A new ministry has joined the ranks of the East End's spiritual institutions, offering dedicated Catholics who disagree with some tenets of the Roman Catholic Church a chance to remain within the fold.

The American Catholic Church, whose local parish, the Church of the Good Shepherd, meets at 5 p.m. on Sundays at the Wainscott Chapel, offers a "progressive alternative in the Catholic tradition," according to church literature.

While adhering to many aspects of traditional Catholic doctrine, including the celebration of mass and the sacraments, the American Catholic Church takes a "softer stance" than the Roman Catholic Church on issues such as divorce and remarriage, said the Rev. Sharon DiSunno of Hampton Bays, one of the parish's two clergy members.

Wanted More Freedom

"More often than not the people who come to us are people who feel alienated for some reason," she said. Members include those who are dedicated to the Catholic faith but who face exclusion from the traditional church due to its policies against divorce, or the ordination of women, for example.

Ms. DiSunno, for her part, felt a religious calling since age 15, but knew "there was no way I could go to a seminary," she said. Though her "heart was still in Catholicism," she "wanted more freedom, and wanted to serve."

The American Catholic Church has approximately 75 parishes nationwide, including several in Queens and New York City, the closest parishes to the Church of the Good Shepherd.

By Word Of Mouth

It began in the early '80s, Ms. Di Sunno said. Many of its clergy are ex-Roman Catholic priests who wanted to marry but found that doing so would sever their ability to pursue their spiritual calling, or women who found no opportunity to attend seminaries or to be ordained in the traditional church.

Members of the local parish, which is in the "infancy" stage, according to Ms. DiSunno, have been meeting for five years at locations in Riverhead and Hampton Bays. Between five and 30 people have been gathering at the Wainscott Chapel each week since June. The group has grown by word of mouth, though a small advertisement announcing the Wainscott services was recently placed in local papers, Ms. DiSunno said.

The church has been called "the church of the second chance," said the Rev. Gary Washington of Southampton, the parish's other minister.

Rejecting Barriers

Life circumstances four years ago, he said, led him back to his spiritual roots, Roman Catholicism. "I wanted to 'go home,' " he said. "But knowing what I know and being who I am, I did not feel comfortable going home to the Roman Catholic Church."

The church's exclusionary policies toward women as clergy were particularly off-putting, Mr. Washington said. Though acknowledging that other local churches "go out of their way to be inclusive," Mr. Washington said, "we have an open door and we invite people to walk through it."

"The American Catholic Church rejects artificial barriers to the reception of the sacraments based on marital status, sexuality, or lifestyle," the church's mission statement says. "We believe that who a person is, how a person has chosen to live, does not separate them from the love andcompassion of God."

The church supports the ordination of women, welcomes members of other churches to its communion services, and does not impose mandatory celibacy on its clergy.

The use of birth control in family planning is accepted, because, while recognizing that children are "a blessing to married life," the church is concerned about the "hardship" additional family members bring to those with limited resources, and "the devastating effects of human overpopulation upon the entire ecology of the earth." It differs in these areas from the Roman Catholic Church, which does not officially recognize the alternative sect.

Aligned With Pope

On abortion, a controversial topic within the Catholic community, the new church is aligned with the Pope's adamant opposition, Ms. Di Sunno said.

"We strongly, strongly, encourage a woman to keep her baby," Ms. DiSunno said, "but don't feel someone should be denied sacraments because they chose abortion."

The church's "statement of principles," while stressing the church's adherence to "the essentials of Catholic doctrine and practice" and acknowledgment of "the primacy of the Bishop of Rome," nevertheless strikes a blow for a freer, more inclusive religious community.

". . . We believe that the Papacy has overstepped the bounds of its legitimate authority," it says, ". . . and in straying from the principles of loving compassion in the interests of preserving and enhancing its own power, has driven many to dissent, to disobedience, to reaction against what appears to us to be a clear abuse of power and/or rightful authority."

Equal Dignity

"We are building a church which strongly affirms the equal human dignity of all persons and fundamental human rights to freedom of choice and to freedom of thought, one which recognizes the importance of adopting a more humanitarian pastoral approach."

Sunday services at Wainscott follow a traditional pattern, with readings from the Gospel and the Old and New Testaments. The service be comes interactive, and more meaningful, perhaps, as parishioners are encouraged to express their personal interpretations of the passages.

"It's amazing what people draw [from the readings], and what people share of their own lives," Ms. Di Sunno said. "When you take part in something, it means a lot more to you."

"Deep "Spiritual Need"

The parish sponsors a study group on seasons of the church year and a "social justice outreach project," in the form of a small food pantry that, said Mr. Washington, services "a couple of people."

The number of people attending services has doubled in the past year, Ms. DiSunno said.

"There certainly is a deep spiritual need, evidenced by what's happening in our local communities," Ms. DiSunno said. "We're a very quiet group . . . we're certainly not in competition with anyone."

As ticket holders waited to enter Guild Hall Saturday to attend one of the biggest events of the four-day Hamptons International Film Festival, a small contingent of protesters picketed the cultural center. They were demanding better access for the disabled.

The protest was organized by the East End Disabilities Group and timed to coincide with the festival's tribute to the actress and director Lee Grant.

Over the past four years, the group has staged public protests, spoken before the Town Board, and conducted letter-writing campaigns to pressure local governments, businesses, and institutions to comply with the requirements of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990.

During last year's Film Festival, Disabilities Group members protested in front of Nick and Toni's restaurant in East Hampton and in front of the East Hampton Cinema because, they said, restaurants owned in part by Toni Ross, the festival's chairwoman, had not met the requirements of A.D.A.

