A small but spirited group of fishermen met this week to discuss forming an advocacy organization.

The meeting was held Wednesday at the county administration building; 16 people attended. The idea of forming a formal fishermen’s association comes at a time when federal regulators are clamping down on fishing permits and a new bill has been filed in the state legislature to ban commercial fishing for striped bass.

Supper Lecture Series

Sail Martha’s Vineyard announces the second installment of the 2009 Black Dog Winter Supper Lecture Series on Feb. 11, 6 p.m. at the Black Dog Tavern. Dr. Kara Lavender Law, member of the Oceanography faculty and Chief Scientist at the Sea Education Association will make a presentation on the Effect of Plastic Debris in the Ocean and at SEA.

Dean’s List

Ryann Emin of Chilmark was named to the dean’s list for the fall 2008 semester at Bridgewater State College.

Vicious art as a warm-up for brutal sport? Super Sunday on the Vineyard offered exactly that.

John Holladay offers a wealth of art for the connoisseur. His Web site (Johnholladayart.com) brims with vivid watercolors, iconic posters, inviting paintings, stately lighthouses, as well as comfortable scenes like the Flying Horses, Alley’s store and the Camp Ground. His acrylics are bright and vivid. Way Too Much Stuff explores a Menemsha fishing scene, overburdened with gear.

Featherstone Center for the Arts will open a retrospective of Mr. Holladay’s work on Sunday, Feb. 8.

Cat in the Hat Is Back

Snoopy and Friends

The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School theatre arts students will perform the fabulously funny You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown in their winter musical which opens next week at the Performing Arts Center. The show opens Thursday, Feb. 12 and runs through Saturday, Feb. 14. Curtain times are 7 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, and 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturday. The show is double cast, so come twice. Tickets are $7 for students and seniors and $10 for adults.

Galen Films will present the Vineyard premiere of their new film Rescuing Emmanuel on Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 9 and 10 at the Capawock Theatre on Main street, Vineyard Haven. The event will benefit Media Voices for Children, a nonprofit web-based news agency and media resource library for children’s rights.

As old as the Odyssey, the story of a man trying to fight his way back home is at the core of Dusty Pas’cal’s body of songs.

The 32-year-old singer songwriter from upstate New York released his second album, More, this past February, and performs tonight at the Katharine Cornell Theatre.

A plane landed in New York city today. The pilot chose the Hudson River as his landing strip. He believes that birds flew into his engines, thus disabling his aircraft. There were 155 people on board this plane, including the crew.

As I write this piece at 9:49 p.m., the day of the crash, millions of people throughout the world have seen images of the plane miraculously afloat in the river with everybody escaping from this near tragedy alive and mostly without injury.