Massachusetts is in the midst of a blood shortage due to a decline in blood donations, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross said Monday. Meanwhile, officials at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital said demand for blood on the Vineyard has increased with the summer swell in population.

Those involved with blood supply agree the current situation makes a high turnout critical for this Thursday’s Martha’s Vineyard Community Blood Drive.

People packed into the Chilmark Public Library last week — finding spots on the floor, standing in the back, even watching from the windows — to see Alan Dershowitz explain why torture should be allowed through a warrant.

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, or so the song goes. And Mr. Dershowitz, a longtime Chilmark summer resident famous for his controversial career as a lawyer and a professor at Harvard Law School, knows how to lay on the sugar.

Tuesday morning, Tisbury selectman Denys Wortman surveyed the old Tashmoo pumping station with his hands on his hips.

The place smelled like a damp basement, with dank cement and fresh cut plywood. Each step was accompanied with the tiny crunch of dirt and concrete pebbles. The ceiling was patchy. Flies orbited a hanging light fixture as the morning rays intruded through the broken window panes. White plaster flaked off the brick walls and a green mold seemed to have grown from the floor.