Commentary
From Gazette editions of July, 1934:
Here it is, mid-July on Martha’s Vineyard, a pleasant time at a pleasant place. We are always tempted at about this phase of every summer season to look around and take stock; or, if that is too businesslike a phrase to use in association with the Island, to form a picture of the busy, idle summer.
When the Gazette called for a visual exploration of patriotism, we gave no directions on how artists should express their ideas.
Because, to crib from President Obama, “That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door.”
We the People
On the eve of Independence Day, with parades, picnics and baseball games on deck and flags flying from every corner, it is also a time to pause and remember who we are as a people and what we stand for as a nation. Two hundred and thirty-three years after the founding of the country, what are the principles and values that guide American society?
DESPERATELY NEEDED
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
After four years of being on the Chilmark housing committee and with a success rate of one home site in those four years I decided to see if it was possible to privately create housing faster. I found a great piece of land in West Tisbury abutting a sweet path to the school and imagined the generations of families to come that would appreciate the location and I was empowered by this vision.
As we approach eight years of war, too many military families are quietly coming apart at the seams. The public hears the most dramatic stories and statistics — soldiers killing their wives, themselves, each other. Less well known are the effects that prolonged war and multiple deployments have had on our daily lives. As the wife of a commander of a battalion that deployed last year, I know that many of us feel embittered, powerless and disconnected from the Army in which we and our husbands serve.
No Chicken, This Dog
From a Gazette edition of July, 1956:
About twenty-two miles south-southwest of Noman’s Land in the heaving swells of the open ocean, something of a miracle occurred on Thursday of last week. A wire-haired fox terrier, only part of his muzzle visible, was sighted and picked up by the ketch-rigged motor sailer Seer, owned by Harry Bellas Hess, well known in these waters.