The group has become known for using larger public events, the Film Festival in particular, as a way of drawing attention to its cause.

The tribute to Lee Grant was nothe only festival happening at Guild Hall, but was chosen, according to the group's president, Glen Hall, because it was certain to draw a large crowd and media coverage.

In letters to the editor of The Star last week and in a petition and handouts distributed at the protest, the group argued that Guild Hall has not provided space in the John Drew Theater for those in wheelchairs, that the bathrooms are not sufficiently accessible to the wheelchair bound, that handicapped parking is inadequate, and that the assistive listening device for the hearing impaired doesn't work.

In all it lists 30 ways in which Guild Hall violates the Americans With Disabilities Act, which was established to insure equal access and equal rights for those with disabilities.

Over the past year, representatives of the group have met with Guild Hall's president, Henry Korn, and its board of directors about rectifying some of the problems at the cultural center. In a letter to The Star last week, the town's disabilities officer, Richard Rosenthal, called the work that had been done "slipshod" and asked Guild Hall to offer at least a reasonable deadline for when it will be done properly.

Unisex Bathroom

Mr. Korn claims Guild Hall has done a great deal to accommodate the disabled since Mr. Hall and Gerry Mooney, the group's secretary, spoke at a board of trustees meeting in the spring.

An October memo from Guild Hall's architect, Jon F. Edelbaum of Amagansett, offers some elaboration. Mr. Edelbaum wrote that a concrete ramp had been constructed from the handicapped parking space in front of the building to the sidewalk and that another ramp was put in at the entry to Guild Hall, though more work is still required there.

Defective assistive listening equipment was replaced, and, as for the bathrooms, Mr. Edelbaum wrote, "The toilets have been made as fully accessible as the current space limitations and construction requirements will allow." He has recommended, instead, that Guild Hall build a unisex handicapped-only bathroom.

Town Funds To Wait

According to the memo, there are plans to create two zones of removable seating, producing six wheelchair-accessible locations, to build a ramp for the exit door at the west side of the theater, and to install an alarm system with visual as well as audio signals.

This spring, Robert Wechsler, a member of Guild Hall's board of trustees, pledged $25,000 to help the cultural center move ahead with these plans, which the center expects to be completed no later than the spring.

The East Hampton Town Board provided some additional incentive.

The Town Board allocated $15,000 in its tentative 1998 operating budget for Guild Hall, but, as per Mr. Hall's request, agreed Friday not to release these funds until the institution is deemed accessible.

"Health concerns mounting over . . ." should no doubt be set in permanent type on the front pages of the nation's newspapers. Rarely a day passes without news of some fresh calamity on the health and food front.

The Disease of the Week is campylobacter infection. You might as well learn how to pronounce it (CAM-pill-o-back-ter), as it now appears - as opposed to previous, less dire misinformation - that 70 to 90 percent of American chickens are infected.

Since we've been virtuously eating more chicken than any other meat, both for health and economy, thinking only about avoiding salmonella contamination by thorough cooking, this is truly alarming news.

Cooking the bejabbers out of chicken seems to be the only way to outwit the threat of salmonella infection. Rare chicken isn't high on the list of All-American Favorites. Even so, there are hundreds of thousands of food-poisoning attacks every year that go largely undiagnosed.

While fear of salmonella has had us all sterilizing everything that comes into contact with raw chicken and cooking it to an internal temperature of 170 degrees F., there are still some "800,000 to four million illnesses a year" (don't you love nice precise statistics like that!) ascribed by the Atlanta Centers for Disease Control to these bacteria omnipresent in chickens.

Fortunately, it can be controlled with antibiotics, but this new horror, campylobacter, which the public has been almost completely unaware of, carries a worse problem - resistance to antibiotics.

The Brits had their Mad Cow Disease crisis last year and were forced to destroy a huge part of their cattle population, out of not altruism but refusal by Common Market countries to accept the infected beef and a beef boycott by the British public.

Maybe our Government should require the same draconian remedy for our poultry supply. And don't for one minute think turkeys are okay. Fifty-eight percent of our festive birds are infected with campylobacter. Probably salmonella, too, though the report I read did not specify this.

Perdue's Piece

This little voice crying in the wilderness has asked repeatedly in the past why the American public has to put up with infected poultry. Now we have another serious threat to health in the chicken supply, and we get feeble replies like this one from the Perdue Company spokesman:

"We accept our piece" - (Piece? What piece? the whole thing, I think) - "of responsibility to deal very seriously with it [campylobacter], but we have to figure out what our responsibility is."

Why don't we try this out on Frank Perdue and his fellow producers: Start over with a fresh, uninfected, flock of chickens - maybe we could import some from the Himalayas - to give the American public a clean supply of poultry.

Actually, their responsibility is even greater. American producers provide a large part of the world poultry supply - mostly the chicken legs that Americans reject in favor of white meat.

Goats, Maybe?

Here on the East End, where fishing is such an important part of the economy, we are warned to beware of oysters, mussels, and clams from polluted waters, fish full of PCBs, and other unpleasant things that can happen to marine life. Maybe we should just raise goats in the backyard for a home-grown meat supply.

The Brits were forced to destroy a huge part of their cattle population last year. Maybe our Government should require the same draconian remedy for our poultry supply.

They save on lawn-mowing costs, their milk makes delicious cheese, and so far I haven't heard of any raging goat contaminations.

Or, how about going back to our roots?

Potatoes Anyone?

