Need For Study

East Hampton

January 25, 1997

Dear Helen Rattray,

Both Senator Al D'Amato and Representative Michael Forbes should be commended for asking that Brookhaven National Laboratory close down its high flux beam reactor, suspected of releasing incredibly high and dangerous levels of tritium. But Assemblyman Fred Thiele and County Legislator George Guldi also should be commended for opposing continued operation of another small Brookhaven reactor that can be shown to be equally dangerous.

I have learned that letters carried in The Star, including the very revealing, recent defensive letters by B.N.L. employees, play an important role in moving our elected officials to action.

Here is one example. Mr. Guldi, representing the Second District of the Suffolk County Legislature, responded to my announcement that the New York State Department of Health has just completed tabulating the breast cancer incidence data for Suffolk County for the years 1988-92 and was thus in a position to update a tabulation released in 1990 of age-adjusted breast cancer rates for the years 1978-87 for each of 62 community groupings that make up the county.

That tabulation offered the first official indication that the highest breast cancer rates were those near the lab. For example, the age-adjusted rate for the grouping Brook haven/Bellport, defined as three specified Census tracts located at the southwest perimeter of the lab, was the highest on Long Island, about 40 percent above the Suffolk County average. The updated data would add to the statistical significance to any similar finding, which would of course be of great importance to residents of that area who have recently filed a $1 billion lawsuit against the lab.

To our astonishment, Dr. Mark S. Babtiste replied that he had no budget that would permit the State Bureau of Cancer Epidemiology to provide such an update, because the 1980 Census tract definitions have been changed!

A similar instance of bureaucratic foot-dragging that requires public discussion comes from a letter from Dr. Marilee Gammon of the Columbia School of Public Health, who has just received $8 million from the National Cancer Institute to conduct a study of the environmental causes of the Long Island breast cancer epidemic, which, however, does not include possible radioactivity in drinking water.

In a Nov. 4 letter to Miriam Goodman and a group of concerned members of the Long Island Breast Cancer Network who queried her about this curious omission, she stated: "At present our protocol and our budget do not include examination of radionuclides in the water samples. If there is scientific justification for adding additional laboratory analyses, additional funding would need to be obtained."

This clearly underlies the need for our independent study of the varying amounts of radioactivity in baby teeth near B.N.L., information for which is available from Bill Smith of Fish Unlimited on Shelter Island. The good news is that our study, started with a grant from the Methodist Church and some East End family foundations, has been now endorsed by the New York Physicians for Social Responsibility and will be extended to include families living close to the Indian Point and Millstone reactors, using techniques developed by the German branch of P.S.R.

We shall soon have on hand a 32-page translation of a publication by the Berlin International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, describing their success in analyzing the strontium-90 content of thousands of German milk teeth. These tests are so sensitive that they found a tenfold increase in children born in 1987 over those born in 1985 because of the Chernobyl radiation cloud arriving in 1986. This finding has yet to be revealed by the mainstream press despite the fact that I.P.P.N.W. received the Nobel Peace Prize for peace in 1985. Readers wanting more information on this exciting new development can call me.

Cordially,

JAY M. GOULD

First To Report

East Hampton

January 25, 1997

Dear Helen,

I took special delight reading in The Star about the shutdown of Suffolk's only nuclear facility: Brookhaven National Laboratory Incorporated.

My interest in radioactive contamination of Suffolk's drinking water dates back to 1975, when I served as an assistant district attorney for Suffolk County. I would constantly read Karl Grossman's investigative reporting on this issue in The Star. As you know, Mr. Grossman was the first to report on the radioactive contamination found in the drinking wells of four hapless residents whose homes adjoined the property of B.N.L. This story was reported by Mr. Grossman in The Star before The New York Times ran it.

What makes the shutdown genuinely joyous is that The Star's Mr. Grossman was almost alone in those days in reporting on the mischief of B.N.L. And B.N.L., for its part, rather than address the problem divulged by Mr. Grossman, continued to stonewall the public: reciting the usual, inane liturgy, "There is no hazard to the public health." Now that the problem is out of hand, they shut down.

But who is to pay for their nonsense?

B.N.L., although it somehow appropriated the word National in its corporate name, is a private corporation owned and operated by seven universities. It is no more a governmental entity than National Car Leasing Corporation.

But we have the right to expect decency from these academic institutions. Instead, what we get is a bad neighbor. B.N.L. has contaminated Suffolk County's drinking water supply in addition to its radioactive contamination of the Peconic River. Had B.N.L. adopted an open view (consistent with men and women of science) it would not have continued its relentless contamination once the issue was raised over 20 years ago by The Star and Mr. Grossman.

Credit for making this lonely effort should be given to both The Star and Mr. Grossman. But the next step is for the lawyers: a class action suit against the individual trustees of the defiant and reckless universities. To them, Suffolk County was worthless. What was it worth to us?

Yours,

SIMON PERCHIK

YesYesBonacs

Sag Harbor

January 27, 1997

Dear Helen,

Picked up on the sub-ether radio...

East Hampton School Board announces course in standard English as a second language for native speakers of YesYesBonacs.

For those unacquainted with recent linguistic trends (analogous in many ways to beer-drinking trends with the tendency of sophisticated imbibers to prefer "micro-brewed" beers), modern linguistic educational thought scoffs at the concept of "dialect" and requires the recognition of variations in English as languages in their own right.

In line with this trend, the East Hampton School Board announced that it will offer courses in remedial standard English for native speakers of YesYesBonacs.

This language is the result of generations of isolation of native speakers on the eastern end of Long Island. Features of the language include the following:

- Frequent repetition of the affirmative emphative ("YesYes");

- Appositive renomenclature of the second person with a standardized form ("Bub," "Bubby" [diminutive]);

- Vowel substitution of unstressed "U" for other short vowels ("Got sum big scullups in 'em drudges, Bub");

- Frequent and colorful use of expletives and scatological phrases (examples deleted);

- Substitution of different pronoun forms and removal of "th" initial sounds (" 'em cod was thicker'n [example deleted], Bub").

