The Hamptons Institute, a weekend-long symposium on national and global issues, will bring a number of heavy hitters from both sides of the political spectrum to Guild Hall on Saturday and Sunday to discuss politics, art, global women’s rights, urban development, and the economy.

    The participants include a 2011 Nobel Peace laureate, Leymah Gbowee, a Liberian activist and women’s rights leader; Emil Henry, who served as assistant secretary for financial institutions under President George W. Bush, and Cyrus Amir-Mokri, who holds that post now.

    The symposium, which is co-sponsored by the Roosevelt Institute, begins on Saturday with a panel discussion from 2:30 to 4 p.m., “Perspectives on New York as a 21st-Century City,” moderated by the architecture critic Paul Goldberger. Joining him will be Robert Hammond, co-founder and executive director of Friends of the High Line, Joe Rose, former chairman of the New York City Planning Commission and director of the Department of City Planning under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and Leslie Koch, president of the Trust for Governors Island.

    A garden cocktail reception follows at 4 p.m., and at 5, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, will review the “2012 Politics and Policy Scorecard” as part of what is billed as a bipartisan conversation.

    Sunday’s sessions begin at 11 a.m. with “Women Rising in the World: Implications for Global Peace and Prosperity,” featuring three women who know firsthand what those implications are. In this session, Ms. Gbowee will talk with Dina Powell, president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation and global head of corporate engagement, and Kati Marton, a former NPR and ABC News correspondent and author.

    Ms. Gbowee is credited with leading a women’s peace movement that brought an end to the Liberian Civil War in 2003. Ms. Powell served as President George W. Bush’s chief of personnel and was assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs and deputy undersecretary for public diplomacy in that administration. Ms. Marton, who is also a human rights activist, was married to the late Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. envoy to Afghanistan.

    Lunch will be available in Guild Hall’s lobby following the talk, and at 1 p.m. attention will turn to “America’s Economic Future,” during a bipartisan discussion among Joe Nocera, an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, Mr. Henry, Mr. Amir-Mokri, and Sallie Krawchek, a former president of Bank of America’s global wealth and investment management division.

Authenticating Pollock

    Francis V. O’Connor, Ph.D., considered the foremost expert on the work of Jackson Pollock, will offer the final talk of the weekend, a look at the “fine art of authenticating art,” from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Also, the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center’s annual lecture, “Forensic Connoisseurship, Jackson Pollock, and the Authentic Eye,” will explore the inner workings of the art authentication process, which often takes place in the midst of multimillion-dollar lawsuits with reputations hanging in the balance. Mr. O’Connor was a member of the now-defunct Pollock-Krasner Authentication Board.

    Tickets to the Pollock-Krasner lecture cost $15, or $13 for members of Guild Hall or the Pollock-Krasner House. Tickets for the other sessions cost $20, or $18 for Guild Hall members. Students 21 and under can attend for free with ID.

    A $250 “cum laude” package includes a donation to Guild Hall and admission to all programs. Tickets starting at $500 include V.I.P. seating, a dinner on Saturday, and a lunch in the Minikes Garden at Guild Hall on Sunday.

    The Great Bonac Fireworks Show Fireworks show, with pyrotechnics by the Grucci company and sponsored by the Clamshell Foundation, will go off over Three Mile Harbor on July 21.

    The show is supported solely by donations, which are still being sought. They can be pledged through the Clamshell Foundation Web site, clamshellfoundation.org, or sent to the organization at P.O. Box 2725, East Hampton 11937.

    Rossetti Perchik, the foundation’s founder, said that Grucci’s “national-class” show — just one step below the fireworks company’s top, world-class work — will begin at approximately 9:30 p.m. and last at least 20 minutes. A simulcast of classical music, to which the show is choreographed, will be broadcast on WBAZ 102.5 FM.

    This will be the 32nd year of the fireworks, which originated as a fund-raiser for the now-defunct Boys Harbor camp, a summer haven for inner-city youth that was established by Anthony Drexel Duke on his property along the harbor. In the early days, the late George Plimpton was the show’s M.C., sharing his enthusiasm for fireworks as a unique art form.

    When Boys Harbor dropped the midsummer event, enjoyed not only by guests at its fund-raisers but by people all around and on boats in the harbor, Mr. Perchik took up the cause, raising money to continue the show.

