It was déjà vu all over again for the boys’ soccer team Sunday as the team again found itself in a sudden death penalty kick shoot-out in the opening round of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association tournament.

Although the Vineyarders prevailed in the shoot-out against Dighton-Rehoboth, thanks to the efforts of goaltender Nico Cuba, to win the game 3-2, there was a surreal quality to the game which marked the third time in three consecutive state tournament games the team’s fate was decided by a shoot-out.

Former Oak Bluffs police chief Joseph C. Carter has been sworn in as adjutant general of the Massachusetts National Guard by Gov. Deval L. Patrick.

Mr. Carter, who holds the rank of major general, commands the nearly 8,000 members of the Massachusetts Army and Air National Guard. He is the senior military advisor to the governor of Massachusetts.

Mr. Carter became police chief of Oak Bluffs in 1998. He resigned in 2003 to become chief of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority police department.

Children’s Book Writing

People interested in writing books for children will meet Monday, Nov. 12, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the home of Carol Carrick in West Tisbury. This monthly meeting is for serious writers only. Members will read manuscripts and discuss them. They will also share news and advice from the children’s book world. For details and directions call Carol Carrick at 508- 696-6277, or Marilyn Hollinshead at 508-693-5803.

Harnessing Positive Energy

Eroding Confidence in County Affairs

With the county charter study commission midway through its work evaluating the vital topic of whether the Island needs county government — hiring a county manager at this stage in the game feels almost like a robotic exercise of going through the motions. The county commission plans to interview three finalists for the county manager post on Saturday.

Veterans Day 2007

Children learn it like a nursery rhyme: the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. That was when the first world war effectively ended, in 1918. After unbearable slaughter, at least twenty million people dead and millions more left as refugees, the war to end all wars was exhausted with a truce, an armistice. It became a day to remember.

When I was little I remember being taken by my great-aunt Taddy to a church at the corner of our street to watch a wedding party assemble. Maybe she knew the family, maybe not. But we did it more than once, and if a church was within walking distance of our house, we went. We would watch the folks gather, admire the flurry of the pink and blue-clad bridesmaids, and then the arrival of the bride. The church was surrounded by a green lawn and in the summertime there would be strawberry socials on tables set under the tall trees.

Rare Gift

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

The Vineyard Gazette has a long and honored tradition as a leader in support of wise land use issues, including conservation, historic preservation and the protection of open space.

These are the challenges of the Veira Park question. It is not about baseball or children or other parents, or even immediate neighbors, mischaracterized in a Gazette editorial as disgruntled.

Editor’s Note: The Joint Committee on Public Service will hold a public hearing on Senate Bill No. 1627 on Thursday, Nov. 15 at 10:30 a.m. in Room B-2 at the State House in Boston. The bill would amend the Steamship Authority’s enabling act to authorize a single arbitrator to determine wages, benefits and other terms of employment for SSA union employees, if the boat line is unable to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement with the union within five months after the expiration of the prior contract. The boat line opposes the bill.

Author’s Note: This unpublished essay was written in April 2003. Initial and continuing military actions in Iraq, primarily by one aggressor nation, have cast the long shadow of criminal behavior that heretofore has placed civilian and military war-wagers of rogue regimes in the dock, charged and convicted of crimes against humanity.

“War is a dreadful thing, and unjust war is a crime against humanity. But it is such a crime because it is unjust, not because it is war.”

— Theodore Roosevelt,