in-person meetings because of the ongoing pandemic — and Zoom meetings just haven’t filled the gap. But the idea...
The arc of time
The passage of time is a continuum, and it is relentless. After a year of the spread of a deadly disease, shootings of unarmed Black Americans, protests in major cities, wildfires in the West,...
Sign of the times
It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time — with the right message. As an unpublished author, I've written hundreds of thousands of words that nobody, except for a...
RIP, City Upon a Hill
Going back to Puritan New England, Americans have considered themselves the rightful beneficiaries of God’s grace. We entered into a contract with God — we do the right thing (maintain a just, democratic republic),...
I got vaccinated this week, and here is what I learned
As a volunteer nurse, I was fortunate to get vaccinated for COVID-19 this past week. I counted 17-plus healthcare workers directly involved in a safe and seamless process that was completed in 30 minutes....
Not for nothin’, but you heard it here first
President Trump saved his worst for last — hopefully — as he careens out the door in the next seven days. As White House staffers and administration bigwigs beeline for the exits and Trump’s social...
Capitol crimes
President Donald Trump should be removed from office, either by the 25th Amendment, impeachment, or resignation. He was already a destructive force to our republic long before Wednesday’s insurrection inside the U.S. Capitol, but...
A vision for 2021
Looking back at the previous year and looking ahead to the new year is nothing new, but this year it’s taken on a whole new dimension. The previous year has left a lot of us...
The year things changed
Leading up to Christmas in 2016, life — as the T-shirt says — was good. Though I was in between full-time jobs after taking a buyout from the Cape Cod Times, I’d landed an interesting gig...
The persistence of a paranoid style
A standard definition of paranoia is when a person experiences a deep, anxious fear of threats or conspiracies founded on delusion and irrationality. In a now-famous 1963 lecture at Oxford University, Columbia University historian...
Transparency matters
We’re all ready to purge ourselves of 2020 — the pandemic and the four years of lies coming from the Trump administration. And while we’re all looking toward better times and brighter days, if...