Educators, hoping to remove the social stigma attached on such native speakers in the job markets, also hope to bridge the social gap between YesYesBonacs speakers and newer residents, referred to in YesYesBonacs as "[adjective deleted] summa people" by fostering a spirit of mutual respect between the two. They point out that "Bonac twang," as the unique inflections and intonations of YesYesBonacs has been referred to by other commentators, is a linguistic heritage from the forms of English spoken by early settlers to this part of the United States.

As a living linguistic heritage it is, as has been remarked by so many native YesYesBonacs speakers, "finest kind."

Best Wishes,

BILL FRISBIE

Nothing To Fear

Sag Harbor

January 26, 1997

Dear Editor:

Damage control spokespeople at Brookhaven National Laboratory - a facility which consumes huge amounts of our tax money on outdated cold war projects using deteriorating technologies and which operates secretly so no one can really know what is going on there - are "talking down" the recent accident where major amounts of radioactive tritium got into local groundwater. When will the madness stop?

Lab representatives claim that there was no leak from their atomic reactors. Perhaps it came from one of the lab's neighbors - the guy who runs the chop shop and paints cars with radioactive primer, or one of the local kids with a "nuclear" chemistry set. (You know, one of those people who have to have their water brought in from elsewhere despite the fact that lab-contaminated wells "pose no threat to public health.")

In a conversation I had with a nuclear engineer several days ago, he informed me that the tritium could have easily come from a nearby commercial firm that, for example, makes exit signs for airplanes. These signs contain tritium. He suggested that the radioactive sign material could have gotten into the aquifer and then traveled to the lab. Come on, all you folks who live around the lab, stop dumping all that radioactivity into your water. It's getting into Brookhaven Lab wells and has migrated to within 100 feet of one of their reactors.

Personally, I believe all those unsolicited, objective letters written by the extremely well-paid scientists at Brookhaven about how safe the place is, and about all the good work they claim they do. If they were wasting our $415,000,000 a year on projects of little value wouldn't they be the first to admit it?

When they told us Three Mile Island was not a threat to public health I believed them. So did all those people who lived near the atomic plant who are now dying of cancers at rates well above the national average.

When they said the Chernobyl accident was nothing to fear, even though the panic-stricken nuclear scientists and local politicians were flying their families out of the region within hours of the explosion, I felt reassured. So did the several million people near Kiev who continue to eat radioactive food every day of their lives and whose kids are now dying of leukemia at unprecedented rates.

When the recent space probe, filled with nuclear material, ran amok and dropped a major load of plutonium on Chile and Bolivia, I slept well knowing that chances of another accident like this, where enough highly enriched radioactive substance to kill everyone on the planet might wind up landing in my Jacuzzi, was one in 600 trillion.

And when they tell us that daily emissions and leaks from their atomic reactors are not giving Long Island women breast cancer, I rest assured that we have nothing to fear. I like these guys, and I trust them. They speak the truth.

In fact I suspect that the recent release of tritium into Long Island water is "too small to meter," that it "poses no threat" to anyone or anything, and that those who were responsible "were only following orders."

And when they tell us that there will only be a slight increase in cancer deaths as a result of Brookhaven's activities, I feel content. A small increase in cancer is not much. Not much, that is, unless you, or your daughter, or mother, or son, or spouse happens to be the person who gets it.

People like Jay Gould, Karl Grossman, Bill Smith, Helen Caldicott, and me may not buy the argument that the operation of an atomic reactor that releases radioactive toxins into a suburban environment of several million people is no big deal, but come on, these malcontents are upset because they aren't on the payroll at the lab and don't get to cure cancer with atom lasers and flux beams for a living.

I, for one, would like to send out positive affirmations to all the nuclear scientists and co-workers associated with those two very safe reactors that have been operating since the days when many of the commercial airplanes coming into Kennedy Airport still had propellers.

And because I know Brookhaven scientists are never less than forthcoming about what it is that they do (whatever it is that they do do), I would like them to honestly answer a few questions which could end forever this dialogue about whether they are underappreciated cosmic saviors of the next millennium or, as many have ungraciously claimed, mad scientists hell-bent on destroying the human race in the pursuit of what they believe constitutes scientific progress.

First: How much of your extremely large budget goes for medical work that accomplishes anything of value? I know you radiate people in the hopes that their cancer will go away, but does this really work? Is there any scientific evidence to show that you are curing people or extending their lives as opposed to destroying their immune systems, making them bald and nauseous, and separating them and their health maintenance organizations from tens of thousands of dollars? Is there any truth to the claim that radiation as a therapy can in fact increase rather than decrease the growth rate of tumors, causing people to die faster than they would without these treatments, as for example with prostate cancer?

Second: Do you really believe that when you release all that radioactivity into the air we breathe and water we drink, intentionally or otherwise, you are not causing breast cancer and other diseases? Are you aware there are hundreds, if not thousands, of studies showing that radiation causes fatal diseases like leukemia and other cancers and that no level of exposure is safe? Can you really be in the healing business and generate enough toxins to become a Superfund site at the same time? Do you see any contradictions in this? If not, why not?

Third: (This is a hard one.) Is it true that you were involved in experiments in the early 1990s where healthy people were essentially taken off the street, given radioactive substances, and placed in machines that used something called a gamma camera? That these people were told there was an extremely small chance that they could develop cancer from these experiments even though there was no accurate way for anyone to honestly gauge the risk to them and that they were paid $100 a day to participate in this experiment? And now at least one, and probably others, may have developed cancer as a result?

Take your time on this one. An inappropriate answer might shed bad light on your lab and its role in the "care-giving" field.

For extra credit: Can you think of another period in history when experiments like this were carried out on humans in laboratories by people who espoused an ideology based on the view that they were superior in their judgments and that their cause was of such import that other members of the human race were expendable?

Fourth: How much of your budget goes to run those decades-old atomic reactors? You love to claim that Brookhaven creates jobs, but how many more jobs could you create if you shut down those reactors and hired people with that money to do something beneficial for the human race? Surely all that atomic fuel (that you don't spill) must cost a fortune.

