"When I was a child the mailman came once a day. Now the mail arrives every moment. I used to believe it was preposterous that people could fall in love online. Now I see that all relationships are virtual, even those that take place in person. Whether we use our bodies or a keyboard, it all comes down to two minds crying out from their solitude."
"From the early 1970s to the present, the Vineyard moved from a sleepy Island community sometimes referred to as a civil wilderness to a great resort that today commands attention from across the nation and the world. The Island now draws countless thousands to her never-ending shoreline. They come as ordinary folk from the main streets of America and as power brokers from Wall Street and as presidents from the White House. But they all arrive on Martha’s Vineyard in search of the same thing: the solitude and beauty of the Island, the special sanctuary the Vineyard offers as a quiet refuge far from the clatter of the mainland.
"It is this transformative period in Island history that explains the fierce political battles, legal clashes, the social upheaval and the great debates about proper levels of development that have raged for more than three decades on the Vineyard. The Vineyard Gazette, more often than not during these years, landed at the center of the political and social collisions.
"And while perhaps not always understood, there was but one editorial message from this newspaper, one that has stood for the past thirty-five years, a position first set forth in the early decades before me under the direction of Henry Beetle Hough, the revered old country editor of the Gazette, and continued from 1968 to 1975 by my father, James (Scotty) Reston.
"The case for the Vineyard, as argued by the Gazette, was that the Island had the right to determine its own future, the right to define a plan for thoughtful and orderly growth. At stake was the preservation of the character of the Vineyard and the quality of Island life for her citizens. And so the Gazette through those sometimes tumultuous years often stood against those who pressed for unbridled development, against outside interests that appeared more interested in making money than in preserving the special character of Martha’s Vineyard. It is after all that character that makes the Island a special place and sets it apart from so many other communities now overdeveloped and long forgotten."
"Any one whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.
This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America.
And a traveler cannot but be struck on his journey by the thought that this country, one day, can be even greater. America, though many know it not, is one of the great underdeveloped countries of the world; what it reaches for exceeds by far what it has grasped.
So the visitor returns thankful for much of what he has seen, and, in spite of everything, an optimist about what his country might be. Yet the visitor, if he is to make an honest report, must also note the air of unease that hangs everywhere.
For the traveler, as travelers have been always, is as much questioned as questioning. And for all the abundance he sees, he finds the questions put to him ask where men may repair for succor from the troubles that beset them.
His countrymen cannot forget the savage face of war. Too often they have been asked to fight in strange and distant places, for no clear purpose they could see and for no accomplishment they can measure. Their spirits are not quieted by the thought that the good and pleasant bounty that surrounds them can be destroyed in an instant by a single bomb. Yet they find no escape, for their survival and comfort now depend on unpredictable strangers in far-off corners of the globe.
How can they turn from melancholy when at home they see young arrayed against old, black against white, neighbor against neighbor, so that they stand in peril of social discord. Or not despair when they see that the cities and countryside are in need of repair, yet find themselves threatened by scarcities of the resources that sustain their way of life. Or when, in the face of these challenges, they turn for leadership to men in high places—only to find those men as frail as any others.
So sometimes the traveler is asked whence will come their succor. What is to preserve their abundance, or even their civility? How can they pass on to their children a nation as strong and free as the one they inherited from their forefathers? How is their country to endure these cruel storms that beset it from without and from within?
Of course the stranger cannot quiet their spirits. For it is true that everywhere men turn their eyes today much of the world has a truly wild and savage hue. No man, if he be truthful, can say that the specter of war is banished. Nor can he say that when men or communities are put upon their own resources they are sure of solace; nor be sure that men of diverse kinds and diverse views can live peaceably together in a time of troubles.
But we can all remind ourselves that the richness of this country was not born in the resources of the earth, though they be plentiful, but in the men that took its measure. For that reminder is everywhere—in the cities, towns, farms, roads, factories, homes, hospitals, schools that spread everywhere over that wilderness.
We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth.
And we might remind ourselves also, that if those men setting out from Delftshaven had been daunted by the troubles they saw around them, then we could not this autumn be thankful for a fair land."
Dear Sir,
Good day and compliments. I am Dr (Mr) Benjamin Bernanke, Chairman of Federal Reserve of United States of America. This mail will surely come to you as a great surprise, since we never had any previous correspondence. My aim of contacting you is to crave your indulgence to assist us in securing some funds abroad to prosecute a transaction of great magnitude.
Due to poor banking system in America, many subprime borrowers are not paying back mortgages and banks have lost ONE TRILLION TWO HUNDRED BILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS ($1,200bn) so far. This calamity has caused much suffering in my country. To help remedy this situation, our president, Mr Barack Hussein Obama, has authorised to be spent a sum of EIGHT HUNDRED NINETY SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS ($897bn) on stimulus plus many other good deeds like cash for clunkers. Unfortunately, since that time, we are being molested and constantly harassed by bond vigilantes who do not care that their reckless and vicious behaviour could ruin our hopes and plans.
To this effect, last year I authorised the printing of ONE TRILLION TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY BILLION ($1,250bn) of United States currency to purchase government securities. To my great shock, this was not enough so I am now buying another SIX HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS ($600bn). If you forward a modest sum to purchase Treasury notes then I can buy many more of them with my unlimited printing press and their price will rise. I am absolutely positive that this arrangement will be of mutual benefit to both of us. I can offer you generous interest rate of EIGHT TENTHS OF A PERCENT after taxes.
I want you to immediately inform me of your willingness in assisting and co-operating with us, so that I can send you full details of this transaction and let us make arrangement for a meeting and discuss at length on how to transfer this funds.
Yours Faithfully,
Dr (Mr) Benjamin Bernanke
N.B. Please contact Mr Timothy Geithner on this e-mail address for further briefing and modalities.
"According to his brother, Thomas, 'Leo has been funny since he was a little kid—he was kind of a humor prodigy.' At the dinner table one night during a summer vacation when Leo was seven and Thomas nine, their father complained that his stomach had got a little sunburned. Leo said, 'Well, you know, Dad, things that are closest to the sun burn first.' Fortunately, his father laughed.After the 9/11/2001 issue, only the second with no cartoons, the first cartoon in the subsequent issue was by Cullum.
"All coconuts around the city's Gandhi museum, one of Mr Obama's stops in the city, are being taken down. Mani Bhavan, where Mahatma Gandhi stayed during his freedom struggle against the British, is among five places the US president is visiting in Mumbai. 'We told the authorities to remove the dry coconuts from trees near the building. Why take a chance?' Mani Bhavan's executive secretary, Meghshyam Ajgaonkar, told the BBC."
"Mr. Strusinski is a food forager, rummaging through woods and rivers from Vermont to the coast of Maine to Portland to gather cattails, pineapple weed, wood sorrel and other offbeat ingredients. He supplies about a dozen restaurants in Maine, but this year he's expanded to New York."