In the '70s, when I spent a summer in Dublin cooking and writing, I discovered an old Irish dish named colcannon, which seems to be bobbing up on American menus these days. Traditionally, it is made of cooked, shredded kale mixed into mashed potatoes laced liberally with rich milk and melted butter.

Cabbage, especially the Savoy crinkly kind, is another favorite vegetable to mix with the mashed potatoes.

The dish is also called champ, when it is made with blanched scallions, according to one of the Irish cookbooks I brought back. It is usually served in soup plates to children - a crater of mashed potatoes with a big knob of butter melting in it.

Large And Bumpy

"Chef's" potatoes, a big round variety weighing in at about 10 ounces each, make quick work of the potato-peeling chore. However, I'm fond of the old Green Mountain variety, which whip up very light and fluffy.

Idahos make good mashed potatoes too. Yukon Golds are okay, but a bit waxy for really first-class mashed potatoes. I stick with Green Mountains and Chef's.

Green Mountains are usually large, but very bumpy, with deep eyes you must flick out with the point of the peeler or knife. Some minced fresh parsley may be added, but otherwise leave this pure, simple dish strictly alone. No fried sage, no frizzled leeks, no coulis of any kind.

Colcannon is a main dish, but you may round it out with a couple of grilled sausages of whatever kind you fancy.

Colcannon

Serves two.

11/2 lbs. potatoes, peeled and quartered or cut in big chunks

1 tsp. salt

Cold water to cover

2 Tbsp. scallions, sliced fine

About 1 cup milk, heated

1 Tbsp. softened butter

Freshly milled pepper and salt to taste

4 cups fresh green cabbage, shredded

1/2 tsp. salt

2 large knobs fresh, unsalted butter

Peel the potatoes and de-eye them. Cut them in large chunks (otherwise they get waterlogged) and put them in cold water to cover, with a little salt. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, until done but not falling apart. Drain (save the potato water to make delicious bread) and dry over low heat.

Put the potatoes through a food mill, a chinois, or bash them lumpless with an old-fashioned potato masher. Do not, under any circumstances, puree them in a processor - the gluten in them turns to glue under such ferocious treatment.

An electric mixer is good for whipping the potatoes to fluffiness and incorporating the milk, scallions, and butter. Or, you can use a big wooden spoon.

Quickly steam the shredded cabbage to crisp-tender, drain it on a dish cloth, then stir it into the potatoes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Arrange in mounds on a big warmed plate, make a crater in the center, and put a knob of butter into each.

A microwave is a godsend for bringing the colcannon to piping hotness.

Boxty

Another potato dish, boxty is an Irish rendition of Yorkshire pudding. It's served with chive-flecked sour cream at a pub in Key West called Finnegan's Wake. A version made with flour-batter base was meant to be served with roast beef.

This one is a bit lighter and has no flour. I like this boxty with Irish bacon and/or scrambled eggs, or, as at Finnegan's, with smoked salmon.

1/2 lb. potatoes partially boiled and grated

1/2 lb. potatoes boiled and mashed

4 ozs. stale bread crumbs (white, home-style)

2 egg yolks

2 Tbsp. softened butter

3 scallions, minced

Salt and white pepper to taste

Butter for frying or plain vegetable oil

Mix all ingredients (except the frying medium) together lightly, using two table forks spread slightly apart. Do not use a food processor or an electric mixer, as the mixture will be too smooth.

Shape into thick rounds about two inches in diameter and one inch thick. Fry until golden brown on each side in about a quarter-inch of oil or butter. Serve hot or warm.

Hot Hearing Expected

Stop the Ferry. Save the Ferry. Do both at the same time. The East Hampton Town Board expects to hear it all tomorrow morning, during what promises to be a well-attended hearing preceding a vote that could ban car ferry terminals and place strict limitations on the size of passenger ferries.

The ferry issue has become so emotionally charged, thanks in large part to a pamphlet and radio campaign waged by Capt. Paul Forsberg of Montauk's Viking Fleet, that at press time the board was considering a change of venue. As of last night, however, the meeting was still on for 10:30 at Town Hall.

The town is faced with a dilemma: how to cap the size of passenger ferries and still accommodate the expansion plans of the Viking Fleet, the only ferry service to Block Island, New London, or anywhere else from the South Fork.

Cap The Size

If proposed legislation is passed, it will cap the size of ferries by requiring at least one parking space for every three ferry patrons, multiplied by the number of trips within 24 hours. For example, a boat carrying 300 people would need 100 spaces if it makes one round-trip a day, but 200 if it makes two.

Mr. Forsberg reportedly has room for 200 to 300 spaces on the Viking prop erty.

In addition, passenger ferries would be limited to a maximum 2,000 "installed" horsepower. For instance, two 1,200-horsepower engin es would not qualify.

Ban Car Ferries

It is also proposed to ban car ferry terminals altogether, anywhere in town. Under the current code, the only place such a terminal could be built is at the Duryea property on Fort Pond Bay in Montauk.

Town planners believe the proposed amendment to the code would prevent East Hampton from becoming, for one thing, a jumping-off point to the giant Foxwoods Casino in Ledyard, Conn., in the way Orient has on the North Fork. The Cross Sound Ferry company of New London has long wanted to build a terminal in East Hampton waters.

Two years ago, it was learned that Perry B. Duryea Jr. was in negotiations with Cross Sound regarding the Fort Pond Bay land.

Where would the proposed size-cap law leave the Viking passenger boats? No one in town government has spoken in favor of large-capacity ferries, and at the same time all the current board members say they do not want to disrupt the Viking operation.

Pre-Existing?

Captain Forsberg asserts he should not be subject to the new law because his operation pre-exists the zoning laws. A ferry was operating from the Viking dock in the late 1950s, he claims, long before the applicable part of the code was written.