Fifth: Are you really generating income for Long Island, or is it true that the lab is really a cold war relic that has been overlooked by the Welfare Reform Act? It seems to me that you are consuming taxpayer dollars, not generating economic value. Could you please provide a definition of the term nuclear pork barrel and distinguish this term from the activities going on at the Brookhaven Lab?

Note: Let's say you changed what you are doing. Perhaps, since you operate under the Department of Energy, you convert over to a center that develops and manufactures wind power and solar technologies to be sold in the United States and overseas. There will be hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of this technology demanded all over the globe in the coming decades and it would be nice if the Japanese and Europeans did not get it all.

Why fight for the dangerous technologies of the past when lots of private dollars could be flowing into the Long Island region because we've become leaders in the development of renewable energy? And you wouldn't need to spend more and more of your time telling us a nuclear Peconic River is okay, that radioactive wells are not a threat to our health, and that local breast cancer rates are not related to the Superfund toxins and atomic leaks you generate. Instead you could spend your time hiring people to fill all the jobs that this work would create. Tomorrow belongs to the wind and the sun, not to atom splitting, n'est-ce pas?

Sixth: What really happened in this recent accident? It appears to me that some sort of cover-up is taking place. Why is there no information coming out about this? Is it true that because you are a Federal laboratory the public will not have access to the site and that secrecy will continue to be the norm? Is this appropriate for an institution that employs people who are as committed to public health as your scientists and well-paid public relations people tell us you are? Is it true that once tritium gets into the groundwater you can never remove it again?

Can we really expect to get truth from the Department Of Energy or Environmental Protection Agency on this matter when you are all sleeping in the same bed together? Wouldn't a Congressionally appointed independent investigator of the goings-on at your lab be far more likely to get to the bottom of all this business of spills and poisons than the good old boys who are checking things out now?

Seventh: Would you let your kids drink the water around Brookhaven Lab? If not, doesn't this mean that you believe your kids are more deserving of not dying of cancer than the children living near your lab? Don't you think it's time to stop doing what you're doing to us?

RALPH J. HERBERT, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

of Environmental Studies

Southampton College

We trickled down the I-95 on our annual pilgrimage to Key West and got here just a few days ago - too late for Super Bowl tips and tactics. As for highway food, it's as changeless as the pyramids. The Hardees, Roy Rogers, Friendlys, KFCs, Burger Kings, et al. still blink and beckon drivers to their prefab food and little tungsten packets of condiments.

Never go into one of these places unless armed with a bowie knife. The plastic cutlery must be designed for the protection of small children, so about the only packet that I could gain entry to was the sugar for a giant, pale ice-stuffed waxpaper flagon of tea.

But, whatever their quality, eating in restaurants gets really old really soon to me. Too much food and, lately, just too much fussiness on every plate.

At Elizabeth's on 37th, perhaps the most famous restaurant in Savannah, there must have been at least 15 elements loaded onto every entree presentation. Rolled in crushed pecans or coconut, coated or stuffed with this or that, on a bed of some indefinable "greens," black-eyed peas and yams introduced indiscriminately into all sorts of unlikely crannies!

Desserts en route to other diners looked fascinating but we were too exhausted by all the overwrought flavors of the meal to try out any. Elizabeth's at 37th is heralded as the "best" in Savannah, but I rather doubt it, even though it is the most expensive. The owner-chef, Elizabeth Terry, is from Atlanta, and her nouvelle Southern cooking seems to be her own invention, but authentic low-country cooking it isn't.

One trip to any restaurant isn't really a fair sample, but the style of the kitchen can certainly be ascertained. And native-born South Carolinian though I am, hoop skirt and furbelow cookery just isn't my taste. However, Savannah, which is probably the most beautiful small city in America, offers many eating alternatives, both high and low, and I plan to explore more of them on my journey "north toward home" (in the immortal words of what used to be Bobby Van's own Willie Morris).

No-Frills Favorite

So upon arrival here in old Conchtown, we immediately fell into our old watering hole, decidedly unfrilly P.T.'s - home of iron skillets full of sizzling fajitas, mounds of roast chicken, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, plain buttered carrots and steamed broccoli, Caesar salads that would fill a bushel basket, pitchers of beer and super margaritas.

Then off to the opposite extreme, the easygoing elegance of Antonia's, with its homemade feather-light pastas and the restrained culinary intelligence that knows just where to stop.

This restaurant burned to the ground year before last, but to everyone's great relief has been rebuilt exactly as it was - right down to the upholstered corner of banquettes with a simple striped awning that serves no purpose except for Tuscan atmosphere and a softening note in an otherwise all wood environment.

Inches That Count

But I do long for my very own kitchen (which will be returned to me tomorrow) and meanwhile have been enjoying exploring the possibilities of a kitchen equipped with a "Half-Pint" microwave, a capacious toaster oven (big enough to salt-roast a whole hog-snapper), and a two-ring electric counter unit. Sailors wouldn't find this arrangement difficult but it's been a while since I cooked on a boat.

It's good to be reminded how precious space can be and how many functions each pot

and square inch of counter can serve.

We had guests for Super Bowl festivities, which of course spread well across anyone's dinner hour - even ours, and we eat like Spaniards (9 or 10 p.m. usually).

Next time guests are expected and you want to be a guest yourself, you might try out this menu, expanded by as many numbers as you feel up to.

Tandoori-Style Game Hens

Feel free to change any of the spices because this is definitely a "use it up, make it do" pantry sort of meal. I thought two game hens I'd planned for four people looked a bit skimpy so added some sausages of smoked turkey and duck I found in my local market.

The "smoke" for my tandoori - which is in this instance a toaster-oven - is liquid mesquite that comes in a small bottle; the spices, leftover "shrimpboil" which contains cayenne, garlic, salt, pepper, thyme, cumin, and a bunch of stuff that can vaguely pass for Indian seasonings.

Serves four.

