‘Star shines for all?” an old friend roared last Thursday when stopping by in the rain to pick up his Star. “Doesn’t look like it out there!”

The town lawyer at the center of a controversy over a lawsuit brought by the new owner of Duryea’s in Montauk has departed for parts unknown, but this is hardly the end of the troubling matter. Many questions remain about who knew what when in an improper — and possibly illegal — settlement arrangement he signed.

Degrees have an image problem. In the struggle to control global warming, we are told that unless the Earth stays within 2 degrees Celsius of 19th-century levels, catastrophes both natural and political will arise.

Primaries are good for local democracy in that they get voters thinking about government well before the general election.

If you have been in a car almost anywhere in East Hampton during the past several weeks — and especially if you have been out and about on a bicycle — you will have noticed the abundance of signs that have blossomed on the roadside.

We are represented abroad by a president who regularly engages in schoolyard taunts of the sort that would earn a third grader a trip to the principal’s office.

The first of two electronic billboards along Sunrise Highway in Hampton Bays was made operational in time for Memorial Day weekend. Green-lighted by the Shinnecock Indian Nation, they were described in the tribal trustees’ news blitz as a source of much-needed economic development. They may turn out to be more of a miscalculation than an asset.

At least eight million tons of plastic end up in the marine environment each year, according to researchers. No part of the ocean is immune; contamination reaches even the deepest submarine trenches. 

Wind power is coming, and the waters south and east of Long Island are slated to be the site of more electricity-generating offshore turbines as time moves on. Climate change and energy independence are the big drivers of the move to renewable power. Particulate pollution and the almost unimaginable horror of a potential nuclear plant accident make the East Coast a leading candidate for investment in the new efficient technology. 

Above all else, the East End grumbles about traffic on Memorial Day weekend. Routine errands are run in haste during the previous workweek or put off until Tuesday. If one does venture out, it’s as if on a polar expedition, with circling to find a spot like parking-lot polka. The traffic control officers do their best to keep things moving. Fender-benders abound. Tempers rise. “Who are these people?” we ask. “Where can they be going?” These questions may never be answered.

More seriously, motor vehicles remain one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases.

Alarmingly, the White House appears intent on creating conditions for armed conflict in the Mideast by escalating a confrontation with Iran.

In the annals of jaw-dropping East Hampton political miscalculation, the bugging of the town trustees office is a new low.