Further, Mr. Forsberg maintains that under the amended code he would lose 35 percent of his business, would have to drop the popular Viking whale-watch excursions, and would be forced to cancel plans for a bigger, 140-foot, 400-passenger vessel now reportedly being built for Viking in Florida. The present Starship carries up to 200 people.

Limit Excursion Boats

The Viking Fleet also runs fishing party boats and "Cruise to Nowhere" gambling trips. The proposed amendment specifies a one-parking-space-for-four-patrons rule for "excursion boats" - the whale-watchingand gambling come under that rule - and Mr. Forsberg seems to be saying that if he had to abide by the letter of the law something would have to go.

During a televised debate Tuesday night, Town Supervisor Cathy Lester said the Viking operation already had parking problems, a charge Captain Forsberg vehemently denies.

"I'm there every morning helping to park cars and we've never had cars on the street," he said. "They all come at once, and all leave at once."

How Long?

At the heart of the Viking debate, however, is the question of how long the ferry has been in business.

Capt. Ed Beneduci, a former employee of the Viking Fleet, claims in a letter in this week's Star that no Viking ferry existed in the '50s, when Mr. Forsberg says it did. Captain Forsberg replies that the boat in question, the Jigger III, was not a Viking boat, but nonetheless a ferry, which operated from the Viking Dock. It is the service, he says, that is important, not boat ownership.

Captain Beneduci further says that his former boss had a history of building docks without the proper permits. The charge was denied by an attorney for Viking, James Greenbaum.

A 1990 Ruling

Two weeks ago, the Town Planning Board asked Fred Sellers, the chief building inspector, to determine if the ferry was pre-existing. Mr. Forsberg has objected, saying the issue was decided in 1990.

In that year, Roger Walker, then the zoning code enforcement officer, cited the Viking Fleet for having expanded its service. Debra Foster, Planning Board chairwoman at the time, had said the increased ferry services required a site plan review by her board, as well as a Department of Natural Resources special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Richard Whalen, then planning and zoning counsel, disagreed, and told Mr. Walker to back off, on the grounds that only changes to the Viking's upland facilities should properly trigger such review, not an increase in ferry operations.

In his memo to Mr. Walker, Mr. Whalen called the Viking service "pre-existing."

Justice's Letter

The summons was before Town Justice James Ketcham. The prosecution dropped the charges, and Justice Ketcham dismissed the case "with prejudice."

During a meeting Monday with Mr. Whalen and town planners, Mr. Greenbaum insisted that Mr. Ketcham's decision was final, citing the principle of res judicata - the thing has been adjudicated - in asserting that the question of pre-existence cannot be revisited.

Mr. Ketcham himself wrote to The Star this week, saying that he dismissed the case in 1990 only because the charges were dropped, and not on the merits of the case. In other words, the question of pre-existence was not answered.

Mr. Greenbaum has filed a notice of intent to sue if the town insists on having its building inspector proceed with his determination.

Charges Vote-Buying

Another of this week's letter-writers, Kent Gaugler, charges that Captain Forsberg donated "checks to every political party and some organizations from all the Viking business corporation accounts . . . [to] buy . . . the right to do anything he wants to do, whenever he wants to do it."

"Save The Ferry"

A search of the County Board of Elections list of political contributors found none in the name of either Forsberg or Viking.

Election law, moreover, does not require itemizing donations of $99 or less.

Meanwhile, Captain Forsberg has mounted a campaign to garner support at tomorrow's Town Board meeting. In contrast to the "Stop the Ferry" stickers that festooned car bumpers before the 1995 election, his "Save the Ferry" appeal has been made via pamphlet and radio. A large sign appears on a Viking truck parked across from the Montauk Post Office.

Captain Forsberg told the Montauk Chamber of Commerce recently that the proposed amendment would "choke" the Viking Fleet out of business.

The fear of ferries, especially car ferries, that was a strong undercurrent of the town elections two years ago has not been argued along political lines up to this point, but the emotionally charged issue has already put the Town Board to the test, and will almost certainly figure in the election now just 12 days away - especially in Montauk.

Board Reacts

Supervisor Lester, a Democrat, said yesterday that "even if he is found to be not pre-existing for everything, he will still be allowed to have a ferry, but he will have to make decisions about his other future uses. Nobody wants the service to Block Island to disappear."

Her Republican opponent, Councilman Thomas Knobel, said, "The Viking ferry should continue what it's doing. If we're doing something to change it, we shouldn't do it. I'm waiting for the specifics from [the Viking Fleet] of why the legislation would be detrimental."

Town Councilman Len Bernard, a Republican who is not up for re-election, commented that "Forsberg has to be treated like any other business. It has to be established, so that it will stand up in court. If the ferry is pre-existing, then a benchmark has to be established to see what he has now. People want to accommodate Paul Forsberg for what he now has. The fear is expansion."

On one of the last temperate, sunny Saturdays of the year, some 300 people took time to sit in the darkened semi-circle of the Bay Street Theatre this week to participate in a program dedicated to cancer.

Although the event might sound depressing on its surface, it was a day devoted to hope. And about 200 of those people who either had survived cancer, were being treated for cancer, or were recently diagnosed, were offered a measure of help and encouragement in their struggles.

Fighting Chance, a nonprofit Sag Harbor organization that provides information and access to resources for East End cancer patients, organized the symposium with Southampton Hospital.

