I’m not sure exactly what I expected from my first time covering the Iowa caucuses. As a nerdy middle-schooler growing up in the D.C. suburbs, I had read some American […]
Op-Eds
POLITICAL MEMO
Dysfunctional Democracy
What happens when not enough people pay attention and get involved
Early in the new year, President Biden gave a powerful speech near Valley Forge warning of all the ways that democracy could be destroyed if Donald Trump returns to the […]
KEEPING WATCH
Bearing Witness to Exploitation
Reflections of a retired English teacher
We live in a brutish world. The front page of the daily paper illustrates this truth every morning. We are confronted with the latest details about the suffering and death […]
FESTED
Reflections on a Crowded Day in Wellfleet
This year’s OysterFest had a feeling of recovery from an illness
In October I experienced my third OysterFest as a Wellfleet resident. I thought I should volunteer, and I worked stamping entrants’ hands (the ink lasts longer on the inside of […]
PREGNANCY AND PROTEST
Haranguing the Vulnerable Is Not ‘Pro-Life’
The root causes of abortion need to be addressed
A “pro-life” organizer working with the Texas-based group 40 Days for Life recently staged 40 days of prayer vigils outside Health Imperatives, the only reproductive health clinic on Cape Cod. […]
CEREMONIES
A Treasury of Christmas Lists
The joy and sadness of an annual ritual
I’ve always envied people who keep a journal. What a marvel — to be able to look back, hear your own voice of years ago, and know what mattered most […]
CORRECTIONS
On Making Changes at the County Jail
We need more treatment at every level for the mentally ill
The Independent’s Nov. 16 article “Bridges Granted Pretrial Probation After 4 Months of Incarceration” [page A8] pointed out the tangled relationship between our current mental health and criminal justice systems. […]
VOICES OF FAITH
Let Us Put Away Violence
Standing in support of the suffering innocent
Certain dates remain etched in our minds for years because of what happened on those particular days. For many of us, Nov. 22, 1963 and Sept. 11, 2001 are two […]
HORRORS
Thanksgiving, the Slasher Movie
A holiday film in which consumers are terrorized
In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, perhaps your mind strays toward violent-enough thoughts about your own family, and you’re not feeling the need to see a new horror film […]
OP-ED
Healing the Wariness in Our Bones
Around a winter fire, a chance to warm our souls and consider peace
The rhododendrons make me laugh. After a long stretch of autumn, the sun came out, the temperature rose into the 60s for a minute, and they got all pink, as […]
OP-ED
Demand a Middle East Ceasefire Now
U.S. tax dollars are funding atrocities in Gaza
On the Outer Cape, we spoke up against Trump’s policy of family separation at the U.S. border in 2018. We spoke up against the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, […]
LEADERSHIP
The Housing Crisis Has Become Chaos
The laws of economics overwhelm the few tools of government
The dramatic loss of affordable housing on the Outer Cape has been called a “crisis” for more than 30 years. Naming it a crisis has not slowed the market forces […]
KEEPING WATCH
We Are Not the Apex of Creation
Reflections of a retired English teacher
Ponder the improbability of it all. Instead of barren rock, lifeless water, and gaping nothingness, there is a planetary ecosystem teeming with a nearly incomprehensible number of protean life forms, […]
NO-COMPLAINT DEPT.
The Ambient Music of Provincetown
From daybreak to late at night, the mixed-up sounds of a neighborhood
British composer and self-styled “nonmusician” Brian Eno has recorded several albums of “ambient music.” In the liner notes for his Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978), he wrote that ambient […]
RAISING THE RTE
A Deeply Flawed Process
Next time, it could be your concerns that are dismissed
The Provincetown Select Board at its last meeting on Aug. 28 dramatically increased the residential tax exemption (RTE) from 25 percent (where it had held steady for several years) to […]
