Preservation vs. Legal Nightmare

As the clamor grows louder in Oak Bluffs around the Veira Park baseball project, a few key points are important to keep in mind.

It is not illegal for the town to spend money to restore its Little League Park, and Oak Bluffs voters have twice said yes to the project, first at the annual town meeting last April and again at a special town meeting this summer. Voters also approved spending money from their town Community Preservation Act fund to pay for the project.

Last Draggers in Menemsha

The Quitsa Strider II sits rusting at the dock in Menemsha. Her skipper Jonathan Mayhew, who has devoted his life to commercial fishing, has sold his days at sea. A Gloucester fishing cooperative has bought the permits that allow him to fish in federal waters.

Street Art With Heart

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy asks perhaps the most famous scarecrow of all, “How can you talk if you haven’t got a brain?” He shrugs, “I don’t know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don’t they?”

The scarecrows appearing around Vineyard Main streets these days are evidence of a clever, can-do community approach at the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School that is more than talk.

GLAD HEARTS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

We write to express our appreciation for the Martha’s Vineyard community’s support of our daughter, Virginia, during her life, and for its recognition of her inspiring qualities following her death on Oct. 5.

I come from a family of wavers. We wave at each other (brothers, aunts, sisters in law), acquaintances (neighbors, businessfolk, fishermen), and strangers (you know who you are). I also come from a town of wavers. Pittsfield, though geographically located in Massachusetts, shares more personality traits with Fort Wayne than it does with Boston. Waving, then, is not only in my blood, it’s in my brain as well.

In this wild and scary world there are numerous challenges facing teachers. There are so many aspects to being an effective teacher that begin with mastering content and developing a strategy for how to teach it, meeting ever-increasing state mandates, dealing with the mass of paperwork and finally, meeting the learner in the classroom. There is the curriculum, mandated and explicable, but then there is the hidden curriculum reinforcing inequities and socio-economic differences and based on some abstract idea that there is a regular learner.

Last week nearly 500 religious communities around the country screened the movie Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, a film that raises such questions as: how did torture become an accepted practice at Abu Ghraib and what governmental policies allowed it to happen? Here on the Island, it was shown at the Hebrew Center on Oct. 24 in a jointly sponsored, interfaith program by local religious communities. Why screen a film about the torture of political prisoners perpetrated three years ago, in prisons halfway around the globe, and for which several of the perpetrators have already been tried?

We are this week’s editors for Sophomores Speak Out. We are sophomore members of the class of 2010. This week we have a range of topics. All of our writers have strong opinions: Abbey Etner is passionate about dancing, Troy writes about Island restaurants, Haley Pierce explores the motivations for kids to do their work, and Jesse Shayne is excited about the Celtics. All these students chose to write about things that are a part of their lives. We hope readers enjoy.

— BreAnne Russell and Troy (85) Small

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We Love Food

Mysteries of Vineyard forests were revealed in a walk last Sunday afternoon at Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary. More than 10 naturalists took a walk with Beth Schwarzman, a Falmouth writer, geologist and savant who, like a detective, can read the hidden tales within ancient landscape.

Every forest has a tale, Ms. Schwarz-man said, though it may not be an obvious one. In this region, the natural progression of plants is towards forest — so whatever its previous use, land left alone becomes forest. What plants dominate that forest can offer clues to its past life.

West Tisbury Library Hosts

Community Poetry Reading

The West Tisbury Public Library invites poetry lovers of all ages to listen or to read aloud at an open poetry reading on Sunday, Nov. 4 at 5 p.m. Organized and hosted by Shelton Bank, these twice-yearly library poetry readings are a longstanding West Tisbury tradition.