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Opinion

Gristmill: Grass Strip Blues

Adventures with my father, beach-bannering and landing hard at the Foster Farm’s au naturel runway in Sagaponack.

Jul 16, 2026
Guestwords: Cri de Coeur

The Star has published my fiction. I’ve contributed reviews, many “Guestwords,” and most recently poems. A peculiarity of my condition is that I have never after all these years met one person at the paper I write for.

Jul 16, 2026
Hokey, Cutesy, and Easy to Ignore

Users of A.I. graphic designs risk a subliminal backlash.

Jul 16, 2026
The Mast-Head: Helpless to Hype

What if visitors here were not being entitled jerks but rather were doing the best they could with the cerebral horsepower they had?

Jul 16, 2026
The Shipwreck Rose: Christmas in July

My career in the theater was not illustrious.

Jul 16, 2026
Weird Weather: What Next?

It has been a summer of weather warnings. Now comes the smoke. 

Jul 16, 2026
Gristmill: A Call for Kid Creole

A showman for the ages deserves his due.

Jul 9, 2026
Guestwords: An Up-to-Date Declaration

We hold these (new) truths to be self-evident . . .

Jul 9, 2026
Kudos for Keeping the Peace, Village Police

We noticed a gratifying story emerging from the just-the-facts data of the East Hampton Village Police Department incident reports from the last month and a half: There seems to be an ongoing crackdown over landscaping noise. 

Jul 9, 2026
Loosening Hotel Tax Spending

Finally, Suffolk County will share a bit more of its annual hotel tax income with the part of the county where much of the revenue is generated.

Jul 9, 2026
The Mast-Head: Car of the Year

This season, late-model Range Rovers are the leading contender for the most annoying kind of car on South Fork roads.

Jul 9, 2026
The Shipwreck Rose: Stormy Monday

Raise your hand if your mood is forcefully impacted by the weather.

Jul 9, 2026
Winds Blew, Chaos Ensued

Taken together, the disruptions caused by this latest storm, made even worse by Fourth of July weekend traffic, were a reminder of the challenges facing emergency planners. 

Jul 9, 2026
Beer, Two Ways

A pair of otherwise similar concepts — a brewery deep in Springs and a beer-maker’s restaurant in East Hampton Village — are a study in contrasts. 

Jul 2, 2026
Drought Danger: Don’t Be a Water Hog

A drought is one of those emergencies that requires us all to act like grown-ups.

Jul 2, 2026
Gristmill: Up the Flagpole

Flagging over the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem.

Jul 2, 2026
Guestwords: Summer Camp for Nazis

Camp Siegfried in Yaphank was one two dozen Nazi youth camps that spread like a plague across the United States of America in the 1930s. 

Jul 2, 2026
The Mast-Head: The Smell of Whale

Whale stink is something of a Proustian madeleine for me.

Jul 2, 2026
The Shipwreck Rose: Nom de Plume

Despite my recent, mild interest in birds, I remain an indefatigable mis-identifier of them.

Jul 2, 2026
Class of 2026: Expect Big Things

It may be a tough time for this graduating class in this pivotal generation, but we look for sunny skies and positive outcomes.

Jun 25, 2026
Gristmill: Gasping for Galloway

Finding success, of a sort, and camaraderie with the run-walk-run method at the Shelter Island 10K.

Jun 25, 2026
Guestwords: The Night John Lennon Died

It was enough to make me start smoking again.

Jun 25, 2026
Keep an Eye Out for Turtles

We are lucky here on eastern Long Island to have a fair amount of remaining habitat good for box turtles. But they are not out of the woods, so to speak. 

Jun 25, 2026
The Mast-Head: Vroom, Vroom. Clip, Clip.

Scarcely is there a moment that I can step outside the office and not hear something other than the birds.

Jun 25, 2026
The Shipwreck Rose: The Long Walk

This broken toe is my excuse for having an empty head this month. It’s impossible to have a new idea without walking.

Jun 25, 2026
Gristmill: Suddenly, This Summer

Summer’s tough on year-rounders. But at least there’s humble Long Beach.

Jun 18, 2026
Guestwords: Grandpa’s Beach

A granddaughter’s reading of a poem sparks memories of Lawrence Koncelik of Northwest Woods, veteran, scholar, teacher, sailing instructor.

Jun 18, 2026
Larsen’s Hostile Takeover Bad for East Hampton

Jerry Larsen might be correct in that the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee could be more broadly representative of a changing voter base, but for the wrong reasons.

Jun 18, 2026
Summer ’26: a Blast for Fireworks Fans

It all starts with the July 2 pyrotechnics at the North Sea Fire Department carnival, and then the mother lode on the Fourth.

Jun 18, 2026
The Mast-Head: A.I. Is Plagiarism

There is an honor system of sorts. Star letter writers are expected to be self-policing. But artificial intelligence has made our job a lot more difficult.

Jun 18, 2026