2 large Cornish game hens (they vary in size several ounces)

1 tsp. mesquite-flavor liquid smoke

1 Tbsp. softened butter

2 tsp. minced fresh garlic

1 Tbsp. ground "shrimpboil" mix

Half a bunch of parsley or watercress

Remove and discard the giblets and neck. Rinse the birds well and dry them. Mix together the liquid smoke, butter, garlic, and shrimpboil. Rub this under the skin into the breast and thighs and all over the outside of the birds. Snap the wings behind the hens, tie the legs together with string and wrap each in heavy foil. Refrigerate for several hours or, better still, overnight. Bring to room temperature before roasting.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the hens on a rack and roast them 45 minutes or until the juices run clear when the thigh is pierced. Let rest at least 15 minutes before serving. These are fine at room temperature. Cut them in half and arrange them on a platter with some parsley or watercress. I added some broiled smoked turkey and duck sausages to the chicken platter and they furnished a pleasant contrast of taste and texture.

Lentil Salad With Peppers

Few things are as handy to keep in the cupboard as a bag of dried lentils - salad, soup, or a vegetable are yours in a matter of minutes as lentils cook in 30 minutes, tops. Celery or bits of fresh tomato, pulped and chopped, or chopped red onion are other flavors you might want to add or substitute for some of the suggestions below.

Serves four to six.

1 lb. dried brown lentils

Water to cover by two inches

1 large chicken bouillon cube or homemade thin stock

Salt to taste

1 cup seeded, diced green bell pepper

4-5 scallions or 3 Tbsp. red onion, chopped

1 large jalapeno chile, seeded and minced

1/2 cup basic vinaigrette made with 4 parts olive oil to 1 part wine vinegar

Salt and freshly milled black pepper to taste

More oil if needed

1/2 cup parsley, minced

Wash the lentils and pour off the water carrying away any hulls or impurities three times. Put the lentils into a pot and cover them with cool water by two inches. Bring to a simmer, stir in chicken bouillon, and simmer until the lentils are just tender, 25 to 30 minutes. You do not want "crunchy" lentils but you do want them to hold their shapes so test often. Drain and spread out on a tray to cool quickly.

Prepare all the vegetables and stir into the lentils with chopsticks or the handle of a wooden spoon to avoid crushing them. Season to taste with vinaigrette and salt and black pepper. Set aside, covered loosely. Just before serving, taste, correct seasoning, add more oil if the salad looks dry, turn gently, then add most of the parsley and mix gently. Turn the lentil salad onto a deep platter, sprinkle with additional minced parsley, and serve.

Cucumbers and scallions in white wine vinegar make a simple "salad" and store-bought pineapple sherbet and some lovely thin Belgian butter cookies supplied by the guests rounded out the spicy and satisfactory easy meal.

Judith Hope, the chairwoman of the New York State Democratic Committee and a former East Hampton Town Supervisor, was elected last week to the executive board of the Democratic National Committee, joining Bill Lynch, a part-time resident of Sag Harbor, who was elected at the same time to the even more powerful position of vice chairman of the National Committee.

Local Democrats said this week they were dumbfounded by the news that East Hampton would have two members concentrated in top spots on the National Committee joining other leaders from all over the country.

"I can assure you it is unprecedented," laughed Ms. Hope on Tuesday. She will continue as state chairwoman.

Field Of Battle

The election of the pair meant this state had been chosen as the field of battle for 1998, observers said.

"Between me and Bill Lynch, you can be sure the interests of New York State will be aggressively represented," Ms. Hope said.

"Having Judith on the National Committee will be very important. I voted for her," said former U.S. Representative Bella Abzug, herself a National Committeewoman and a part-time resident of Noyac in Southampton Town.

The executive board is the policy-maker of the National Committee, where Ms. Hope said the first order of business, starting with a conference call yesterday afternoon, was to "get the fund-raising machinery under control."

Another East End resident, the late Ronald H. Brown, who had a Shelter Island house, had served in the past as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He was Secretary of Commerce at the time of his death in an airplane accident.

Party Backgrounds

Mr. Lynch is vice president of McAndrews and Forbes, the Manhattan-based holding company run by Ronald Perelman, the billionaire businessman whose wife, Patricia Duff, has been active in Democratic politics and who has an East Hampton estate.

A veteran of New York City politics, Mr. Lynch was deputy mayor under Mayor Dinkins, was his campaign manager twice, was an adviser for a time to the African National Congress of South Africa, and was the 1992 Democratic National Convention coordinator in New York City.

Ms. Hope was named state chairwoman in 1995, the first woman to lead a major party in New York, but inherited a $750,000 campaign deficit and the legacy of a crushing state defeat at the polls the previous November.

Hope Credited

"Judith Hope has brought this party back to financial stability and political strength" in New York State, said Mr. Lynch.

He and others credited her with delivering 52 out of 62 counties for the Clinton-Gore ticket in November and the largest plurality of any state, as well as increasing the Democratic advantage of the state's Congressional delegation and the State Assembly and shrinking the Republican majority in the State Senate.

Mr. Lynch said his role would be to advise President Clinton and Vice President Gore on mobilizing young and minority voters. Ms. Hope's political expertise is in fund raising, an area that has had the National Committee in considerable hot water these days, and in organizing grass-roots support.

"These next two years are pivotal to both the D.N.C. and the New York State Democratic Party's quest to rebuild and reshape themselves," said Ms. Hope, noting that every statewide seat, from Governor to Lieutenant Governor and Comptroller and every seat in the State Assembly and Senate, will be contested.

"Bill Lynch and I agree that we will join together, and we already have, to get the New York party the resources it needs from the D.N.C. to continue rebuilding," said Ms. Hope.

Additionally, polls have indicated that Senator D'Amato is at his most vulnerable and Governor Pataki's push to "balance the budget by attacking programs that are vitally important to the working class" could make him even more so, she said.

North Fork Origin

Born and raised in Mattituck, where he said he competed against East Hampton in varsity basketball and baseball, Mr. Lynch is vice president of the board of directors of Long Island University, an overseer of its easternmost campus, Southampton College, and on the boards of the Children's Defense Fund's Black Community Crusade for Children and the Harlem Business Alliance. He and his wife, Mary, bought a house in Sag Harbor. His mother, Lillie Lynch, still lives in Mattituck.

