Posted on 08/28/2009 11:04:33 PM PDT by Schnucki
Beneath its idyllic exterior, Martha's Vineyard – beloved holiday destination of America's well-heeled – is rife with depression, alcoholism, drug abuse and domestic violence.
America's First Family will wave goodbye to Martha's Vineyard tomorrow after a week's holiday on an island whose name is rarely uttered without the epithet "idyllic".
As President Obama flies his family back home to Washington, they will rapidly be followed by an armada of private jets from the tiny local airport. After next weekend's Labour Day holiday, the exodus of billionaire businessmen, media tycoons and Hollywood stars who summer on the island will be complete. From Oprah Winfrey and Beyonce to Valerie Jarrett and the Clintons, they'll all be gone. In a matter of days, the island's population withers from 100,000 to just 15,000.
More than a few of the quitters must feel a twinge of jealousy for those lucky few left behind on the 23-mile island. They shouldn't. The reality of out-of-season – and that in holiday-starved America means any month outside July and August – is anything but a paradise for most of those left behind.
Martha's Vineyard's dark little secret is one of desperately high levels of depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence and even suicide attempts among a population that struggles to make ends meet in a billionaire's playground when the billionaires have all left.
The last time the island's social problems were publicly totted up – in 2005 - the number of cases of patients treated each year in hospital for alcohol or drug abuse had soared from almost 200 in 2002 to just over 750 three years later. The caseload of patients struggling with depression had grown from 40 in 2002 to 92 in 2005. Suicide attempts climbed almost tenfold, from three in 2002 to 29 in 2005.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
That heading is RACIST!
Yes. Well, now that Teddy is gone... expect a reduction...
Was one of the social problems also rape? I guess it will be reduced now.
Mmmmm...schadenfreude!
[Chorus:]
Stubble and stone make a hard row to hoe.
What little will grow, the drought will kill.
The summer folks call it Paradise Mountain
but we call it Poverty Hill.
They say we have beautiful faces as grainy as wood.
Yeah, they'd like to live here of all places if only they could.
Well, we don't get those wood, grainy faces from livin' too good.
It's the rocks and the sun and dust and the heat.
It's too much of work and too little to eat.
[Chorus]
Stubble and stone make a hard row to hoe.
What little will grow, the drought will kill.
The summer folks call it Paradise Mountain
but we call it Poverty Hill.
"Poverty Hill" lyrics - The Kingston Trio
President Bush was good for something.
Well, the Kennedy's have to live somewhere.
A "distraction in God"??!!
Not solace in God.
Not faith in God.
Not comfort in God.
Distraction.
After describing Martha's Vinyard as a microcosm of all the social destruction the liberals create everywhere they go, Tom Leonard refuses to admit it's blatantly obvious correlation with elite Democrat policies. Instead, he sneers at the very solace and comfort people's faith in God bring them in the face of the socialist millionaire's rape of the island.
What utterly sordid depravity it takes to write for the Left.
My husband spent time there as a child. From what I knew of the people...err...it was nothing to emulate or envy.
Yes... I liked it too.
The rich are different...
That’s unfair. The statement Tom Leonard made is a quote from one of the people he interviewed.
If you have great wealth side by side with great poverty, then inevitably there will be social problems.
You know...it’s a place you’d just like to drive through and see...like most of Cape Cod...and then drive on.
Given a choice of places to be like this...I’d pick Dauphin Island, Bama...with a case or two of beer, alot of ice...a canopy over the side of the RV trailer, and a folding chair. Real people around you and a unfancy vacation.
Went with friends from overseas to visit MV - it was ‘interesting’ to wander around a bit - lots of tourist junk and overpriced ‘art’, we had booked a week - it was the longest and most boring time I’d ever spent in one place in my life. The wonderful ‘mixing’ among all kinds is highly stylized and over-stated. It is very much a collection of stereotype ghettos - divided by income/status. Of course, they don’t have border guards or anything - but it is quite evident who are among the ‘elect’ and who isn’t. They can keep it.
It always amazed us displaced Texans (who were accustomed to using our bass boats year-round) how religiously the "Cape-Island people" in MA clung to the idea that Summer starts precisely on Memorial Day and ends precisely on Labor day. What is even more amazing is that even inland businesses -- like hot dog stands -- adhered to the same limitations.
It always amazed me when my co-workers would say, "Hey! Memorial Day is over! Let's go have a hot dog for lunch!" ;-)
And that's naive. Tom Leonard used the quote to craft the impact of the article. Just because he's hiding behind a quote, doesn't mean he's not deliberately fronting that quote for his own purpose - after all, the article contains what he put in it, and in the way he put it in, to achieve the effect he wants.
It doesnt seem the effect is to rubbish religion. His main thrust is the effect of seasonal wealth on poor communities, and seasonal wealth brought in by the supposed champions of the poor at that.
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