    Money raised above and beyond the cost of the fireworks is used to support a variety of “community-based, community-supported” initiatives, Mr. Perchik said. Since its establishment in 1991, the Clamshell Foundation has made annual $1,000 book scholarship grants to graduating East Hampton High School seniors, supported the food pantries at nine different East Hampton churches, and assisted the East Hampton Town Trustees with shellfish seeding, among other projects.

    This year, Mr. Perchik said, the group hopes to provide money for Three Mile Harbor water quality initiatives, such as, perhaps, offering financial incentives to homeowners to replace aging septic systems that could be polluting surface waters around the harbor.

    Other projects at hand, Mr. Perchik said, include a revival of a January chili cook-off contest, and, in September 2013, “It Came Out of the Bay,” a festival celebrating local seafood.

    Before that, the Clamshell Foundation will host its annual Sandcastle Contest at Amagansett’s Atlantic Avenue Beach, this year on Aug. 4.

    On the night of the Great Bonac Fireworks, members of the East Hampton High School Kiwanis Key Club will fan out to collect tax-deductible donations from viewers on beaches ringing the harbor. And, said Mr. Perchik, a “mini-flotilla” of floating volunteers will visit boats in Three Mile Harbor on both July 20 and 21 to request contributions from those planning to enjoy the pyrotechnics show.

    Andrra, a restaurant at the Harbor Marina off Gann Road, facing the harbor, will host a fund-raiser for the Clamshell Foundation during the fireworks, with options to include dinner and an outdoor party. Details can be obtained from the restaurant.

    Although the Clamshell Foundation has been responsible for the fireworks for the last few years, Mr. Perchik said he has few photos of the show, or of people on beaches or at parties enjoying the festivities. He would welcome them for the organization’s future use. They can be sent to Mr. Perchik via e-mail at [email protected].

    Rock the Farm, an annual concert and fund-raiser for the Wounded Warrior Project, will take place under a tent at Ocean View Farm in Amagansett on July 21 starting at 6 p.m., rain or shine. Steel Pulse, Grammy winners, will play reggae, and Chris Campion, indie rocker and frontman of Knockout Drops, will open the show, backed by Billy Ryan, the guitarist for the Bogmen.

     An open bar and “all-American barbecue” are included with the $125 ticket price. To be held on the evening after Soldier Ride the Hamptons, the event is open to those over the age of 21. Tickets are available through stephentalkhouse.com.

    JoAnne Lyles of this village has asked for support for Saturday’s Soldier Ride in honor of her son, Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, who was killed in action in Iraq in 2008. Placards, cheers, noisemakers, and all things red, white, and blue have been requested, and small American flags will be offered for those along the bike route.

    The public has been invited to join those who have registered to cycle at Marine Park, where a tribute to Corporal Haerter will start at 10:30 a.m. The visiting wounded warriors will then ride an “honor loop” around Main Street before leading the other riders over the bridge to North Haven, now called the Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter Veterans Memorial Bridge, while a wreath is dropped from a vintage Marine YH-19 helicopter. The Eastern Long Island Pipe Band bagpipers will line the bridge as the riders leave Sag Harbor.

    There will also be a 5K walk around the village. More about the ride and the Wounded Warrior Project can be found at soldierride.org/thehamptons.

    A Sag Harbor law covering special events on village waterways was unanimously amended after a public hearing on Tuesday by the village board.

    “We are doing all we can that [an annual boat party] doesn’t happen in our jurisdiction,” said Mayor Brian Gilbride. Events on the water will now require a special-events permit, as do those on the land with more than 75 guests.

    The amendment will affect the annual gathering in early August of boaters, kayakers, floaters, and swimmers who come together to listen to live music from a floating stage.

    Jon Semlear, a Southampton Village trustee of 19 years and commercial fisherman for over two decades, applauded the board for its action. “It is not appropriate to have this gathering in Sag Harbor Cove,” he said. “It is too small an area to accommodate such a large gathering.”

    “A one-day event is another stressor on a very fragile environment,” he continued. “My suggestion is to have it anywhere other than the cove, outside in the bay where there is greater flush.” 

    David Beard, president of the Bay Point Property Owners Association, spoke for the association’s members, who he said had voted unanimously that “we do not want the gathering.”

