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Opinion

Children Lay Dying

On the real-world human impact of the Trump administration abruptly halting the United States’ vast aid network to the world’s poor and suffering.

Apr 24, 2025
Gristmill: Into the Wild

Close and not-so-close encounters with bears.

Apr 24, 2025
Guestwords: Are Bioplastics ‘Green’?

How well do bioplastics decompose? While they claim to be compostable, many, including the most common, require industrial high-temperature composting and do not degrade in home composters, soil, or water.

Apr 24, 2025
Keep Workers Safe

New York State police and local law enforcement agencies will once again conduct special details to enforce vehicle and traffic laws in work zones.

Apr 24, 2025
Rule of Law

President Trump’s degrading of our system of laws through deportations hurts us all and raises the chilling question of how far this administration will go.

Apr 24, 2025
The Mast-Head: Osprey in the Mood

The ospreys are back for the season, and I’ve spent more time than usual watching the show.

Apr 24, 2025
The Shipwreck Rose: Funeral Potatoes

We’re having a potluck lunch on Sunday at Ashawagh Hall, following the 11 a.m. memorial gathering there for my mother, Helen S. Rattray.

Apr 24, 2025
An Assault on Greatness

The Trump administration has declared all-out war on higher education, and America’s role as the world leader of scientific and medical progress is at stake.

Apr 17, 2025
Gristmill: On the Sunny Side

Willie’s Roadhouse has a new fan.

Apr 17, 2025
Guestwords: We Need a Bigger Story

We need to show Americans a higher power that has a story they can claim as their own. We need to show that God is empowering ordinary people to do God’s work in the face of dark forces.

Apr 17, 2025
The Mast-Head: Helen Wheels

A feisty young Jewish woman from New Jersey, Helen S. Rattray became the editor and publisher of The Star after her first husband, Everett Rattray, died in 1980 at the age of 47.

Apr 17, 2025
The Shipwreck Rose: Seventy-Six Trombones

A tale of intense culture shock, of seeing America anew.

Apr 17, 2025
Zoning Code Cheats

The present town board may believe that any project it devises is benign, but the members fail to understand that a future board could misuse the relaxation of rules having to do with community-centered projects.

Apr 17, 2025
Chicken Jockey!?

A “Minecraft” movie might sound unwatchable, but the phenomenon of teenage audience participation it has spurred is most welcome.

Apr 10, 2025
Gristmill: Life of Bath

The mysterious pull of a struggling Southern Tier downtown and its one-of-a-kind hotel.

Apr 10, 2025
Guestwords: How I Found My Brother

For 30 years my life and my brother’s did not cross, despite good reasons to reconnect. And then it all changed.

Apr 10, 2025
Right on Wainscott Plan

The East Hampton Town Planning Board made the right move recently by demanding additional study of a planned 50-unit industrial park in Wainscott.

Apr 10, 2025
The Mast-Head: Better Homemade

I have always been a do-it-yourselfer, even about food.

Apr 10, 2025
The Shipwreck Rose: The Lipstick Effect

Pondering this week where I’d stash my cash, apropos of the possibly pending global financial collapse, the strategy of parking money in companies that manufacture small indulgences seems about right.

Apr 10, 2025
The Surveillance State

What happens to our data when a company changes hands is just one of many good questions in this age of digital Big Brother. Too bad public indifference is so widespread.

Apr 10, 2025
Concentrate Housing Growth

It is a national challenge. In many places, there are simply too many people competing for too few affordable places to live, and nowhere worse than on the South Fork.

Apr 3, 2025
Gristmill: Rental Gold

The pleasure and practicality of a loaner.

Apr 3, 2025
Guestwords: My Funeral Dress

What happens when loss is slow, the goodbye extended? Is it something to treasure or to dread?

Apr 3, 2025
Osprey ‘R’ Us

The osprey is a kind of modern-day phoenix, risen from the ashes of near-extermination.

Apr 3, 2025
The Mast-Head: Detained in the Congo

Zaire had attracted me for what I perceived as its perch on the knife edge between order and chaos. I had sought a challenge.

Apr 3, 2025
The Shipwreck Rose: Going Places

All the way to Florida and back it was my daughter, Nettie, who led me in the right direction, not the other way around.

Apr 3, 2025
United We Stand: Bonac v. Oligarchy

The Hands Off! protest on Saturday in front of Town Hall may start small, but it may also be the start of something big.

Apr 3, 2025
A Chill in the Airwaves

Public media is one of the greatest cultural assets this country has. Cue the congressional show trial.

Mar 27, 2025
Gristmill: A Ladder Up

At the Byron Young Fish Passage.

Mar 27, 2025
Guestwords: Joy and Misery on Wheels

My husband and I took long, life-affirming cycling trips, until one day everything changed.

Mar 27, 2025