CapeCodToday Blog Chowder

The Open & Shut Case

Three week long writer's block

It has now taken me about three weeks to write this blog! Why? My guess is I don’t truly know how I feel about this subject.

I was often asked, when I first opened my shop, if I would remain open in the winter. Amazed by how often I heard this question, both from other shop owners and customers, I answered with a puzzled look on my face “of course I’ll be open.” With a knowing smile they replied "wait a few years, you’ll close". Well, I did stay open those  first winters, even when it snowed. And, for three winters it snowed! I shoveled and shoveled some more, but managed to stay open. The exception was last January when even I couldn’t get the shop opened (or the driveway cleared for that matter). So I closed. I painted and cleaned, and as soon as I could, I reopened. Frustrating times for sure, with very few customers coming in or calling. This winter I thought about the energy bills and compared them to sales receipts from the last few winters.  I thought of those smiling knowing faces and thought, ok maybe they're right, I’ll close.

Am I enjoying my time closed? Absolutely! Not only does it allow me to catch up on long overdue projects and my web site, it gives me a sense of freedom. Freedom that allows me to be renewed and regenerated.  But, lurking in the depths of my refreshed self, is a pesky feeling that I should have stayed open.  And then it happened, that pesky feeling, was now staring me in the face.  As I searched the Web for information pertaining to the Cape, I'm discovering many Cape-related travel sites, local sites and blogs. But, more often than not, there are references to the Cape "shutting down" for winter. With nothing to do and shops and restaurants closed, why bother going?

This past weekend I opened for a 3 day sale. I sent out postcards and emails to my customers and posted an ad to let people know.  As it turned out, my customers did come and most did not even blink an eye when they found out that I had been closed all winter. Happy that I had reopened for a short time, they wanted to know when I would open for the season.

So, my question is...   Are we not doing a good enough job getting the word out that there is life on Cape Cod in all seasons?  Doing so would allow more businesses to have a year round source of income, instead of struggling along all winter.

And then this started me wondering... Are we still a seasonal tourist-run economy where we can safely shut down for the winter?  Aren't we a group of small towns with a growing year round population living in a beautiful area where other people would like to visit in any season?  What needs to come first, our businesses staying open, or our customers creating demand? 

What does the Cape need to be?  Or more to the point, what do we want it to be?

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Candidates for governor taking part in public forum tonight

Patrick, Reilly, Healey and Mihos to attend

The Massachusetts Biotechnology Council is hosting a candidates' forum on Wednesday, March 1 that all four gubernational candidates -- Democrats Deval Patrick and Tom Reilly, Republicans Kerry Healey and Christy Mihos -- have agreed to attend.

The forum, moderated by council president and former House Speaker Tom Finneran, will allow the candidates to article their "vision of the state's future and role of the life sciences industry in that future," according to the council website.

The candidates won't have a chance to ask questions of each other - hence the tag of forum for the event, not debate - but will answer questions from pharmaceutical industry CEOs.
To run from at 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the Cambridge Marriott Hotel, 2 Cambridge Center.

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Boch & The Vineyard still at odds

^{_{Ernie Boch built such an extravagant trophy home overlooking Edgartown Harbor that his relationship with the town has remained bumpy even after his death.}}

Vineyard Haven Boch Property Is Centerpiece of Future Plan
Tisbury officials hope to resolve the long-running conflicts between the town and the Boch family that have stymied productive use of the parcel

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This I believe

The Vision, not the View
Arrayed against this vision are many good, gifted and privileged people who use their influence, financial wherewithal, and political connections to try to scuttle the first off shore wind farm in the nation

By Bill Eddy, Falmouth 

In 1967, when I was twenty-one, I attended a party on Martha’s Vineyard where the band I was helping to manage was asked to play. For two hours I sat on a couch listening to the music, watching the people and occasionally scratching the neck of an English Springer Spaniel named Freckles. On the other side of Freckles sat Robert F. Kennedy, his owner. From time to time the two of us shared our thoughts about the music, about our lives, where we were headed.

A year later, on June 5th, 1968, Senator Robert Kennedy was shot.

