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Opinion

Point of View: Are You One, Too?

Somewhere in the Midwest, where if you’re anti-Trump you must speak in lowered tones, I had my hair cut — well, so to speak, inasmuch as there isn’t much left — and was at one point during my monologue — for I can’t hear without my hearing aids, and thus feel I must hold forth when in the chair — asked if I read.

“Yes,” I said.

“Ah,” the barber said, “my polling’s holding up! You didn’t vote for Trump, then?”

“For public enemy number-one. . ??”

Oct 17, 2019
The Mast-Head: The Language of Stars

I have a friend who knows the names of the stars. A few of them, anyway, she says. I do not know what the stars are called; a few constellations, maybe, yes, but individual stars, no.

Oct 17, 2019
Connections: Claim to Fame

The Hamptons International Film Festival got me thinking about the starring role the Rattray family’s Amagansett house played in “Annie Hall,” Woody Allen’s 1977 movie starring Diane Keaton. I haven’t seen “Annie Hall” in a long time, but much of it has stayed with me.

Oct 17, 2019
Rethinking God

A survey by the Pew Research Center observed that 63 percent of Jews say they’re either “fairly certain they believe in God” or are in some place of nonbelief or questioning. Unless we have an honest an conversation about spirituality, this “God gap” will continue to widen.

Sep 26, 2019
Village Zoning Process Flawed

For some time, we have observed that the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals operates in what seems to be a universe unto itself.

Sep 25, 2019
The Mast-Head: An Old Pipe Dream

North Main Street was blocked this week as a crew hired by the Long Island Rail Road worked on raising two trestles about three feet above their current grade. The project had been a long time coming. For years, trucks too tall to make it through the underpass there and at Accabonac Road have done damage to the trestle. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the L.I.R.R., had had enough.

Sep 25, 2019
Agreed-Upon Goal Mired in Dispute

As a legal standoff between East Hampton Town and the Springs Fire District over a disputed radio and cellphone tower drags on toward a fourth year, emergency communications — as well as mobile phone service — in the populous hamlet remains poor to nonexistent.

Sep 25, 2019
Point of View: Out With the Old

I’m getting near the end of the Old Testament now, and it surely has been a test.

Sep 25, 2019
Connections: Special Sauce

Ketchup was a kitchen staple when I was growing up in the 1940s, as it still is in most American households. You know the saying, “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country”? I think we might better be able to chart the zeitgeist of the United States by keeping an eye not on auto production but on our national condiment.

Sep 25, 2019
Impeachment

It has often been said that if you weren’t for impeachment already, you were not paying attention, but nothing has been quite enough.

Sep 25, 2019
The Mast-Head: Slavery in East Hampton

I had the opportunity recently to appear on the actor and Amagansett resident Alec Baldwin’s “Here’s the Thing” podcast. Ostensibly, I had been invited to reflect on the nearly 20 years I have been the editor of The Star and how the South Fork has changed over the years.

Aug 29, 2019
Point of View: Maybe Now?

Was it so long ago that I wrote about the articulate students, survivors of the Stoneman Douglas mass shooting, who had come to the March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C., to speak eloquently of their suffering?

Aug 15, 2019