Duncan Darrow, the chairman of Fighting Chance, said he was gratified with the turnout and the assessment forms that 100 of the attendees filled out, which rated the day on content and worthiness on a sliding scale from one to five. "Almost everyone gave it a five, with only some fours, nothing lower," he said. "That's 100 people with cancer," he added.

"I feel as though we accurately perceived a community need and have done something useful to address it."

Mr. Darrow guessed that about 70 percent of the group were recently diagnosed with cancer, and the other 30 percent were survivors and caregivers.

Not only will Fighting Chance sponsor such conferences in the future, but it plans to make them longer and include more doctors as well as interns and residents. Mr. Darrow said that the interaction between doctors and patients in a nonclinical setting revealed a need for communication in a more open, relaxed forum.

A morning session was devoted to medical issues with Larry Norton, a renowned breast cancer oncologist, and Nasser Altorki, a professor of surgery specializing in the chest and heart and the removal of lung cancer. Both offered encouraging news about research and treatment.

Dr. Norton described how advances in treatment, many of them in recent years, have brought doctors closer to eradicating the disease. Dr. Altorki said that early detection techniques were allowing lung cancer patients a better chance at surgery and ultimate survival. Breast cancer and lung cancer are two of the most common cancers in the country and lung cancer is one of the deadliest.

After the doctors' presentations, a panel of local doctors, Louis Avvento, Renu Hausen, and Marilyn McLaughlin, joined them to answer the audience's questions about treatment advances, drug trials, the role of politics in getting money for research, the role of the environment as a cause of cancer, and how to deal with treatment complications.

Dr. Norton was frank in his assessment of the politics of cancer. "We have decided as a society that cancer is not something we want to stop," he said, comparing the $4.5 billion National Cancer Institute budget to the $12 billion he said the tobacco industry spends on advertising and to the amount of money spent annually on professional sports.

Dr. Norton discussed the reluctance of drug companies to pursue research on cures that would only affect tens of thousands of people because it is not financially feasible.

"There is a light at the end of the tunnel if as a society we decide we can, we will do it," Dr. Norton concluded.

Audience members were also curious about their legal rights and asked a number of questions of Susan Slavin, a lawyer whose practice is focused on advocacy for breast cancer patients.

Ms. Slavin said her early practice was devoted to righting the most egregious wrongs of worker discrimination and insurance denials. Today, most of those battles have been won. "It's a joy to be here in 2005," she said. There are other battles, but they are subtler and "not as disgusting."

Although there is no such thing as "cancer law," she told the audience that discrimination based on illness is the same as any other issue under the Americans With Disabilities Act. The workplace has to have more than 15 employees, however, to qualify. Under the act, any "reasonable accommodation" should be made for an ill employee.

Patients and their caregivers now have the benefit of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 as well, which allows up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave.

Ms. Slavin said the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act also ensures "seamless" coverage without pre-existing condition exclusions. The patient must have maintained coverage without more than a 60-day gap, however, before joining the new policy. Employer insurance policies still have pre-existing exclusions, but they apply to those who were uninsured before qualifying for the company's coverage.

Providing an intimate look at the process of treatment and the issues involved were a group of five cancer survivors. Karrie Zampini Robinson, an oncological social worker who is the director of clinical programs at Fighting Chance and served as the conference's moderator, called the experience of cancer "a series of crises" from diagnosis to treatment. "No one can help you more than people who have been there," she observed.

Jeremy Samuelson, Jan Moran, Chuck Hitchcock, Harry Heller, and Susie Roden offered perspectives from the point of view of the young, old, afflicted, recovered, relapsed, and caregiver.

According to Mr. Darrow, out of 62 counties in New York State, Suffolk is ranked seventh in number of people diagnosed with cancer.

To address the growing need, Mr. Darrow said Fighting Chance will try to offer smaller workshops over the course of the year on specific cancers in addition to larger conferences. More information on the topics presented at the conference can be found at the Web site fightingchance.org. A copy of the free book "Coping with Cancer on the East End" can be ordered there.

A World Without War

Springs

October 17, 1997

Dear Editor,

Lily Tomlin has a good line, "No matter how cynical we get, it's never enough." In the toils and turmoil of the balanced budget restructure, we end up with the Federal Discretionary Budget allocating more ($267 billion) to the military than it does to the total of all other categories ($255 billion). Not to be tiresome, but what happened to the peace dividend? Our country spends seven times more for our "defense" than do the total of all our most likely enemies.

How to explain this anomaly? Rather than have an Army "capable of fighting two full-scale wars" at once, we are prepared to deploy troops all over the world where our corporate interests are threatened. We maintain the School of the Americas to train Central Americans to return to their countries to follow our orders, even if it means killing Jesuit priests and nuns who have encouraged the poor to seek justice.

As Common Cause has known for decades, campaign finance reform is the only route to reordering our House and Senate. When both parties are owned by the same Fortune 500 countries and lobbies, priorities don't change.

Just because we are not at war does not mean we are at peace. Peace includes justice, and while we are making the world safe for the NAFTA and GATT and the newly expanded NATO, for 80 percent of our population their situation, buying power, paychecks, health coverage, public education, housing, and transportation have all been eroding. They are not invited to the Wall Street party and seem unaware that more than half of the national budget is pledged to building more Stealth fighters and Trident nuclear submarines. And $40 billion a year to maintain our nuclear deterrent, the weapons which (best case) we will never use and (worst case) will end it all.

Since 1945, we have known that we can never defend war again. Are we not capable of imagining a world without war? We have successively lost our innocence as war has spread from primitives throwing rocks at each other, or to knights jousting on horseback to the trenches of Argonne, to Dresden, Hiroshima, Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf. Our reasons for sacrificing our youth and slaying thousands, millions of noncombatants are too often for the goal of opening new markets for our goods, extending our sphere of influence, or keeping the price of oil down.