Two months later, following my graduation from Yale, I moved to East Harlem in New York City. A group of laity and clergy had formed an organization called “The 100 Worst Buildings of New York City.” I joined their efforts. Our mission was simple: to restore the heat and hot water in buildings abandoned by their owners. Our goal was clear: to empower the tenants living in these buildings to take the buildings over and to restore them, to begin the rebuilding of their neighborhoods and their lives. The success of the work depended on the cooperation of committed people living in the buildings, people from many churches and synagogues, private developers, bankers, city, state and federal officials, even members of some street gangs. But mainly the effort was driven by the hopes and dreams of the least advantaged compelling the rest of us to listen and to act.

Now, almost thirty years later, as a parish priest, I look back and trace the beginnings of a career dedicated to a type of social change that evolves over time, a blending, if you will, of the urgency that arises within a political and social framework coupled with the patience and persistence of a spiritually driven vision. Words attributed to King Solomon, as found in the Book of Proverbs, have always held meaning for me: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

The vision I first received came through a man I sat with once while listening to a band at a home on Martha’s Vineyard. The vision as it has evolved has been shaped by the many thousands of people I have met along the way, mainly people in churches and community groups who have dedicated their lives to bringing about social change.

I now work with several hundred people to help build a wind farm off the shores of Cape Cod, the place where I live. In my mind’s eye I look out over Nantucket Sound and picture a flotilla of tall ships, their masts faintly etched on the edge of the horizon. The wind farm, when built, will absolutely and definitively change the way we live and how we view our world and ourselves.

The wind farm will have as much right to be on Nantucket Sound as any cruise ship lying off Oak Bluffs or any fishing boat plying the waters off Hyannis. Navigating in and around the wind farm will present less of a challenge than going through Woods Hole or docking in Vineyard Haven or visiting the beautiful harbors of Cotuit and Osterville. Birds will fly around it, and the fishing will still be good, perhaps even better. But most of all, it will be producing our power.

Arrayed against this vision are many good, gifted and privileged people who use their influence, financial wherewithal, and political connections to try to scuttle the first off shore wind farm in the nation. They mainly fear the view of a wind farm off their shores. They also fear the change such a project represents, even when many of them know, deep down, that this would be a change for the good on every level. They, who in the larger world are often the masters and agents of change, fear being changed themselves. Ironically, the fears, the lies and the distortions that they have spread have in fact caused them to become, themselves, spiritually paralyzed, distanced from their own values. They say, “We are for environmental responsibility, for wind farms even, but not here.”

Perhaps to justify their aversion to change, even change for the better and for the common good, I often hear sentiments like this: “I look out over the waters of Nantucket Sound. So much has changed in my life. So much has been lost. But this view remains unchanging. It is, for me, a source of peace.”

Is this what we mean by peace? Or is this sentiment really nostalgia, that most seductive of emotions that attempts to replace a challenging and present reality with an imagined past and a more comforting, private future? The real world is changing before our eyes: waters are rising, storm winds are intensifying, nations are reeling, whole communities are lying in disarray. Across the world people are anxious about their lives and about their common future. Who can afford to retreat to a place in one’s mind where all seems unchanged, under control, as it once maybe was?

Long ago, Robert F. Kennedy sought the truth about things. As a result he possessed the capacity to change his mind. He changed his mind about a war in southeast Asia. He changed his focus from working exclusively within and for the more secure and stable groups of a political establishment to working within broad movements of people seeking justice and inclusion and a better society for everyone.

It is thus with a sense of gratitude and not nostalgia that I think back to a summer’s night so long ago. I would like to think that were I to sit again with Robert F. Kennedy he would be quietly pleased to know how deeply within the hearts of so many thousands of people here on Cape Cod and across the Commonwealth we have taken on his way of viewing the world, most especially now, and in the very place where not only he and I, but so many others, once briefly met. His vision still represents an ongoing legacy to a whole generation of people. Why should the promise of his legacy not lie within our sight?

To build this wind farm, in Nantucket Sound, now, would seem as a profile in courage on the ocean’s edge.

William Eddy, an Episcopal priest, lives in Falmouth and works in Weymouth. He is the president of Cape & Islands Self-Reliance and a founding member of Clean Power Now.

