Opinion

There are times when voters are faced with a critical choice. This is one of those times.

I pulled the plug on cable television at precisely the wrong time — as two national crises descended upon us.

What holds a nest (a nation?) together? Strands of material chosen with intelligence and heart. Our species has practiced — for centuries — with the tools to build “a community of care.”

The outside of the envelopes from the Internal Revenue Service say “Penalty for private use $300.” It looks for all the world as if the recipient is about to be audited. The stomach drops. But what is inside these letters, which reach 90 million Americans, seems a strange contrast with that message.

When the protesters arrived at Trump Tower, the tone shifted. We were met with scores of police officers in riot gear, batons out, looking, in our opinion, for a fight.

A real estate broker once told us that we didn’t want to live in “The Corridor,” but now, with all the beautifying work going on at practically every house in the neighborhood save ours, I feel blessed to be living within it.

East Hampton Village is a lot quieter now that limits are in place for leaf blowers and other gas and diesel-powered landscape equipment.

In the 19th century, as many as a quarter of cowboys were black.

A report by Facebook from the George Floyd war zone.

The members of our Sag Harbor Women’s Golf League were happy to be out playing again but at the same time aware that unseen microbes could be emanating from flagpoles, cups, balls, and other people.

Though delayed and being conducted by absentee ballot, school board elections have arrived at last. The ballots are due back in district offices by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, so the time is now to mark them and get them in the mail.

All about us there’s suffering, and yet this neighborhood in which we live in Springs is beautiful, in full bloom and serene. It doesn’t get any better than this — here, that is.

The obvious enthusiasm of some American police officers for violence amid peaceful protests may be among the most indelible images to come out of the nationwide demonstrations that have followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

George W. Bush and Barack Obama both made use of a White House office to prepare for public health disasters. But when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the office was no longer functional, and valuable time was unnecessarily lost.

Before the coronavirus became a round-the-clock night­mare, mine were confined to night­time.

One remarkable success story in our response to the pandemic has been how swiftly and effectively eastern Long Island medical systems scaled up to meet the challenge.

Who would have thought when a pandemic hit the United States that instead of stocking up on guns, Americans went grocery shopping?

Amid generally good compliance with the New York State Pause order, the Memorial Day holiday excesses were at a minimum.

Only in government would it make sense to take a working public service and place it completely on hold while developing a new one.

Memorial Day seems an appropriate time to bid farewell to a longtime pursuit — in this case, this: my weekly column, “Connections,” which has appeared in The East Hampton Star, come rain or come shine, come hell or come high water, since 1977.

The fact that we as a community have to contend with far more people than we can comfortably carry on our shoulders was made amply clear last week when the East Hampton Town Board dispatched a panicked letter begging the state to shut the door on tourist stays.

To some, spring means cleaning, courtship, or crocuses. To the baseball addict, though, spring is the end of that dark, languid void of silent suffering between October and April. Not this year.

Given the challenges East Hampton Village will encounter between now and the election, it made sense to name someone to fill the open position. But process matters.

I’m playing tennis in the morning,
Ding, dong, the balls all will be signed,
Pull out the hopper, let’s do it
proper,
But get me to the courts on time.

Learn something new. Of all the thoughts I have heard or read on enduring the pandemic lockdown, this has been the best advice.

I am proud of The Star's literary standards when it comes to language, proud of our effort to represent the lives and interests of not just the wealthy and the grand but of the working people who make up the fabric of our community.

When the pope suggested that the coronavirus might be the Earth’s response to the man-made climate crisis, was it magical thinking? Or was it a sound, even useful, metaphor.

We talked with a potential financial adviser by phone one recent morning, he in Charlotte and we here, and were told that the resultant plan was positing a life span of 100, which I thought was a little on the rosy side given what’s been going on.

This is a thank-you to the readers, our friends. Newspaper people like to think we are doing important work. Sometimes, though, we might feel as if the rest of the world does not see it the same way. Not so now.

It hit me yesterday, when one of the kids pointed out that she was going to be done with school in two weeks, what the heck are we doing to do with them this summer with camps not opening and movement still restricted?