    “We heard the stories of people swimming and walking onto neighbors’ property,” replied Mayor Brian Gilbride. “That is one of the reasons we are doing this.”

    At a Harbor Committee meeting on Monday attended only by Jeffrey Peters, a member, and Bruce Tait, the chairman, the boat party was the only item that could be addressed. Without a quorum, the committee could not make a formal recommendation to the board.

    Kevin McCallister, the Peconic Baykeeper, was on hand; primarily, he said, to discuss with Mr. Tait something he’d read in The Sag Harbor Express.

    The paper had quoted Mr. Tait as saying, “Follow the money trail,” an implication that the baykeeper would somehow condone an event that had water quality problems because it was a fund-raiser for his cause.

    “I found your comments offensive,” Mr. McAllister said. “Not in a million years will I sell my integrity for a crabnet of money for my charity.”

    The comment was apparently made in response to a suggestion that donations be requested for the baykeeper at the boat party, at which Mr. McAllister had been asked to speak. “I seize on those opportunities,” he told Mr. Tait. “These are people who live in the bays.”

    Mr. Tait replied that his comment was not an attack on Mr. McAllister’s integrity, but added that “there is nobody that is above an appearance of a conflict of interest.” Of the boat party, Mr. Tait said, “The upper cove is stressed as it is . . . I am worried about so many boats in there.”

    Mr. McAllister clarified, “I am not here to advocate for this party. I am aware of this event since 1998 . . . I don’t have an issue with it.”

    “Your concerns are well founded,” he told Mr. Tait, “but the coves have bigger issues than an assembly of boats on a given Sunday.”

    The only other speaker at Tuesday’s hearing was Cam Gleason, a resident of Redwood, who said, “I have nothing against the party. In my younger days, I used to go.”

    The boat party is traditionally a well-kept annual secret whose location is announced on the morning it takes place. Time will tell if the village’s amendment puts an end to the gathering.

    On the night of June 20, Jack Dougherty of Clearwater Beach went to bed early, figuring his beagle, Willie, would bed down under the deck as he usually did in the heat. The next morning, Willie did not turn up for breakfast.

    Mr. Dougherty walked  around his neighborhood on Ayrshire Place looking for the dog, but no one had seen him, not even the neighbors across the street whom Willie visits regularly.

    When Mr. Dougherty checked his phone at 10 there was a message from a fellow volunteer fireman, Tim Taylor, a surveyor, saying that he and a colleague, Brian Pardini, had found Willie while they were on a job, but on Gerard Drive, at least a mile away, and would he come get him.

    When Mr. Dougherty arrived he saw a wet mound on the ground, and feared for a moment that it was a dead Willie. Then he heard the story.

    The surveyors had been working near a bulkhead when they heard baying and scratching. Thinking it might be a seal, they investigated and quickly realized it was a dog they knew, who was “swimming for his life.”

    They hauled him out. His hind legs were limp and he appeared dead.

    Apparently, Willie does in fact somewhat resemble a seal. He is long and big, weighing in at 40 pounds — and he turns 12 next week. Even though he had learned to swim from Randy Handwerger at age 8 and, said Mr. Dougherty, is a good swimmer, he doesn’t really like the water.

    “The only way lately to get him in the water is if I throw a ball,” his owner said, adding that Willie is not a dog who wanders, and he still can’t figure out where the dog went after he had supper or if he was in the water the whole night.

    “I’ve learned from this,” he said. “I feel humbled by the experience and realize that accidents can happen unexpectedly.”

     Mr. Dougherty plans to install an electric fence that Willie can’t dig himself out from.

    June weather was “very variable to say the least,” Richard G. Hendrickson, the United States Cooperative weather observer in Bridgehampton, wrote in his monthly weather report.

    In the first week of last month, on June 5, the high was just 63 degrees, and cool temps of 65 and 66 were recorded again on the 17th and 18th, but on June 20 and 21, Mr. Hendrickson recorded a sweltering 91 degrees, and on June 22 it was 92.

    “It could be a hot summer! Yet, what do I know? Such is the variation in weather on eastern Long Island,” wrote the 90-something weather observer, a retired farmer who has been compiling weather data since he was a teenager.

    By June 18, he had recorded six days when the high temperature for the day was only in the 60s. “Cool,” he said, “but not a record.”

    The coolest nighttime temperature last month came on June 15, when it got down to 38.