He built his first wind generator in 1976 to celebrate the bicentennial of the nation.

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Rhode Island's US Senator weighs in on Cape Wind

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee (on right) sent a letter to four Senate colleagues urging them to reject a proposal to impose a 1.5-nautical mile restrictive zone on offshore energy production. The addition of this provision in the Coast Guard reauthorization bill would essentially terminate an ongoing pollution-free, renewable wind energy project off the coast of New England.

Mr. Chafee, a Republican, sent the following is the text of the letter sent to Senators Ted Stevens (R-AK), and Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science And Transportation (CST), as well as to Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chairman and Ranking Member CST’s Subcommittee on Fisheries and the Coast Guard. All four Senators are members of the Coast Guard Reauthorization Conference Committee, which is tasked with reconciling the differences between the Senate and House versions of the reauthorization legislation:

Dear Senators:

I urge you, as members of Coast Guard Reauthorization Conference Committee, to reject the proposed language that would impose a 1.5-nautical mile restrictive zone on offshore energy production. This provision, if added, will be devastating to an ongoing renewable wind energy project that is very valuable to Rhode Island and to greater New England. I encourage you instead to address concerns about maritime navigational safety in future legislation.

With the recent increase in conventional energy prices, wind energy generation is a promising option to provide much needed electricity supply to the New England transmission grid. Additional renewable electricity supply is crucial as providers strive to maintain reliable electric service at reasonable costs to consumers, while meeting incrementally rising renewable portfolio standards (RPS). Rhode Island raised its RPS to 16 percent of retail sales by the end of 2019. The project will provide up to 450 megawatts of renewable electricity generation annually, enough to meet the demands of Cape Cod and the islands, and thereby reducing strain on the grid and subsequently reducing electricity cost in surrounding areas.

Indeed, the addition of offshore wind energy for New England will not only yield an increase in supply, but will also improve air quality. Wind energy is a non-polluting, clean energy that will reduce greenhouse gas and other air pollutant emissions across New England. Initial reports, comparing traditional fossil fuel electricity generation to wind generation, estimate that the project will eliminate approximately 880,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions in New England. Carbon dioxide is considered the number one greenhouse gas contributing to global warming.

Finally, it has been proposed that the project’s assembly and staging area would be located in Rhode Island at the Quonset Business Park. This phase of the project would create 600 to 1,000 jobs and spur new economic development opportunities for the state and region.

I urge that the proposed language be deleted from the final legislation and instead be debated in an open process at a future time.

Thank you for your kind attention to this matter.

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A Declaration of Energy Independents

hen in the course of modern events it becomes necessary for one people to assume greater control of their energy needs

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all sources of energy are not created equal, that some are endowed with indisputable flaws, most especially fossil fuels.

Among these are a fearsome toll in lives, restraints on liberty where oil is the only source of wealth, and the thwarting of happiness through ever-rising energy costs.

That to secure freedom from dependence on foreign energy, governments are instituted by men and women, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed and not from lobbyists in the fossil-fuels industry.

That whenever any form of government proves resistance to these truths, it is the right of the People to articulate that government's failure and advocate for new policies, based on the principle of self-reliance upon which our Nation was founded.

Prudence will dictate that governments long established should not change for light and transient causes, such as a sudden surge in oil prices. And all experience has shown that humanity is more disposed to tolerate fossil fuels while their financial costs are modest, rather than right themselves by abolishing the dependence to which they are accustomed.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these United States, extending back more than three decades to the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74, and such is now the necessity which constraints them through an even worse dependence on foreign energy than during the embargo.

The history of our Nation's over-reliance on fossil fuels from abroad is strewn with missed opportunities and repeated folly, all having in direct object the establishment of something akin to addiction for our citizens.