"I want to encourage more active participation in the Democratic Party, particularly by young people and minorities. I want to encourage them to take leadership, to be more active, to become candidates, to help us shape a vision for the future," said Mr. Lynch yesterday morning.

He predicted the issues most likely to spark such activity would be "the things that affect them most, education and employment."

Moynihan Link

Ms. Hope is married to Tom Twomey, a senior partner in the Riverhead and East Hampton firm of Twomey, Latham, Shea & Kelley. They live on Two Holes of Water Road in the Northwest Woods section of town.

She served two nonconsecutive terms as Town Supervisor that ended in 1976 and 1989. She was predecessor and mentor to Tony Bullock, a Town Councilman who later was elected to four terms as Supervisor. He is now the chief of staff for U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Local party regulars also were celebrating Ms. Hope's election this week, saying she would strengthen the link between East Hampton and Washington forged a couple of months ago by Mr. Bullock.

"She'll be an additional spokesperson for getting resources and recognition for East Hampton and, more importantly, for the state party. It shows you the great quality of our pool here," said Christopher Kelley, the town party leader.

From Arkansas, Too

He noted that Ms. Hope had been the first female town party leader, before she went on to become an aide to Governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo, a fund-raiser for Senator Moynihan and Mayor Dinkins, and finance director of the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign in New York.

Ms. Hope was born in Little Rock, Ark., the daughter of a former Assembly Speaker there. She said this week that President Clinton, whom she met long after she became involved in politics in New York, "is very proud of my Arkansas connection."

She said the President gave her a big hug during the inauguration celebration last week, shouting over to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, "Hey, do you know who this is? This is the chairman of the New York State Democratic Party."

Seemingly unimpressed, Mr. Jackson shouted back, "So?"

"Do you know where she's from?" asked the President.

"No."

The address is daunting, just off Further Lane in East Hampton, flanked by enormous "cottages" and villas, the cream of resort residences once owned by hallowed names from the gilded age.

What a surprise then to turn into a narrow lane, little more than a driveway, that meanders past modest one-story capes, small houses, surrounded by clumps of old lilacs and tangles of honeysuckle and ends with a towering windmill.

It is a world that feels like early East Hampton, houses set at odd angles to capture the sun, split rail or weathered gray picket fencing enclosing flower and vegetable gardens. The land is spacious and flat on the plain just behind the dunes, and you half expect to meet a 19th-century farmer or a flock of wandering sheep. Had you been there in the '30s, you might have seen Jackie Bouvier on a cantering pony.

Mill Was Moved

In 1930 George Roberts had Aymar Embury 2d design a colonial style house between Middle and Further Lanes. According to the East Hampton historian Robert Hefner, Roberts owned all the land from Middle Lane to the ocean, most of which was agricultural, pasture, and tillage. On his farm were various outbuildings, small barns, and a chicken house.

In the '50s, Robert Dowling (benefactor of Dowling College) bought the Middle Lane house and the large parcel south of Further Lane, where he added three houses and the windmill, all of which were old buildings moved from other parts of town.

The mill, called the Hayground Mill, came all the way from Bridgehampton, west of Corrigan's Garage on Montauk Highway near the old Knights of Columbus building. The move was made all the way along the beach to its current site, just behind the dunes bordering the ocean.

Cape House, Too

Also moved to this site was the modest cape that became the year-round, long-term rental home of Joe Nahem and Jeff Fields.

That the house was unfurnished when they found it was unusually propitious. Mr. Nahem is an interior designer in partnership with Tom Fox in New York City and Jeff Fields is an account supervisor involved in the production of fashion catalogues. Together all three have captured the spirit of their idealistic location and created an interior that is colorful, refreshing, and entirely relaxed.

Although the original fireplace and stair must have been left behind when the house made the journey across town, the early structure is still evident. Ceiling beams and corner posts and early horizontal wainscoting frame the large room that spans the front of the house, now used for dining. To the north is a later wing with fireplace that serves as the living room and upstairs two dormers accommodate a pair of bedrooms and baths.

Colorful Melange

That this is a house inspired by the outdoors and life in the Hamptons today is very evident from the melange of furnishings, some country, some traditional, some '30s modern, and all combined with color and comfort. It is also clear that the designers have enjoyed putting this house together, going to local shops, antiques shows, and yard sales.

Under the front window in the living room is a long, narrow pine table with folding legs, possibly used by a wallpaper hanger. For the dining table Fox and Nahem combined contemporary wrought-iron legs with an old wooden top. Next to it is an imposing '30s buffet with big chrome knobs.

With surfaces and floors left mostly bare, the rich yellow paint color bathes the space with warmth. Climbing the narrow stairs one is greeted by a pair of paintings by Vincent Gagliostro of sky blue splashed with palm trees. A skylight overhead makes this tiny passage seem larger and inviting.

Garden View

In a new dormer an enlarged bedroom now includes a window seat, a sunny spot for reading or a peaceful nap. On another wall the bed is framed by the notched beams saved from the roof renovations.

Across the hall a new bath is all gleaming white with a deep tub on legs and a view of Mr. Fields's fenced-in garden. Throughout, the partners have used a mix of pattern and texture in a way that is very low-key, and especially natural.

As professionals trained at Parsons, Fox and Nahem were called "recovering minimalists" by House Beautiful magazine. In fact, the designers feel they have much more freedom now, and that their clients want a personalized solution, not a particular design period or look.

Mr. Fox cheerfully explained, "We have done Gothic in Greenwich and an American farmhouse in Martha's Vineyard."

"We are noted for two things," added Mr. Nahem. "We get the job done fast and we complete it down to the candles and flowers on the table."

Will Hang A Shingle

In an unusual arrangement with their East Hampton landlord, Fox and Nahem were hired to design the addition of the second dormer to expand the bedroom and to add the second bath. That the project started in October and was completed by Feb. 1 is testament not just to the contractor, John Hummel, but also that this house is so important to its tenants.

"We all work very hard in the city and this is where we do our real living," said Mr. Nahem. In fact, the partners are spending longer weekends here now and expanding their business to include work on the East End.

Soon a 1949 house in Amagansett will be transformed into Fox and Nahem's local office and the partners will have many more opportunities to mix business with their very obvious pleasure.

