Lyme Under Study

More than thirty, less than ten thousand. The precise number of people living on the Vineyard who have contracted Lyme disease is unknown, but it is certain that the number is higher than the thirty cases of Lyme disease here recorded by the Centers for Disease Control last year. Far higher.

Fall Back

This past weekend on the Weather Channel, with the outdoor snowstorms overtaking much of the Northeast, Jim Cantore, the channel’s most hyperbolic newscaster, stood in the snow outside Harrisburg, Pa. Suddenly, there was a loud noise, thundersnow, as he called it. Mr. Cantore was so taken with this phenomenon, evidently extremely rare, he needed to compose himself.

“I need a moment,” he said live on camera and turned away as seconds of silence ticked by.

The Commission’s Second Chance

Public opinion is humming again over the roundabout following the surprise announcement last week by longtime Martha’s Vineyard Commission member Leonard Jason Jr. that he will ask the commission to rescind its vote on the controversial project.

Public Art for Public Education

In her classic essay, Street Haunting, Virginia Woolf searches the streets of London for the perfect lead pencil. It is dusk, the season approaching winter, and the lead pencil merely a pretext. She wants to be out and about discovering the charms, both high and low, of not just her city but also her uncharted self. Anything, really, could serve as a magnet to draw her forth from the humdrum metronome of her own familiarity.

Soup Supper Season

To some the Vineyard is a place of wealth and ease with an idyllic backdrop of beaches, rural vistas and busy summer days. And for a few months of the year, this is the dominant reality. But the facade fades, at first subtly, and then more drastically, as the off-season takes hold.

Those who do not know the pleasures of the quieter side of Island life will never fully understand that beneath its obvious beauty, the Island is mostly a reflective soul.

SSA Office Here: No Reservations

The same way they are buying shoes, sweaters and new sheets for the guest room, Islanders increasingly are using the Internet to book their ferry passage on the Steamship Authority these days.