    “Rainfall for this June was very close to the long-term average of 3.5 to 4 inches.” The total for last month was 3.91 inches, with the heaviest rains coming on June 13 — 1.82 inches — and June 25 — 1.79 inches.

    Mr. Hendrickson recorded no severe thunder and lightning squalls to mar graduations or graduation parties. “We were lucky this year. Lawns are still green, but summer is on its way. Stay out of open areas during the thunder and lightning periods. Reef your sail and stay in the harbor,” he cautioned.

    In June he recorded 11 clear, 7 partly cloudy, and 12 cloudy days. Wind came from the southwest on 9 days, from the west on 5 days, from the northwest on 5 days, from the east and northeast on the remaining days.

    “At this writing, we should all keep an eye on the sky, thermometer, and ocean,” Mr. Hendrickson said. Summer breezes are mainly from the southwest, but because of summer heat, “summer squalls can come from any direction and velocity.”

    “I believe that due to our warmer summer weather, our ocean needs constant attention if we are to use it safely as our summer playground,” he wrote. “It is in a state of change in many ways, due to our global temperature change. . . . Use care on nature’s ground and the waters of eastern Long Island — they often change like the weather, and it is the weather that changes them!”

    With death threats a part of her weekly routine at the clinic she runs in New York City, Merle Hoffman has been fighting a passionate, perilous battle since the early 1970s. “The only woman who owns a licensed ambulatory surgery center specializing in abortion and reproductive care in New York State” — as she has described herself — will share stories from her book, “Intimate Wars: The Life and Times of the Woman Who Brought Abortion From the Back Alley to the Boardroom,” at BookHampton on East Hampton’s Main Street on Saturday evening at 5.

    Ms. Hoffman is a gifted musician who chose to pursue a career in health care  and the women’s movement instead of at the piano keyboard. She was educated as a psychologist, with experiential training in the reproductive-medicine field; she has also won awards as a journalist, publisher, and editor.

    “This is my life’s work, to articulate this issue,” she said on Sunday.

    Ms. Hoffman advocates for patients’ rights and education in the United States and abroad. A few months ago, she spoke to the British Parliament on reproductive legislative issues. This is the first book she has written, though she publishes “On the Issues,” an on-line magazine about progressive feminism.

    In an interview with The East Hampton Star, Ms. Hoffman enumerated the “guerilla and frontal attacks against legal abortion” that patients and health-care workers face today, from telephone harassment to bomb threats to murder (as in that of her friend, George Tiller, a doctor in Kansas who was killed in 2009). The current paucity of abortion providers demonstrates the success of the pro-life movement — which she considers a force of oppression and regression.

    The termination of a pregnancy should not be something a woman should be forced to risk dying from, Ms. Hoffman said. There are currently 110 bills pending, in various states, aimed at restricting  abortion or denying access to contraception, she said, adding that she fears this current legislation is making the back-alley abortion a reality again. There is not one free clinic offering abortions in Mississippi, for example, she said.

    As an activist, she is not shy about speaking from personal experience. She has had an abortion herself. “I love being a mother,” she said, “but wouldn’t have when I was 32 and was not ready for it.”

    Ms. Hoffman’s book recounts her years of struggle for women’s and patients’ rights. Choices Women’s Medical Center and Mental Health Center, which she founded in 1971, serves more than 40,000 patients each year. Protesters — usually violent verbally, sometimes threatening physically — are a regular presence outside the clinic.

    Passionately active in the pro-choice movement since the first rally on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, in Manhattan, Ms. Hoffman has counseled women for decades. Many, having few resources where they live, travel to New York just for an appointment at the Choices medical center.

    “It is a profound personal decision that no man or state can judge,” she said. “Bringing life into the world is an extraordinarily powerful decision,” but deciding to end a pregnancy is “many times a matter of survival.”

    She wrote the book for her daughter, Sasha, she said. Above all, she would like to see more activism among women of all ages: “Get activated and get involved. It’s up to all of us, what this country will be.”

    Turtles have held a revered place in world mythology since time immemorial. Kurma, from Hindu lore, is a tortoise with the earth, atmosphere, and heavens all contained within its body. Some cultures believed that the world was supported on the back of a giant turtle.