The name Judy Militare has resonated to East End theater audiences since June of 1989, when she made her behind-scenes debut as stage manager for Tri-Light Productions' "The Women" at Guild Hall.

An invisible presence we knew was back there running almost every show to hit the boards, she did not, however, have a face for most of us.

At the urging of the director Sandy Rosen, Ms. Militare decided to "step out of the darkness into the light" before her 50th birthday and the millennium coincide in the year 2000. She would play the Sergeant in CTC Theater Live's current production of Irwin Shaw's moving antiwar drama, "Bury the Dead."

Opening Night Delayed

"The part requires yelling, and that's what I do backstage; I yell good," she said. "So I opened my mouth and put my foot in it and said yes. I got my script, learned my lines and movement, and braced myself for opening night."

"But the universe had other plans. 'You'll have to delay your opening night for two weeks, you're going to the hospital,' it told me."

Ms. Militare had been having chest pains for about a year, and during the rehearsal process, she said, she became unable "to stand or think."

A sonogram "introduced me to my gallstone," a formidable object eventually removed by surgery that left her stapled together and too weak to perform.

"I couldn't even make it through a metal detector," she laughed.

The Patient Recovers

Her daughter Andrea Gross, last seen as the hilarious maid Doreen in CTC Theater Live's "Waiting in the Wings," filled in splendidly for her mother.

A recent visit to Ms. Gross's Montauk apartment, where her mother, attended also by her younger daughter, Marcy, is recuperating, found the patient a little feverish but determined to give a good interview in that gallant style that says the show must go on.

"I'll be back as the Sergeant for the show's final weekend," she promised. "I don't know if we love me as an actor yet, but we're definitely going to find out. I think it may be a hoot. It'll be my first time on stage in quite a while."

Eight-Year-Old Ballerina

Ms. Militare began her theatrical career as a dancer in the Metropolitan Opera Ballet Company when she was only 8. Her father was Assemblyman for the 17th A.D. in Queens, later a New York State Supreme Court Justice, and her mother a politician's wife "who gave dinner parties, the whole nine yards."

Although it was alien to their regimented lives and her strict Roman Catholic upbringing, her parents gave her a chance to pursue her little girl's dream of becoming a ballerina.

One sweltering afternoon they took her to the old Met, before it moved to Lincoln Center, to audition along with 200 sweaty, screaming city kids. Among the 20 chosen, she began classes the following week, and stayed with the company for seven years.

"We traveled a lot, but my favorite part was not so much the dancing or the character parts in various operas as learning the workings of the theater."

Behind Scenes

"There was a wonderful old cage elevator up to the dance studios that took you through the prop department - it made me gasp. I spent all my free time with the seamstresses who were working on these incredibly heavy, beaded, gold-encrusted velveteen creations for 'Aida,' 'Cavalliera Rusticana,' 'Carmen,' et cetera. The dancing was just fun at that point."

Dancing led into acting, however, and Ms. Militare moved on to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, attending the Professional Children's School for her academic education.

Blame 'The Theater'

About this time she became "a little obstreperous," according to her parents, stripping her elbow-length hair white just before a visit to the family's summer house on Shelter Island. Her father blamed this rather typical teen-age gesture on The Theater.

"My mom took me to the hairdresser to get some kind of kind of ladylike color on my head because we had to go this testimonial dinner," Ms. Militare said. Shortly thereafter, she was packed off to the Chapel Hill School for Girls in Waltham, Mass., as a boarding student.

"My father hoped this would make me into a serious person, but it didn't work. To this day I drive him crazy. When he visited me at Southampton Hospital, I think it was partly to make sure I wasn't running up and down the corridors doing scenes from 'All That Jazz.' "

Once sprung from boarding school she considered joining the Peace Corps or the Army. When her parents suggested the U.S.O. instead, she ran away and married Ken Gross, a Juilliard graduate playing in the pit of "Follies" at the time. Andrea was born, and four years later, Marcy.

Then came divorce and a brief second marriage to a musician 20 years her senior, who gave her a summer house in Montauk as a wedding present before they split up.

"I was impressed. I said 'Oh, okay, I'll keep this, thank you. Now, I'm afraid you'll have to leave.' "

"We have a good relationship as long as we're not in the same room," she explained.

Ms. Militare, something of a jack-of-all-trades, raised her girls in New York, working in a law office, for The New York Times, and eventually founding her own audio-visual company that supplied fund-raising films to various charities.

Out Of The City

When Andrea was mugged in the subway on her way home from the High School of Music and Art 10 years ago, she determined to get her daughters out of the city. She sold her company, winterized her Montauk house, and moved in.

"After the first winter the girls looked at me and said, Mom, you're baking cookies and hanging curtains and you're really scaring us. Where is the pod that is our real mother? Please get a job. We can't stand coming home from school and having you smiling."

Ms. Militare got a job in a video store - "I've always flown by the seat of my pants, sometimes with a certain amount of prowess."

Ensconced

When the Community Theater Company's production of "Pajama Game" opened at Guild Hall in the spring of 1988, she took Andrea to see it.

"We were sitting house left. I thought it was a cute little theater. Then the show began; it had that fantastic dance number with Velaine Pfund and the late Michael Paoni. During intermission I looked at Andrea and said, 'Honey, you and I are going to be ensconced in this house.' "

"And guess what? We have been, for quite a long time now."

Theater Geek

Ms. Militare got keyed into backstage doings as an adult during a performance of "Sweeney Todd" at the Uris Theater.

"There I was weeping over Angela and Len, and suddenly I spotted these technicians up on a catwalk. Then the entire set moved hydraulically in a circle. It was mesmerizing. How did it work? I had no formal education on this."

She began to read voraciously about the technical side of the theater, and when Michael Disher put on "The Women" the following year, got her first gig as stage manager.

Barbara Bolton and Serena Seacat, who were in the cast, snagged her for "The Children's Hour," the CTC's next production. She's been ensconced ever since.

At The Controls

Stage-managing can best be compared to NASA's Mission Control, said Ms. Militare. "I'm usually backstage at a podium lit by a blue light, shrouded in black, with a script, a headset, several cups of coffee and, recently, a stool to sit on."

