On my last visit to the Vineyard, in September, I was shocked at the condition of the Mayhew Chapel in Christiantown: windows broken, exterior shingles rotting, bird droppings on benches inside, weeds taking over the burial ground.
I am just back from troubled Israel. There, an ultra-Orthodox Jew of the Haredi sect spat on an eight-year-old girl he deemed immodestly dressed and other ultra-orthodox members of that sect were insisting that women sit at the back of public buses. A settlement illegally built by ultra-orthodox Zionists on the Palestinian West Bank was demolished by Israeli Army soldiers. And the Israeli government, fearful of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, was hinting at making a pre-emptive strike against that country.
Editor’s Note: What follows in an addendum to an the Editorial Page feature Why I Love Where I Live, published in the Tuesday Gazette.
By DAN WATERS
To live in Christiantown is to abide by the laws, quirks and schedules of hundreds of other animals that share these primeval woods. If you are not a naturalist and a natural philosopher when you first move here, you will become one through regular contact with furry, scaly, fanged and feathered neighbors.