And the weapons systems have evolved into more sophisticated antipersonnel weapons, heat seeking aerial launched missiles, and land mines whose victims are often children and poor village people. For 50 years, we could be motivated to sacrifice by the specter of the Communist menace. Now who is the enemy? The poor, the immigrant, the drug pusher? In fact even at home it is the children and the needy, the elderly, the sick who are the victims of our callous war machine through the distortion in allocating our resources.

Let us at least speak out. On Oct. 24 around the country there will be demonstrations focused on "A Day Without the Pentagon." Here in East Hampton, a march will take place. At 4:30 p.m. on Friday we will assemble in front of London Jewelers and proceed south along Main Street to the green where a brief candlelight prayer service will take place. We look to each other for strength and encouragement. Please join us.

Sincerely,

HELEN FITZGERALD

Progress Report

East Hampton

October 20, 1997

Dear Helen Rattray,

East Enders should take pride in the successful founders dinner hosted on Oct. 17 by Alec Baldwin for the new environmental organization Standing for the Truth About Radiation. Some $45,000 was raised from 75 attendees to help STAR fund its efforts on behalf of those harmed by both radioactive and chemical discharges from the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

They would have been moved to tears to hear Randy Snell describe the anguish of a father living near B.N.L. with a 6-year-old daughter suffering from inoperable cancer of the tongue and throat.

STAR now has an office at 66 Newtown Lane and is planning to offer a progress report at Guild Hall on Friday, Dec. 5, on the theme of "B.N.L.: Problems and Possibilities." We invite all East Enders to attend.

Cordially,

JAY M. GOULD

Funding Alternatives

East Hampton

October 20, 1997

Dear Helen:

The Nature Conservancy remains committed to the preservation of all 98 acres of Shadmoor. Please be assured that we are in no way "resigned" to the idea of abandoning this project as your recent editorial implied.

Over the past three years, the conservancy has led the effort to obtain a Federal commitment to buy Shadmoor. We worked closely with Congressman Michael Forbes in his successful bid to pass Federal legislation allowing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to make that purchase. Largely through our efforts, and with valuable help from the Town of East Hampton and our Federal elected officials, we have twice obtained Senate support of our request. This past July, Senators D'Amato and Moynihan succeeded in having $2.5 million earmarked to start the acquisition. Regrettably, at the 11th hour, we lost this allocation "in conference."

As I write this letter, we continue working with the conservancy home office in Washington and with Federal officials to pursue other funding alternatives. The Department of Interior appropriations bill has been finalized, but has not yet been signed into law by President Clinton. We understand that it will have a provision for the future appropriation of about $384 million for acquisition and management of Federal lands. As it stands now, the President will have the authority to submit a list of land acquisition priorities for this money. You can be sure that we will continue to press for a commitment of funding from the Executive Office to begin the purchase of Shadmoor.

I urge you and your readers who care about Shadmoor to write to the President and tell him that you expect his office to support an appropriation for Shadmoor of $2.5 million from the $384 million soon to be available. Only through our collective efforts will we succeed.

Sincerely,

SARA DAVISON

Executive Director

The Nature Conservancy

South Fork-Shelter Island Chapter

What We Don't Know

East Hampton

October 20, 1997

To The Editor,

In the fall special issue of Life magazine, the top 100 incredible discoveries, cataclysmic events, and magnificent moments of the past millennium are ranked. Rachel Carson's meticulously researched argument for pesticide control was included in this momentous list.

Thirty-five years have passed since Ms. Carson, with the support of the President's Scientific Advisory Committee, warned the pubic about the toxicity of pesticides. Now, in 1997, a newborn child has a 1 in 600 chance of developing cancer by age 10, because the childhood cancer rates have been increasing every year for the past two decades.

Carol Browner, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is championing tighter controls on pesticides, and Congress passed new laws last year that require taking children's exposures into account when setting standards for pesticide residues in food and contaminants in drinking water.

Slowly but surely people are realizing that chemical companies really don't know what the effects of these highly toxic chemicals are on humans. The latest reports about the chemicals that make up the Fen-Phen diet pills bring this fact to light. It wasn't until over six million people had taken what they thought was a carefully researched, approved drug that the fatal side effects were discovered.

Common sense tells us to lessen our dependence on the 75,000 synthetic chemicals that have been introduced and largely undertested in the last half century. We really don't know what we don't know.

Sincerely,

TINA GUGLIELMO

Safe, Legal Option

Wainscott

October 16, 1997

East Hampton Star,

An important element was omitted from last week's coverage of the Rockville Centre Diocese's 11th anti-abortion "Rosary Procession" against Southampton's Hampton Gynecology, and the East End National Organization for Women pro-choice counter-demonstration.

The element not covered was that in the 1996 election, St. Agnes Cathedral, seat of the Rockville Centre Diocese, was among Catholic churches issuing bulletins against now-elected pro-choice Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy. NOW's objection is not just that the church attempts to stop physicians from providing needed services, it is also that these conservative religious organizations spend time and money lobbying against women's rights, a political activity their tax-exempt 501-3C status theoretically precludes.

Women's rights groups protest the church's attempt to impose sectarian religious beliefs on all American women and on health-care providers of other faiths. Many believe it is immoral to bring into the world children parents can neither love nor feed. Birth control is neither universally available nor safe for all women, and, indeed, the Catholic Church continues to besmirch pregnancy prevention as "intrinsically evil." In such a mine field, it is extremely important the termination of pregnancy remains a safe, legal option for American women.

