In our issue dated Aug. 19 of this year, Stephen Kinzer wrote a stirring essay about President Theodore Roosevelt’s visit to Provincetown in the summer of 1907 to lay the […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Schoolyard Fantasy
The Wellfleet Elementary School has not had a playground since March 2020, as staff reporter Jasmine Lu wrote in the Oct. 7 issue of the Independent. First, it was off-limits […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
A Local Newspaper With Benefits
Seven weeks ago, as we passed the two-year mark and began Volume 3 of the Independent, I wrote about our finances and where we stood in relation to our projections. […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Paradise Dangled
As a boy growing up in the 1950s, paradise was a pine-paneled cottage in the Surfside Colony at Lecount Hollow Beach. A few of you cringed as you read that […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
A Humpty Dumpty Policy
Five weeks ago, we published a story with the headline “Truro and Wellfleet Will Fail to Meet Their Housing Goals.” It summarized the four Outer Cape towns’ affordable housing production […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Content Creation
I’m glad E.B. White is dead. The New Yorker staff writer and author of Charlotte’s Web famously wrote an impassioned warning against sponsored content in 1976. I wouldn’t want him […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
A Silver Lining
Just when I find myself in an especially bad mood — because I forgot to renew the car registration and ended up with the car towed, or my computer somehow […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Holding On to Town Centers
“Route 6 is horrible,” says Art Autorino, chair of the Eastham Select Board, in a report in this issue by Cam Blair. We’ve probably all had that same thought, while […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Silence for the Trees
One of the strange things about being an editor in a small community is that, as the years go by, the news seems to repeat itself. Back in 2016, Russell […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
On Turning Two
With this issue of the Independent, we begin Volume 3, having published two full years of weekly editions. It seems only right to pause and give you a report on […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Who’s in the ‘Workforce’?
I’ve noticed that, as the Outer Cape’s quest for housing alternatives intensifies, the term “affordable housing” seems to be muted. Insofar as it indicates that we have people in need […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Radically Rural
As I write this week’s column, two of the Independent’s staff members are on their way to Keene, N.H. to take part in the fourth annual Radically Rural Summit. Paul […]
AIR SAFETY
Cause of Cape Air Accident Yet to Be Determined
Pilot tried to abort landing; ‘We don’t know why,’ says Wolf
PROVINCETOWN — “It’s been a tough four days,” said Cape Air founder and CEO Dan Wolf on Monday afternoon. “This is incredibly hard.” He had just conducted a Zoom meeting […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Bad at Math
Ambrose Bierce’s 1911 Devil’s Dictionary defines a lottery as “a tax on people who are bad at math.” That still sounds right. The chances of winning the Mega Millions jackpot, […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
In It Together?
Twenty years ago this week, time stopped as we watched the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. For weeks, we could think of little else but the […]