"My central headset is tuned in to all the technicians' headsets throughout the theater, and the show doesn't begin until I open my mouth. I make sure the hundreds of little components of the script, and the set, lighting, and sound designs, happen fully and naturally."

"I see to it that the phone rings when it's supposed to, the lights go up when they're supposed to, et cetera. I'm actually calling the show, moment by moment, making the play come to life."

Having "been embraced by the theater and the community" to the extent that she has - she now works for her friend and fellow actor Alan Court's decorative-tile and bathroom fixture company - Ms. Militare plans to spend the rest of her life on the East End.

"It's an easier, kinder, more favorable community than the city, and that's important for me and my daughters: my settling-down place, their stepping-off point. I'm ready to crone now, to become an old witch; they're ready for the world."

It's difficult to picture this vital woman in her 40s as a crone, however. Her stage-manager's mantra, repeated before every show, is: "If things are ready on the dark side of the moon, I would like to play the pipe drums."

A quote from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," it means, she said, "I am doing my work in the dark. I would like to proceed, put it out into the universe now."

Hardly a retirement mantra.

The slowdowns, brownouts, busy signals, and disconnects at America Online in the past month have been one big headache for its eight million subscribers.

The nation's largest commercial on-line service has no one but itself to blame for the mess. It adopted aggressively reduced prices in December - unlimited usage for under $20 a month, replacing the hourly rates of up to $3 - with no real idea of how consumers would react, and not enough equipment or personnel should there be a surge in demand. There was, and the result is chaos.

Individual subscribers are said to have doubled or even tripled their time on line since the plan took effect, while many businesses that depend on AOL for E-mail and other services are simply not bothering to hang up at all anymore. The confusion is worse during evening hours and on weekends, when available lines are most overloaded. Thousands have been unable to connect.

Until a week or two ago, AOL was adding fuel to the fire with telemarketing, disk-mailings, and TV advertising designed to bring in still more customers. A series of lawsuits, including one by the Attorney General of New York, have put a stop to the campaign, but the horse is long since out of the barn.

To give America Online its due, it probably offers more features - financial services, TV networks, games, national newspapers and popular magazines, lonelyhearts "rooms," et cetera - than all its competitors combined, and its E-mail, when it works, is so much easier to use than anyone else's that even technogeeks in Silicon Valley keep AOL accounts.

Many people are new to computers and may not know it, but AOL is not the only game in town - certainly not in this town, which has two or three local "providers" whose dial-up costs a lot less than a call to Islip, AOL's nearest connection.

Just a thought.

Perhaps never has there been such a group of strange bedfellows as that amassed in opposition to the casino gambling proposal that has been before the State Legislature - religious groups, Donald Trump, environmentalists, race track officials. . .

Each has been opposed for a different reason, of course, and while we are not categorically against making or taking bets it is clear that the arguments for casino gambling are far outweighed by the arguments against, a view with which the State Senate, judging from its 41-19 vote Tuesday, is in accord.

Casinos may funnel some money into municipal coffers, but far more is siphoned out through increased policing and social costs. Furthermore, the sums raked in by the house are subtracted from the marketplace, from savings, and investment.

Long Island had not been among the four areas the Albany bill designated as possible sites for casino gambling. The bill would have allowed casinos in Saratoga, Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and the Catskills and slot machines at eight race tracks, including Yonkers Raceway but excluding Aqueduct and Belmont.

It's hard to believe there could be much support for gambling on the South Fork, which already is awash in tourism. The four upstate resort areas, on the other hand (though Buffalo does not quite fit the bill), have fallen on hard times and have been looking for a quick fix. Casino gambling is not the solution.

In the words of William Eadington of the University of Nevada's Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming, "In place after place, the casino-based economy soars, then slumps into a black hole."

Sometimes it seems as if all the debates of significance in local government concern the use or misuse of the natural resources with which the East End is graced. Natural amenities have drawn more and more people to the area and they, in turn, have created built environments or tampered with the natural one in ways that challenge our resources. Nothing is inviolate.

The debate about how many people and industrial or recreational uses the land can sustain without endangering the drinking water supply is all-encompassing. Have we permitted land-use practices that contaminate the groundwater and are we continuing to do so? Will there be enough good water for the ultimate number of persons who could eventually live here under current zoning? Who should control from where and how much water is taken out of the ground and where it is distributed?

Some two years ago, The Star offered the opinion that it was "possible to create a nonpolluting golf course." The debate then was about the Bistrian family's Stony Hill Country Club course. While neighbors demanded the town reconsider the potential for groundwater contamination, the Bistrians claimed the town already had contaminated the water in the area and sued for damages.

More recently, the Southampton Town Board has given its approval to a zone change for an 18-hole golf course, which will lie over the thickest part of the underground aquifer on the South Fork in Bridgehampton, and an application for another nine holes for the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett is moving toward East Hampton Town Planning Board approval.

There is little point in debating whether to allow the new Bridgehampton course or the expanded Amagansett one (whose developers have promised to use the integrated pest management system instead of chemical pesticides) per se, since both are well along in the review process. The focus should be on how to insure that the golf courses are good, environmentally friendly neighbors.

We reiterate: It is possible to create nonpolluting golf courses. But two essential ingredients are needed to do so on the South Fork.

The first is a solid and up-to-date plan for the use of our groundwater, which is immutably linked across Southampton and East Hampton Town lines. The second is a set of stringent and enforceable criteria for the use of nonpolluting herbicides and/or pesticides on golf course greens and fairways. These are legitimate and attainable goals.

A husband-and-wife team of film producers who have focused on working with new talent - directors, producers, screenwriters, and casts without previous filmmaking experience - made Sundance Film Festival history Sunday when one of their most recent projects won an unprecedented number of awards in the annual competition.

Kit Carson and Cynthia Hargrave of East Hampton were the executive producers of "Hurricane," which was honored with two jury awards and one audience award. The jury awards were given for direction (the film was Morgan J. Freeman's first directorial effort) and for cinematography (by Enrique Chediac). The audience award, for best film, was based on ballots filled out by filmgoers at the festival.