    The sad truth is that turtles cannot support the world, or a car, or even a human foot on their backs, and are often injured at this time of year. The slow-moving reptiles are frequently hit by vehicles, boats, and lawnmowers. Turtle crossing signs, which used to be the norm on the South Fork, have gradually dwindled as the species the signs attempted to protect has diminished as well.

    Turtle Rescue of the Hamptons, a nonprofit based in Jamesport on the North Fork, is doing its best to help save the local animals, rehabilitating and releasing as many as 100 turtles a year. Karen Testa, the executive director, said the organization is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and will travel anywhere on the East End to pick up a sick or injured turtle.

    Aside from the usual threats posed to turtles in the wild, Ms. Testa also said there were other problems that arise from human intervention. People take turtles out of the wild as a family pet without the knowledge or ability to care for them, then drop them in local ponds and waterways when the turtle gets too big.

    “We get people who are tired of caring for their pet — it is a lot of work, which many people do not believe — and they call us and say, ‘If you don’t come and get this turtle, we will dump him in the nearest pond,’ and this is in the middle of winter. They are not educated to know that turtles hibernate and it is a sure way to slowly kill their ‘pet,’ ” Ms. Testa said.

    Sometimes human intervention takes an even uglier turn. One of last summer’s leading animal abuse stories chronicled the discovery and rehabilitation of a Sag Harbor turtle nicknamed Pierce because an unidentified perpetrator had hammered a nail through the animal’s body.

    Turtle Rescue of the Hamptons assists all kinds of turtles found locally: the eastern box turtle, the eastern painted turtle, common snapping turtle, the diamondback terrapin, and the spotted turtle. It also gets its share of red-eared sliders, the most frequently purchased turtle in the United States, especially when the formerly popular family pet becomes too much of a responsibility.

    Signs of injury can include the obvious ones, like bleeding or missing limbs and shell damage, to the normally silent turtle making any sound at all, having swollen eyes, or having any liquid discharge from anywhere. Good Samaritans are asked to put the injured reptile into a cardboard box with air holes and a clean towel in the bottom, and get in touch with Turtle Rescue immediately.

    If a turtle is crossing the road, its purpose is, indeed, to get to the other side. Putting a turtle back on the side from which it has departed will only cause the creature to attempt the crossing again, Ms. Testa said. The right thing to do is to gently pick it up and put it on the other side of the road.

    This does not apply to snapping turtles of course, which can be extremely dangerous. “Never pick up a snapping turtle by its tail,” Ms. Testa cautioned. “That is part of its spinal cord and the animal can become paralyzed.”

    As of now, Ms. Testa said, she is looking after around 50 of the reptiles. “We’re brimming over with turtles,” she said. Some will be released back into the wild upon recovery, but a few severely injured boarders will be “at my sanctuary for the rest of their lives,” she said, then laughed, “and that could be another 80 years.”

    Turtle Rescue can be contacted online via its Web site, turtlerescueofthehamptons.org.

    Consistency ruled the day at the East Hampton Village Board’s organizational meeting on Monday.

    A number of terms were up on the various appointed boards, and the village board voted to reappoint sitting members for new terms. Bruce A.T. Siska and James McMullan will continue on the design review board through July 2014. Frank Newbold and Lysbeth Marigold will keep their posts on the zoning board of appeals through July 2017, and Richard Roberts, Pam Bennett, and Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman will remain on the village’s ethics board, with Mr. Roberts serving as chairman for a year as of Aug. 1.

    Stuyvesant Wainwright III was reappointed as chairman of the design review board. Carolyn Preische will continue as that board’s vice chairwoman. Rose Brown will retain her post as chairwoman of the planning board and Donald Hunting will continue as vice chairman. Andrew Goldstein will serve another year as chairman of the zoning board and Mr. Newbold will continue as vice chairman.

    And, although there was no question that they would continue in their current posts, the board approved the continued employment of Larry Cantwell as village administrator at a base salary of $192,772, Jerry Larsen as police chief at a base salary of $171,023, Michael Tracey, police captain, at $156,634, Scott Fithian, superintendent of the Department of Public Works, at $105,423, and as code enforcement officers, Thomas Lawrence ($89,156), Kenneth Collum ($103,356), and Daniel Reichl ($73,031).

    The board’s July 20 public meeting has been rescheduled for July 31 at 11 a.m. at the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street.