Commentary
Earth Day 2009
When Earth Day began, few people had heard of Chernobyl or Bhopal. Instead of cell phones, we had a cold war. Nelson Mandela was in a South African prison, for there was apartheid not wi-fi, or even many personal computers. The Berlin Wall was not yet down, the Clean Air Act was not yet law. On the shores of a Great Lake, the Cuyahoga River had somehow caught fire, such was the concentration of oil, chemicals and other oozing environmental hazards there.
A man waiting for coffee behind me the other day at the Scottish Bakehouse was wearing a navy pinstripe double-breasted suit and recently shined shoes, and he may as well have been sporting a tutu and a beer hat for the looks he was getting.
You could see the customers’ minds working. He wasn’t en route to a funeral, his suit was too light. But at 10 a.m. on a dreary, rainy Tuesday in early April, a wedding seemed unlikely too. Maybe he was a hired gun, just grabbing a Danish before heading up-Island to rub someone out . . .
“We’re All Done Now”
From Gazette editions of April, 1984:
When Jeff Norton stands up in front of town meeting, something happens. It’s hard to explain, but anyone who has ever been to a town meeting in Edgartown knows that Jeff Norton has the ability to make a town meeting fun. He reads the long, boring language in the warrant articles like an auctioneer. He stands on the stage of the old Whaling Church, scuffing one foot like a schoolboy while he waits for a couple of voters to argue it out.
There is a nice pond in my backyard garden on Centre street. When I preface the word “pond” with “goldfish“ your mind and eye make an instant adjustment, and from imagining cattails, ducks, pinkletinks, swamp iris and the wildlife that comes to drink at a pond, the reader thinks “oh, goldfish” and sees a few nice rocks, maybe some water lilies or hyacinths, and a couple of ornamental frogs.
This week, our sophomore writers have a lot to say and much of it is about MCAS, though they still have an eye on that outside world and one thing is clear — they love to learn.
— Elaine Cawley Weintraub, advisor.
A Necessary Evil?
By Jessica Kelleher
Girl Talk