I read with more than a passing interest the article, “Looming Federal Cuts May Impact Already-Strained Elder, Education Services” in the March 1 issue of the Vineyard Gazette. The Vineyard Nursing Association (VNA) is a critical health care provider for elders on Martha’s Vineyard and should be added to the list of providers impacted by the sequestration. In fact, the VNA faces larger and more immediate cuts than were discussed in the article.

More than a year ago when the Gazette asked me to write a column, I jumped at the opportunity. After all, this is a writer’s paper and I am what’s known as an ink-stained wretch. Back in the day, I worked for another paper that promoted and showcased good writing. It was the Boston Phoenix, which ceased publication on March 15 after 47 years of operation.

In 2013 can any community on earth surrounded by the ocean remain passive in the face of unmistakable climate change? If you don’t trust your own memory and sense of the weather to tell you something’s changed, there’s more than enough accurate, trustworthy analysis and predictions out there. But there’s no substitute for direct experience like ours of the last two years. This has been not slow and steady change that we can adapt to smoothly but more like sudden chaos.

We are holding a benefit chicken dinner for Liam McCarthy on March 23, 2013 at the P.A Club located off Vineyard avenue in Oak Bluffs. Liam is in desperate need of a walk aide device that his insurance will not cover and it is very expensive. Liam and his four brothers and sisters are all students in the Martha’s Vineyard School System and they live with their mother Kelly McGuiggin.

Have you noticed that the League of Women Voters Candidates’ Forums had to be canceled in Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and West Tisbury due to lack of contested elections? We have just learned that there are no contests in Tisbury and Chilmark, either, so those forums have now been canceled. The filing deadline for Aquinnah has not yet been reached.