To prove this, let these facts be submitted to a candid world increasingly resentful of our presence: We account for only 5 percent of the earth's population, yet consume one-quarter of its energy; We refuse to increase fuel efficiency for sports utility vehicles through a legal loophole which maintains the fiction that most SUVs are purchased for agricultural endeavors;We provide lobbyists from the fossil fuels industry with undue sway in crafting energy policy, often in secretive enclaves;

We quarter more than 100,000 of our soldiers in the Middle East for the second war in as many decades to ensure the flow of oil to this country, where much of it will be squandered. The cost of these conflicts has been a horrific toll in lives and injuries, widespread devastation, environmental havoc and economic upheaval; We have long ignored the example of the Danes, the Germans, the English, the Spanish and the Irish, among other peoples, who are embracing wind power and other renewables rather than the failed energy policies of the past;

At every stage we have petitioned for remedies; our petitions have been ignored or derided. Nor have we been wanting in our respect for our system of governance. Accordingly, we have warned our legislators that their failure to act in their constituents' best-interests will likely end with their usurpation from office. They have been deaf to the voices of reason and environmental justice.

We, therefore, the representatives of a voting bloc known as Energy Independents, united in spirit across this Nation and transcending partisan division, solemnly declare that these United States ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they should sever allegiance to those nations from whom we purchase fossil fuels and who maintain despotic regimes over their citizenry; and as Free and Independent States, we have full power to provide for our energy needs, stop endless conflicts, contract alliances with nations worthy of our Founders' respect, establish commerce in renewable energy as a critical element in this endeavor, and do all other things which Independent States not beholden to sources of energy beyond their borders may do.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of a Higher Power, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Good Faith and our Sacred Future.

 as posted July 4, 2005 in Wind Farmer's Almanac.

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Wampanoags promise casino if slots are approved

The Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe of Martha’s Vineyard will assert a right to build a resort casino under Indian gaming law if Massachusetts legalizes slot machines at the state’s four race tracks, the tribe’s chairman said.

The Senate overwhelming approved the slot machine proposal last fall, and it is widely expected to come up for a vote in the House as soon as March.

Tribal Chairman Donald Widdiss said the Aquinnah Wampanoag, which has hired the Boston lobbying firm of Donoghue, Barrett and Singal, is watching the House debate “very closely.”

“We’re presently a little more hopeful because it will get a hearing and be voted on this year,” Widdiss said. “So until we know what the parameters are, we are watching it closely. We have the people who are taking care of this kind of stuff letting us know and keeping us up to date. I’m sure we’ll weigh in during the hearing process.”

Read the rest of this I&Q story here, and comment below.
Read previous story on local approval of a casino here.

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He can hide his own Easter eggs, folks

We sit at the foot of a great opportunity.

   With the NFL draft only months away, the opportunity exists to see just how important brains are in the NFL. A guy who seemed like a pretty solid #1 pick- Texas quarterback Vince Young- racked up a score of 6 on the Wonderlic, which is the NFL scouting combine's intelligence test.

   A fifty is perfect. A zero is inanimate. 19-21 is the average score. A six speaks of near/total illiteracy. A cabbage would get a six. A 2nd grader stands a good chance of breaking a six. A chicken could peck at the test paper and beat a six. If you took the test and TRIED to get questions wrong, you'd stand a good chance of fouling up enough to get a six.

   Vince probably isn't score-a-six dumb. I've administered a few tests in my day. I've seen these tests fouled up in every possible way. I'm thinking that Vince got a six for one of these reasons:

- Vince looked at the test briefly, after which he just filled in a bunch of ovals and used the extra time to go to McDonald's. I used to see that all the time when I was counseling- if you don't give a damn, a test is just a chance to be given a breather.

- Vince started at the END of the test, unwittingly beginning with the more difficult questions. I'd add that he probably spent a lot of time on the harder questions, and the time ran out before he could get to the beginning for the "What is frozen water called?" gimme questions.

- Vince was thinking of something else when the tester told hm that he only had 12 minutes to complete the test.

- Vince saw a pretty tester, and then spent the test time silently flirting with her.

- Vince needs glasses, and doesn't know it yet.

- Vince has an undiagnosed learning disability.

- Vince fell asleep while the test was being given.

- Vince kept clean, took his drug test, then ran out to the parking lot and got high right before the Wonderlic.

- Vince has Test Anxiety, and freezes like Alaska when handed a standardized test.

- Vince sees a What is the first letter in "Cat" question, thinks that the test is trying to trick him, and it can't be " C." He then answers "A."

