News
People of the Book is the new novel from Vineyard Haven author Geraldine Brooks — her first since March won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It hits stores on Tuesday and will be launched on Thursday with a special public reading at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center. A longtime foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, Ms. Brooks was inspired by the true story of a mysterious codex known as the Sarajevo Haggadah.
There is probably no simpler illustration of the dominant news themes of Martha’s Vineyard, 2007, than that of the friendly Rhode Island red rooster owned by Jessica Rose Seidman, of West Tisbury.
Chickie, who Ms. Seidman hatched from an egg almost five years ago when she was 11 and then kept as a pet, had won four firsts at the annual Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Livestock Show and Fair.
The Martha’s Vineyard Donors Collaborative has decided to discontinue the special Martha’s Vineyard license plate program for lack of interest.
The plate campaign started in the summer of 2006 and 500 applications were received in the first six months, the collaborative stated in a release.
Most miracles happen when no one is watching.
This time of year, presents appear under trees, with no traces of soot under the chimney or footprints in the snow. Bundles of winter hats and scarves are donated anonymously to warm those in need. And, in a quiet corner of town, a man climbs up scaffolding he has rigged around a 24-foot Christmas tree to carefully and meticulously drape yet another string of white Christmas lights from its branches.
In the summer, birds and bees and buzzing things are easy to see. They are out and about at the beach and on the playground. But come winter, the Vineyard animals are harder to spot. Beginning in January, the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary will, for the first time, offer its popular Creature Feature program for young naturalists in the winter months.
The Dukes County Commission is between a rock and a hard place. Faced with a looming budget deficit for fiscal year 2009 and a financial advisory board which has refused to consider an unbalanced budget, the commission on Friday voted unanimously to slash funding by 50 per cent to two county programs and 100 per cent of another.
The commission will ask the six Island towns and the town of Gosnold to contribute the balance to continue the three programs — the Health Care Access program, the rodent control officer and the county engineer.