Commentary
Word Play
Fis-SIP-par-ous — adj. Tending to break up into parts, divisive.
It’s often depressing to read about the world outside our own lovely Island, but we do it anyway and occasionally we learn a new word or gain a new insight about some aspect of our own situation. Venerable foreign correspondent John F. Burns of The New York Times was our source for both last Sunday in an essay on the elusive trail of Osama bin Laden.
A Night to Remember
Climate change is complicated; sea level rise is not. We live on an Island — a glorified sandbar — and the sea is closing in on us. It is rising much faster than anticipated. In the last century sea level rose by about a foot. In this century, due to human-induced global warming, it is expected to rise at least five feet, according to a new report by the international Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program.
READING MY FATHER : A Memoir. By Alexandra Styron. Scribner, New York, N.Y. April 2011. 285 pages, photographs. $25 hardcover.
Could Tolstoy have been wrong? Not about all unhappy families being unhappy in different ways — we’re basically in agreement about that — but where are the happy families to which he alluded? Did he know any? Do we? Families without financial woes? No hurt feelings, no sensitivities clashing with another’s neuroses, no addictions, no dysfunctions of any kind?
CAPT. JOE CRESSY
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
Chappy and Martha’s Vineyard have lost one of their most extraordinary citizens. Joe Cressy’s intellect, integrity, kindness and zest for life were matched by few. One of Joe’s great loves and pleasure came from being on the Edgartown fire department. And so my dear friend, rest assured I shall be on this year’s Fourth of July’s parade route and will wave to your truck and the legend that once rode her.
Love you, Joe.
Gus Ben David
Beyond War
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
A question was recently sent to the Martha’s Vineyard Peace Council: “Are there going to be any more protests at Five Corners like there were when Bush was in office?” The writer had previously expressed his criticisms more directly, so I had an idea what he meant. My answer was a laconic, “There might be, but we’re also taking other actions that promise to be more effective.”