- Sabotage. I had kids who didn't want to go back to their mainstream school, and fouled the test up on purpose to keep them at their comfy SPED school with the French chef history teacher. Maybe Vince doesn't want to play for the Jets or the Raiders, so he's trying to lower his draft position by coming across as being really, really dumb.

OR

- Vince is really, really dumb.

   To be honest, Vince's reasons are his own. It doesn't really matter how dumb you are when you make every hike of the football into a serious scoring chance. Vince won't drop that badly in the draft, and he will bank several million dollars over the course of his career.

   Much like being blonde, being an athlete is a more instinctive thing in which brains matter less than strength/speed. All the brains in the world won't help you when the offensive line breaks down, while fast feet are like a Godsend. David Carr probably scored well, but he got sacked more than groceries last year.

   So, Vince can be as dumb as a mud fence... it doesn't matter. In fact, many coaches like the tabula rasa that a stupid kid gives them- football plays are complicated, and you don't want Vince thinking about the Holocaust or the Renaissance while he's dropping back in the pocket.

   Multiple Intelligence advocates know that Vince is smart in his own way. He just has an athletic, rhythymic intelligence that isn't accounted for when people are crafting these Wonderlics. He'll be a-ight.

Wonderlic test.... ESPN.com: Page 2 : So, how do you score?

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An Open Letter: Dumbing Down Dubai

Port Insecurity

By Greg O'Brien, Codfish Press

Let’s say we dumb down the Dubai deal, Mr. Bush. The Democrats are all over you like a polyester suit, the pundits are waxing intellectual, spraying pellets of opinions that would make even Harry Whittington duck, and many Republicans facing re-election fear you just gave away the company store and duplicate keys to those who would ransack it.

The average Joe is nervous as hell, and doesn’t give a camel’s derrière about offending anyone in the Middle East over this.

With apologies to some of history’s most eloquent observers of the world scene (Churchill, Chamberlain and Roosevelt, among them), the slothful “Bluto” Blutarsky of Animal House said it best when he boldly spoke of the ravenous resolve of those who seek to disrupt: “Over? Did you say ‘over’? Nothing is over until we decide it is!”

Nothing in the Middle East, Mr. President, is over until the terrorists—you know, those whackos who grew up a coconut’s toss from the biblical Garden of Eden and stood this country on its stars and stripes Sept. 11, 2001—say it’s over! And for us working stiffs that gets right to the heart of the Dubai deal, a political handshake to permit a company owned by the Dubai royal family in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to operate six American ports with responsibility for hiring security guards, protecting areas under their control and working closely with U.S. Customs and Homeland Security officials.

It’s a gut issue, Mr. President. You don’t have to be a Kennedy School of Government graduate to get it. A little common sense due diligence would help: the Middle East is signing up suicide bombers like we recruited officer training candidates after Pearl Harbor; the inhabitants of this stewpot generally hate our guts—anything goes in this part of the world at home and abroad; and the UAE, however “trustworthy,” has given financial support to al-Queda, was a way station for nuclear material to Libya and Iran, and was one of the few countries to sanction Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Now tell me again, Mr. President, why the Dubai deal flies?

Oh, yeah, you’re “trying to conduct foreign policy by saying to people of the world, ‘We’ll treat you fairly.’”

Don’t mean to get personal, Mr. President, but tell that to the families of 911 victims. They may not get it, either. 

I see in the papers that you have arranged for a cooling off period perhaps bringing the surface temperature on this down to midday range on the planet Mercury. For the sake of us average Joes, let’s just write this one off, Mr. President.  I’m reminded of the mantra of another celebrated observer of life, Dragnet’s Joe Friday who often intoned,  “Just the facts, Ma’am, just the facts.”

With all due respect, Mr. President, the facts in this case say it’s a dumbhead idea!

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Vieira may run against Patrick in the Third Barnstable District

Falmouth-Town Moderator Considers Run For State Representative

According to this week's Falmouth Enterprise, David T. Vieira, who is in his eighth year serving as Falmouth Town Moderator, is considering a run against incumbant State Representitive Matt Patrick, also of Falmouth in the Third Barnstable District.

Mr. Vieira, who is a Republican, ran once before against Mr. Patrick, who is a Democrat in 2000 and lost.

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