SANDY RAPP

Please address correspondence to [email protected]

Please include your full name, address and daytime telephone number for purposes of verification.

Three men walked away unharmed after the amphibious plane they were in crash-landed in Little Peconic Bay off Towd Point in North Sea on Tuesday at 10:07 a.m.

The men were "practicing pilot training" at the time of the crash, and lost altitude during a maneuver, according to Detective Sgt. Randy Hintze of the Southampton Town Police. The cause of the crash is not yet known.

The seaplane, a Cessna CE 208, is registered to Shoreline Aviation, based at Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Bridgeport and Stratford, Conn. Shoreline is the company that advertises charter service to East Hampton from Manhattan's 23rd Street Seaport for $365 one way every weekend from May 15 to Columbus Day.

Although calls to Shoreline were not returned, Joan, a receptionist who would not give her last name, said, "The pilot was training government employees [under a government contract] and they made a hard landing in the water." She would not provide the pilot's name.

The seaplane that crashed is a high wing, single-engine, turbo-prop machine, according to Todd Gunther, an investigator with National Transportation Safety Board.

When police arrived at the scene the plane was submerged in 30 feet of water, about a mile off the shore of North Sea, Detective Hintze said.

The plane's occupants were safely on Towd Point, already rescued from the wreckage by some fishermen, when Southampton Town police arrived at the scene, according to Detective Hintze.

The seaplane suffered "substantial damage," according to Jim Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration's eastern regional office.

"Even the F.A.A. inspectors said these guys should go to church!" Detective Hintze said on Tuesday.

Police and the National Transportation Safety Board would not release the names of the pilot and two passengers. The F.A.A., which is assisting the transportation safety board in its investigation, said that "bylaws preclude the F.A.A. from issuing the names of the crew," according to Mr. Peters.

Southampton bay constables, the North Sea Fire Department, including the Sag Harbor Fire Department's dive team, and Southampton ambulance volunteers also responded to the scene. The pilot and the passengers refused medical attention, Detective Hintze said.

Since the investigation has just begun, police said, they knew only that the plane took off from a Connecticut airport. Shoreline's aircrafts are maintained by Connecticut Jet, which is based at Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Bridgeport.

The plane was to be removed from the bay yesterday by barges and then taken to a secured, out-of-state storage facility, Mr. Gunther said.

"The fuel has been contained in the fuel bags," Lt. j.g. Kristopher Tsairis of the United States Coast Guard said, and thus does not seem to have leaked into the bay.

"Shoreline Aviation is responsible for removing the aircraft from the water," Mr. Peters said yesterday.

Once the plane is at the storage facility, the National Transportation Safety Board will inspect it and try to determine the cause of the crash. The F.A.A. will conduct the "tandem investigation" into the plane's maintenance history and the pilot's performance.

Paul Cox, an aviation safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, was at the accident site at press time yesterday, according to Mr. Gunther. A preliminary report is expected within two weeks.

Lee Grant began her distinguished career as an actress, but over the years she has become much more than that - a filmmaker who gives voice to issues not otherwise discussed.

For her accomplishments as an actress and as a director, Ms. Grant was the first woman to be presented with the Hamptons International Film Festival's Distinguished Achievement Award at its annual Tribute Presentation Saturday afternoon.

An onstage interview at Guild Hall in East Hampton was preceded by a 20-minute program of clips from her career, which highlighted the documentaries she has directed, the feature films she has directed, and the films she has starred in, like "Shampoo," "The Landlord," and "In the Heat of the Night."

Blacklisted

"Not only has Ms. Grant given a voice to women," Carrie Rickey, a film critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer who interviewed Ms. Grant, said, she "has the most crowded mantelpiece in America," referring to all of the awards she has won over the years. They include a Cannes Film Festival best actress prize for "Detective Story," an Oscar for best supporting actress for "Shampoo," and an Emmy for best supporting actress for the television series "Peyton Place."

Being blacklisted for 12 years during the McCarthy Era after speaking at a memorial service for "one of the California lefties" served as an inspiration for Ms. Grant to tackle social issues in her film projects.

"I think there are so many things that are not fair," Ms. Grant said to the audience. Her films let viewers know "this is what's out there in this world. This is what's real."

Being an actress, she said, gave her the empathy necessary to identify with the subjects of her documentaries. And, "Directing, thank God, was a muscle I had that I didn't know I had."

Her documentaries have addressed the issues of battered women who strike back at their abusers ("Women Who Kill"), homelessness ("Down and Out in America"), and transsexuals ("What Sex Am I?").

Her feature films, like "Seasons of the Heart," "No Place Like Home," and "Tell Me a Riddle," have provided roles for older women and addressed the issue of growing older.

Ms. Grant was "always a mold- breaker, never a type-cast," Ms. Rickey said. She is a good documentarian because "You listen very well and you let people have a say."

Toni Ross, the chairwoman of the festival's board of directors, thanked Ms. Grant for "your integrity, your compassion, your courage."

Film Hit Home

Ms. Grant's interview was followed by her latest film, "Say It, Fight It, Cure It," an emotional documentary about breast cancer produced by Lifetime Television for Women, a new sponsor of the Film Festival this year. There was nary a dry eye at the end of the 67-minute film; out of the corner of one's eye you could see others wiping theirs.

Produced by her second husband, Joseph Feury, the film particularly hit home thanks to its attention to cancer clusters in neighborhoods in western Suffolk County, including the one where Rosie O'Donnell, the comedienne and talk show host, grew up. The disease took her mother when she was only 10, and victimized many other women on her block.

