Opinion
The brief season of summer fundraising is almost over. Island nonprofits that rely on part-time residents to subsidize shrinking budgets are tallying up their take from an almost dizzying succession of cocktail parties, dinner dances and auctions, silent and otherwise, and taking stock of what it means for the year ahead.
They served our country in foreign wars on land, air and sea, some in the Pacific and European theatres of World War II, others in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan. They have returned home to the Island, some many long years ago, others more recently, to live as civilians with jobs and families, their war experiences quietly and indelibly stamped onto their lives. Other Americans thank them for their service and the United States government rewards them with some benefits, including health care.
The July 30 shark attack at Ballston Beach in Truro has focused national attention on the seasonal occurrence of white sharks in waters close to Cape Cod and Island beaches. White sharks are no strangers to residents here; I certainly won’t forget kayaking with friends to see a female white shark trapped in a coastal pond on Naushon island in September 2004. There seems little doubt that we have witnessed more white sharks in areas frequented by swimmers along the eastern shore of the Cape over the past few years.
Just like the rest of America, health care on Martha’s Vineyard is in trouble — too often fragmented, unsafe, variable, hard to access and far too costly. Poor system designs are the cause, designs sustained by a fee-for-service payment system that pays for volume (how much you do), not value (how well the patient does). Doctors, nurses, other clinicians, staff, and managers do their very best to help, but they are often fighting upstream against systems that make their work harder.
My architecture firm has designed about a dozen houses on Martha’s Vineyard in addition to the Middle Line affordable housing project in Chilmark. Some of these houses are large, so I have frequently been asked what I think about the discussion now taking place, not only about large houses, but also about the future of the Vineyard in general.
"Nature abhors a vacuum." Aristotle said that or something like that in the original ancient Greek, observing that nature requires every space to be filled with something, even if that something is colorless, odorless air or house guests.
The flip side of this observation is that empty spaces are unnatural as they go against the laws of nature and physics. So kindly fill your chairs, sofas and beds with people whose company is compatible. You don’t want the science police knocking on your door and inquiring about unfilled spaces.