As the town gears up for summer, the lineup of entertainment on offer includes a lively array of drag shows — a time-honored Provincetown tradition. But the atmosphere surrounding drag […]
Editorials
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
With the Forests
Dennis Minsky is mourning the impending loss of Provincetown’s beech trees in his column this week. In their case, a tiny nematode seems to be the cause. Scientists don’t yet […]
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK
Our Creative Future
One of my off-season research and writing quests started with a question I feel personally: how can artists continue to gain access to this place? Ross Moffett showed up here […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
The Traffic Jam
No one will be surprised to hear that as a kid I was a newspaper junkie. I delivered papers in the New York suburbs: the Times and the Herald Tribune, […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
A Lawyer’s Master Class
Our newsroom had a visit last week from Jay Ward Brown, a part-time Provincetown resident whose other home is in Virginia. Brown reads the Indie as well as his local […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Freedom of the Press
May 3 marked the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day, first declared by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993. A free press, says the U.N., “is a prerequisite […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Why We Don’t Endorse
It’s town election season, and there are contested select board seats in both Provincetown and Wellfleet this spring. The Independent isn’t endorsing any of them. And I don’t mean that […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Aging in This Place
“I’ve always wanted to be older,” said 19-year-old Ella Mae Dixon, the cabaret singer who grew up in Wellfleet, in a recent story. “I can’t explain it.” Jennifer Senior writes […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
A Motion to Divide
Is going to town meeting a waste of time? Is our peculiar brand of local government really an exercise in pure democracy, as we are often told, or is the […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Facing Our History
Our friend and mentor Robert Kuttner wrote this week in the American Prospect about the death on March 28 of Margot Stern Strom, the Brookline teacher who in 1975 created […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
The Luddite Party
Writing on the editorial page of the New York Times on Monday this week, three humanist technology researchers delivered this prediction: artificial intelligence (A.I.) is probably going to destroy humanity […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Rude Awakening
Town meetings are coming, and we are wondering how local citizens and governments will navigate hot-button issues this year. At last spring’s town meeting in Truro, a proposed change in […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
A Test for the Schools
Words matter. They can be used to hide the truth or to reveal it. The Provincetown Select Board gave us a fine example of the latter this week. One month […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
A Public Editor Again
Walking to our office in Whalers Wharf the other day, I passed by a busker outside Marine Specialties playing the guitar and singing an old Beatles song: “What would you […]
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK
Held Hostage by Slumlords
The Truro Health Dept. threatened in 2019 to close down the Truro Motor Inn where 50 people, including several children, were living in overcrowded motel rooms. Electric service designed for […]