The film was one of 20 selected for competition from among 800 festival entries.

Emotional Turbulence

"Hurricane" was described this week by Mr. Carson as a film about a 15-year-old boy on the Lower East Side of Manhattan who goes through an "emotional hurricane" after he discovers some family secrets and then feels his world, which he thought was secure, collapsing. The main character, played by Brendan Sexton 3d, tries to avoid the life of crime that his teenage friends are heading toward.

The director, writer, producers, and most of the cast of "Hurricane" were first-timers, noted Mr. Carson, who himself had a small role in the film. "Hurricane" was the second project the couple worked on with a staff of new talent; their first was last year's "Bottle Rocket," and a third project is already in the works.

The couple became involved with "Hurricane" in the early stages of the script, after they were approached by the film's producers, Gill Holland and Galt Neiderhoffer. They invited the director and screenwriter to their East End house to discuss the project, then spent much of last summer on the set on the streets of East Harlem.

From Vision To Reality

The best part of working with new talent, Mr. Carson said, is "it's always about the first time you tangle with the world, the big world."

Working with the younger generation, Mr. Carson continued, was interesting, even refreshing. "They don't trust, they don't trust anyone," he said. He also admired their "authenticity. . . . There's nothing hokey."

"I always start more skeptically," Ms. Hargrave said, "but at the same time it's really a privilege . . . to help somebody bring their vision to reality." Though working with first-timers brings some problems of inexperience, the reward is that "it's so much fun to watch the talent really shine," she added.

Mr. Carson has worked with the Sundance Institute for 10 years, coaching budding screenwriters in their craft. Ms. Hargrave works as a mentor/advisor through the institute as well, concentrating on producing films.

Mr. Carson brings to his work with screenwriters a journalistic career of his own, having had articles published in various magazines and newspapers. He wrote his first piece for Esquire magazine while he was in college. Among his subsequent articles were ones highlighting up-and-coming filmmakers before they achieved fame - including George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Quentin Tarantino.

And the next generation of filmmaking icons? "Everybody I work with," Mr. Carson confidently responded.

Mr. Carson, a founder of both the U.S.A. Film Festival in Dallas and the Taos (N.M.) Talking Picture Film Festival, brings in first-timers for Phoenix Pictures, a New York and Los Angeles-based company he works with. Two of the company's most recent projects were "The Mirror Has Two Faces" with Barbra Streisand and "The People Vs. Larry Flynt."

East-West Rivals?

Film festivals serve as a marketplace for selling distribution rights. At last week's festival, the foreign rights to "Hurricane" were sold to Mayfair, an English company, for more than $1 million, the film's approximate production cost. The sale of domestic rights to the film is in the works, too, Mr. Carson said.

The Hamptons International Film Festival, held annually here in October, has been seen by some as competition for Sundance. Films that have been shown at the East End festival, for instance, cannot compete in the Sundance contest.

Still, Mr. Carson doesn't see a fierce rivalry between the two. The Hamptons festival, which likewise specializes in independent film-making, "is just beginning to characterize itself." Sundance, going strong at 13 years, is a bit more established.

At A Crossroads

Mr. Carson sees independent films as being at a crossroads and suggested the East Hampton festival focus on the dilemmas faced by film-makers. These include how to stay independent when the forces of Hollywood and the desire and need to make money compete with the drive to make quality, but not necessarily profitable, films.

What advice would Mr. Carson give young independents struggling with such issues? "You don't lose your compass," he said.

AMAGANSETT

Gordon to Peter and Lynn Peck, Fresh Pond Road, $165,000.

Berri estate to David Metcalf, Marine Boulevard, $360,000.

BRIDGEHAMPTON

Bridge Bldg. Co. to Andrew Baur and Sherin Gobran, Woodruff Lane, $308,500.

Doran to Elizabeth Higgins, Edgewood Avenue, $165,000.

Bialsky to Ira Slovin, Mitchells Lane, $700,000.

EAST HAMPTON

Lowerre to Liana Gerson, Apaquogue Road, $650,000.

Wertheim to Lewis Cohen and Pamela Bicket, Miller Lane West, $170,000.

Richard Principi Inc. to Sid and Linda Golden, South Seaview Road, $845,000.

Joseph to Eric Ellenbogen, Highway Behind the Pond, $2,490,000.

Simpson to Irene D'Agostino, Montauk Highway, $230,000.

Tillinghast to Lynne Breslin, Woods Lane, $400,000.

Town of East Hampton to Arlethia Lawler, Accabonac Highway, $159,000.

Caldwell to Z&S Realty L.L.C., Newtown Lane, $795,000.

MONTAUK

LePerigord Inc. to George Briguet, East Lake Drive, $280,000.

William to Atlantic Bluffs Assoc., East Lake Drive, (two lots, 3.9 acres upland, 6.7 acres bottomland), $1,475,000.

Serricchio to Craig and Lucille Robertson, Benson Drive, $207,000.

NORTH HAVEN

Wroldsen Jr. to Jeffrey and Mala Sander, Sunset Beach Road, $425,000.

NORTHWEST

Adlerstein to Harvey Weinstein, North Cape Lane, $389,000.

1446 Corp. to Frederick and Helene Stilwell, Ely Brook to Hand's Creek Road, $240,000.

Ferrara to Robert Guida, North Hollow Drive, $420,000.

NOYAC

Buffo 3d to Nina Amodio, Widgeon Lane, $195,000.

Regine Starr Inc. to Gildo Spadoni, North View Drive, $225,000.

SAG HARBOR

Simms to Hazel Hammond, Amity Street, $217,500.

Howard estate to Alice and Bayard Van Hecke, Madison Street, $280,000.

SAGAPONACK

Katz to Robert and Cecile Rosner, Old Barn Lane, $1,100,000.

SPRINGS

Grossman to the Nature Conservancy, Fireplace Road, $180,000.

Dorman estate to Robert Barker and Jill Schneider, Glen Way, $200,000.

WATER MILL

Southern to Jonathan and Ilene Cranin, Westminster Road, $525,000.