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Guestwords

Box Turtles Need Our Help

The humble, lovable box turtle, a methodical, omnivorous, unmistakable symbol of slow-and-steady, was once far more common on the East End, but this unique local animal is far from being a lost cause.

Jun 20, 2019
Hamptons North, You Say? No Way.

Make no mistake, the Hudson Valley is beautiful territory. I’ll match the sunsets we see from our deck with the best Santa Fe has to offer. But touting the region as “the Hamptons North,” as The New York Times did? That’s a covered bridge too far.

Jun 13, 2019
The Stonewall or Julius?

It’s coming up to 50 years, the start of gay liberation. The big celebration happens where it all started, the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in New York, where the gays finally fought back, but what if the late-June hoopla moved a block and a half away?

Jun 6, 2019
Science Before Justice

The heated debate about the social justice component of the Green New Deal will run up against the scientific arguments regarding climate change and raise serious questions about how and on what basis environmental policy is developed.

May 29, 2019
Love and Hate in the Library

It’s 1975, I’m 16 years old, and one day I’m going to write a great book, “How to Understand Students.” It’ll help clueless adults in encouraging kids to read — the good stuff, exciting and cool books that relate to our lives.

Apr 25, 2019
Film in Translation

Reading the subtitles of a film or a television series sounds as if it betrays the essence of the medium itself, telling stories through dialogue rather than showing them through visuals. But there are benefits to your divided attention. Read on.

Apr 11, 2019
Back to Jail

My fellow inmates knew I was a 75-year-old college professor who owned a farm sanctuary and was in jail to protest the New Jersey bear hunts. Several told me they didn’t necessarily agree with me, but they respected me for acting on my convictions.

Apr 4, 2019
Displeasure at high-stakes Brexit as seen in a Theresa May caricature at a recent London protest. Learning From Complexity

Too many leaders, from Donald Trump to Theresa May to Vladimir Putin, see international relations as an adversarial zero-sum game, and yet the interdependent networks of globalization are not so easily undone.

Mar 28, 2019
Change Comes to Cape Town

Twenty-nine years have passed since Nelson Mandela completed his “long walk to freedom.” So what’s new in the rainbow nation of South Africa? A lot. And a lot’s the same.

Mar 21, 2019
The Toothless Gourmet

For the dentally challenged, a brotherhood and sisterhood long unrecognized, here are some creative cookery solutions, a roadmap of good eating and good nutrition.

Mar 14, 2019
Mother Repurposed

My child-rearing days long behind me, when my son asked me to watch my 16-month-old granddaughter for a few days I wondered if I still had it in me.

Mar 7, 2019
Fair Winds for All

Regarding the proposed South Fork Wind Farm off Montauk, I’d like to suggest a couple of basic principles that I think people of good will can accept.

Feb 28, 2019
Roxee Graziano Lore called her father, the hard-punching former middleweight champion Rocky Graziano, sweet, thoughtful, and old-fashioned. Daughter of a Champ

A look at life outside the ring with Rocky Graziano, the last of the greats of boxing’s golden age.

Feb 21, 2019
Going Emoji

Ah, the pleasure and utility of an impish digital doppelganger.

Feb 14, 2019
A Wind Farm U-Turn

A LIPA trustee puzzles over Assemblyman Fred Thiele’s withdrawal of his support for the South Fork Wind Farm project off Montauk.

Feb 7, 2019
Frank Vespe’s copy of Fantastic Four #43, from October 1965, rescued from a basement turned pond. My 12-Cent Memories

A flooded basement and an imperiled comic book collection transport our correspondent back to Rockaway Beach circa 1965.

Jan 31, 2019
The Wormhole Society

Parallel universes used to be the province of science fiction, but they, like time travel, may provide a mode of personality change for members of societies that crop up across time and space in the wake of discoveries in the Large Hadron Collider.

Jan 24, 2019
Wainscott Redux

The arduous grind to provide reasonable housing at reasonable rents for East Hampton’s labor-force families was thwarted three years ago by a complaint from the board of the Wainscott School. Now it’s on the front burner again. Let’s not blow it.

Jan 17, 2019
The oryx doesn't have much to fear in the way of predators in Namibia. In the Land of No Water

It’s easy to say that Namibia is “a land that time forgot,” or even “a people that time forgot.” But millenniums ago, the Khoisan learned and adopted a way of life that served them well.

Jan 11, 2019
Lost Cat: Answers to ‘Mango’

A couple of weeks passed by in Mango-less agony, but nobody responded to the posters. Maybe people thought they were too cute to deface by tearing off one of the little phone number strips.

Jan 3, 2019
The New Messengers

Facebook can feel like some latter-day secular religious system. There are consequences if we don’t go along, don’t join the throng of devotees. We can be separated out into a wilderness of vague religious remembrance.

Dec 27, 2018
The Best ‘Christmas Carol’

Let’s speculate on which of the surplus population of filmed versions of his immortal classic “A Christmas Carol” Charles Dickens might have liked best. So, take my hand and you will be upheld in more than this!

Dec 20, 2018
Jim Lubetkin in 1968 outside his barracks at Long Binh, Vietnam, America’s largest military facility outside the United States. These women, along with thousands of other Vietnamese, would work at the base during daylight hours and return to their nearby villages at night. Christmas in Vietnam

The holiday season in a war zone, 50 years ago this month. We were separated from those we loved and detached from the daily events in American life that would make 1968 the most tumultuous year in recent American history.

Dec 13, 2018
Progressives and Climate

With the recent election delivering control of the U.S. House of Representatives to the Democrats, it’s time to explore a solution to climate change that appeals to conservatives and deserves support from progressives.

Dec 6, 2018
Is Jennifer O’Neill Bankable?

I overnighted my 109-page script, hoping to hear from the model and actress in a month, but I wasn’t holding my breath. Turned out she loved everything about it — and wanted to direct the movie.

Nov 29, 2018
Writing for Justice

Herstory writers and advocates will gather at Canio’s Books in Sag Harbor this Thanksgiving weekend to hear stories from young East End immigrants and renew commitments to collaboration, to sharing a dream.

Nov 21, 2018
What Do We Leave Behind?

Legacy is both an elusive idea and an evocative reminder of human transience. We welcome its gift and we grieve the loss it signals.

Nov 15, 2018
The coat of arms of Trinity College, Oxford, attended by this week's “Guestwords” contributor. Stories Behind the Shields

Is there something special about a place that can be captured through its symbols and stories? That is the question I set about trying to answer by researching Oxford’s coats of arms.

Nov 8, 2018
The New Anti-Semitism

When a tragedy like that at the Pittsburgh synagogue occurs, we don’t see an increase in hatred, rather we witness the opposite. In the wake of the shooting, the Jewish community has welcomed an outpouring of support.

Oct 31, 2018
Old Democrats Never Die

As I got older and J.F.K. stood frozen in time after the assassination, Eisenhower and I were becoming closer in age, and he looked better and better. Then I saw the Ike pin in the antiques shop. I had to have it.

Oct 24, 2018