A tranquil summer evening in Vineyard Haven may have seemed a strange place for a spine-chilling appraisal of the nation’s security gaps, but on Thursday night at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff sounded a bleak and vigilant tone, warning that we have entered into a new world and our concept of security must change accordingly.
Walk into a public meeting space at random this summer and you are likely to find Paul Pimentel evangelizing the good news of Vineyard Power. As the public face of the Island’s fledgling energy cooperative, Mr. Pimentel has waged a tireless campaign to recruit new members, barnstorming road and homeowners associations, private residences, coffee shops and beyond.
Listen. According to acoustic consultant Greg Tocci, if you are on the Vineyard you are probably hearing some combination of traffic, mechanical noise, wind rustling foliage or surf. This is the Island’s ambient background noise. It is the low unintrusive ever-present hum of Island activity. Will the sound of massive carbon fiber blades slicing through air soon be added to this audible collage?
The worst-kept secret of the summer is out: the first family will return to Martha’s Vineyard to vacation at the end of August.
The White House confirmed on Friday what Islanders in the know have been whispering for weeks now: a year after their much-hyped and ultimately anticlimactic first presidential visit, the Obamas will return to the Vineyard on August 19 for a 10-day vacation. The current plan calls for the Obamas to leave the Island on August 29.
Last summer the Vineyard Conservation Society succeeded in convincing Islanders that their ponds were indeed in peril. At this year’s Ponds in Peril forum, Islanders learned what they could do about it.
