Two weeks ago, page 3 of the Independent was our annual April Fool’s fake front page. We’ve done this for five years, and you might think that readers would have […]
Editorials
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Shrinking the Kids
What is it like to live on Outer Cape Cod and have a new baby? The feeling of isolation can be overwhelming, Becky Fischer told Independent reporter Olivia Oldham in […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Not Mincing Words
When I heard last Friday that Buddy Perkel had died, my heart sank. I thought about the day we first met, nearly 30 years ago. Teresa and I had just […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Northeast Kingdom News
I received a fine letter this week from Jeff Havlick, a subscriber in Eastham. He enclosed a clipping from the Caledonian Record, the local newspaper in St. Johnsbury, Vt., in […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
How Old Is Too Old?
At the start of the recent Wellfleet Community Forum, Sheila Lyons informed the large crowd that had come to talk about the precarious state of town government that Irene Daitch […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
White-Collar Criminals
Before we started the Independent, I worked at the Provincetown Banner, where a weekly feature was the “police blotter.” That’s what we called it, at least, but it wasn’t full […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Forsaking Science
A significant number of Americans are skeptical of climate science. According to the Pew Research Center, about 3 in 10 say that taking action on climate change is not important, […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
State of the Town
What is there to say about the state of the town of Wellfleet? In his ode to Eastham last week, Brendan Noonan wrote that the “terrifying” front page of the […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
An Anchor in Provincetown
Last week Teresa and I took ourselves to the Fine Arts Work Center for the first of this winter’s “Fellows Fridays” — showcases of work by the 20 artists and […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Housing Rears Its Head
Do we spend too much time talking about the Outer Cape’s shortage of reasonably priced housing? Some people we know think so, including friends in Truro who tell us that […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Google Chooses Evil
I use Google probably a hundred times a day, searching the internet as I check facts. I’ve been feeling a looming wariness as I watch the company’s downshift into AI, […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
A Dearth of Letters
Except for one deliciously pithy communication from Richard Spada, we had a dearth of letters to the editor this week. I don’t understand this, because last week’s issue of the […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Listening to Vorse
This is the third winter that the Independent has hosted young journalists in a fellowship named for Mary Heaton Vorse, who lived from 1907 until her death in 1966 in […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Doing the Research
The British scientific journal Nature published a remarkable study last month that goes a long way toward explaining why so many people believe things that aren’t true. The implications are […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Our Version of Trumpism
The final days of 2023 produced a blizzard of fundraising letters and emails. Quite a few of them came from news organizations making the case that journalism is essential to […]