At the very heart of the education mystery
What matter most are good teachers, not school committee members, administrators, iPads, the latest digital learning software, the size of the class, and not even the amount of money spent per student in any school system.
More of the same is the SSA strategy
As of the end of September, three-quarters of the way through the Steamship Authority's year, passenger volumes declined, compared to 2010, by 1.
Finding a way out of the regulatory morass
The Martha's Vineyard Commission (MVC) made the right call this summer when it chose not to review the Goodale Construction Company's mining and manufacturing operation as a development of regional impact.
Charity navigating
Heather, one of our young patrons at the Edgartown library, approached me last week to say she was raising money for her school band's trip, and could I help? When I said yes, she led me to a table and pulled a fat envelope from her backpack.
Exploitation? Let me count the ways
The immigrant who enters the United States without benefit of the required visa and lives and works here illegally exploits us all – breaking the law, flooding the courts, taking the job, taking the services, taking the benefits, but not contributing his share to life in America.
It’s not a matter of safety. It’s about flow.
Criticism of the plan for a roundabout at what was the Blinker intersection on the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road continues.
Compromising from strength, when compromise is not required
The reason that Chappaquiddick residents (and Islanders elsewhere whose houses and businesses are not proximate to main roads where cable lines travel) don't have cable access is that the six-town negotiating committee that is trying to make a deal with Comcast has no leverage.
A trip we all should take, each in his own way
Two of the children have driven back and forth across the country.
To swim or not? More information could help us decide
Islanders and their guests must be forgiven for their bewilderment over the intermittent beach closings that impinged on summer enjoyment of Martha's Vineyard beaches and ponds.
A week in the life
When one's filled this space weekly for nearly 12 years, as I have, revisiting columns written long ago can be deflating.
For Oak Bluffs and its selectmen, a hurdle to overcome
The Oak Bluffs finance and advisory committee has done its job, recommending on Thursday last week nearly a quarter of a million dollars in cuts to the town's fiscal 2012 budget.
Are we doing our big job well?
Before the Internet, pre-Yelp, pre-Jason Blair, pre-Dan Rather's downfall, pre-HuffPo, pre-Hannity, pre-Palin, pre-Facebook and Twitter, John L.
Once more, leadership fails emergency information management test
The Code Red alert system, a county-wide venture on Martha's Vineyard, is a promising vehicle for getting important information to Islanders.
Pre-Irene uncertainty and an old saw
Google is the master of algorithms and answers, so I Googled, If I spend Saturday taking care of the boat, will my beloved take care of the garden gnome and the flamingo? (Flamingos can become missiles in hurricane force wind.
Re-entry isn’t easy, although another Vineyard summer will come
Almost every day since I've been back from the Vineyard, I've walked my dogs around Fresh Pond, the local reservoir in Cambridge, a city of 100,000.
Traffic and tuition
Labor Day, each year, concludes the season when we're apt to grow most resentful of the Vineyard's summer people and begins the season when we should be most grateful for them.
A reasonable step in immigration policy
The Vineyard community, itself immigrant in nature, has benefited significantly from various immigrant populations over centuries, among them Azorean harpooners, English farmers and missionaries, Scandinavian fishermen, Irish and European summer workers, and now Brazilians.
Cosmic wobbling and the end of one of those summers
A president, Illumination, The Fair, fireworks, a hurricane, Labor Day, back to school, autumn equinox.
It’s a news story, and a surprise
We report this morning that, for nearly a year, Sheriff's Meadow Foundation (SMF) and a Chilmark couple have been trying to settle a boundary dispute.