Bella Abzug, a Noyac resident and a breast cancer survivor, also appeared in the film.

Despite her serious take on life, Ms. Grant also displayed a good sense of humor on Saturday. She admitted to having once said, "I've been married to a Communist and a Fascist, and neither took out the garbage." And yes, she and Mr. Feury did change their wedding vows from "I do" to "I'll try." They've tried successfully for 20 years.

It's hard to imagine the last time an audience at Guild Hall in East Hampton laughed as much as it did Friday afternoon, when the veteran actor Richard Dreyfuss took center stage. It wasn't his acting ability but his own comical character that had audience members - from fellow actors like Lee Grant and Daphne Zuniga to regular folks who queued up on a chilly afternoon simply because they love movies - chuckling, nodding with wide grins, and applauding.

After appearing, and usually starring, in some 35 films in a 30-year career, Mr. Dreyfuss (this year's surprise guest for the festival favorite "A Conversation With . . .") clearly does not take himself too seriously. Laugh-inducing, self-deprecating comments came rolling out of the Golden Globe and Oscar winner in response to questions from both Jeanine Basinger, moderator of the onstage interview, and the audience.

When asked about his early years, he replied: "I was in the last 45 seconds of the worst movie ever made!"( He was referring to "Valley of the Dolls," the camp classic in which he had a brief role.)

Would you hum the theme from "Valley of the Dolls"? "When hell freezes."

Have you ever had an encounter with a U.F.O.? "Only this afternoon."

Is it true you made an obscure X-rated movie about a man who makes pornography, called "Inserts"? "Yes, and I worked very hard to keep it obscure."

Mr. Dreyfuss - whose credits include an Oscar-winning performance in "The Goodbye Girl" and starring roles in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," "Tin Men," "Postcards From the Edge," "American Graffiti," and "Jaws" - touched on serious subjects as well.

One of his most recent films is "Mr. Holland's Opus," the story of a music teacher who couldn't share his great passion with his deaf son. "I was intensely proud of that film," Mr. Dreyfuss said. "It was a never-ending experience for us . . . much more than just a movie."

"It had an extraordinary impact on the teaching world, the music world, and the deaf world," he said. "We didn't set out to do that, but I'm thrilled we did."

The star of screen and stage told the audience he had never had any formal acting training and had never scrutinized his technique: "Acting in film is not the pinnacle experience, it is not an ecstatic state. Working on stage is, actually, but working in front of the camera is very private. . . . You are working in a disconnected manner."

"It is a moment of a tiny little moment. There is no grandeur."

Mr. Dreyfuss had encouraging words for the budding filmmakers in the audience, saying he had worked with first-time directors in the past and would again, if the director knew what he or she was doing and had a great script.

Summing up his career, he said: "I wanted to be me, as singular an actor as I could be, and still lead a pack. I wanted to allow my own eccentricities to be there."

Rod Steiger, in town for the restoration of "In the Heat of the Night," made a surprise on-stage visit at the end of the interview. "I have great respect for this man, because he has what you don't see very often: He'll take a chance, a chance in film," Mr. Steiger said.

This first appeared in Sunday's edition of Take One!, a daily publication presented by The Star during the Film Festival. Richard Dreyfuss's name was spelled incorrectly in the first publication, and for that The Star apologizes.

Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker - residents of Sag Harbor and Manhattan, partners in life and as documentary filmmakers - were two of seven documentarians to speak as part of a Hamptons International Film Festival panel discussion Sunday afternoon.

The couple first got together in 1976 to work on "The Energy War," a trilogy produced for PBS which documented the 18-month struggle in Congress over President Jimmy Carter's energy proposals. Most recently, they directed "Moon Over Broadway," which takes a look at the high-risk adventure of producing a Broadway play, "Full Moon Over Buffalo." The film made its U.S. premiere at this year's Film Festival.

An earlier collaboration between the two was "The War Room," which followed the Clinton campaign. And Mr. Pennebaker was the director of a number of classic documentaries, including "Monterey Pop," a view of the Monterey International Pop Festival, and "Don't Look Back," a famous cinema verite film of Bob Dylan during a concert tour of England in 1965.

Real-Life Drama

Both Mr. Pennebaker and Ms. Hegedus got their starts in film before they met. Mr. Pennebaker began working for a director of abstract films, from whom he learned "how to look through a camera." Ms. Hegedus comes from an art background, having started as a camera person for what she described as structured, funny art films.

Though at first she wasn't interested in documentaries, Ms. Hegedus said that eventually she became enamored with the real-life drama of things.

With their solid backgrounds in filmmaking experience, Mr. Pennebaker said working on films together now is simply a matter of picking a subject and then "problem solving."

With the other documentarians on the panel, Mr. Pennebaker and Ms. Hegedus discussed their approach to making their films. Mr. Pennebaker, for one, said he never does research on his subject beforehand. "I want to have all of it come through the camera," he said.

Stay Out Of The Way

Ms. Hegedus said she does not stop filming if people are doing or saying something that might be embarrassing. Chances are, she said, "this really shows the person's character."

"In the end I think your greatest loyalty is with the film," Mr. Pennebaker said.

He considers making a documentary a joint venture, Mr. Pennebaker added. "I'm not making a film at [the subjects'] expense. We're making a film together."

Their style of filmmaking, unlike others', does not involve a great deal of interviewing, the couple said. Rather, they try to get their subjects to feel comfortable with them but then stay out of their way.

"While we're making the film we don't really want to interfere with their lives," Ms. Hegedus said.

Can he make a film about a subject he dislikes? "Personally, it's impossible. I couldn't do it."