Greater Awareness
Noyac
April 3, 2022
Dear Mr. Rattray,
We were deeply moved and profoundly educated by the column written by Bess Rattray on her personal connection to the tragedies of Ukraine, through her grandfather’s experience in 1922. We are drawn into greater awareness because of her detailed close-up of the effects of war. To be filled in on the painfully horrific history of Mariupol — the famine and death — enables us to get a more complete picture.
We experience a greater empathy with these several-times-over victims of the greatest evil that exists in our world today. The media’s overall in-depth reporting on Putin’s war brings us together as witnesses and defenders of our fellow human beings now suffering on this planet. We need to figure out how to make “never again “ more than a meaningless slogan.
Thank you, Bess Rattray, for bringing us closer to doing that, to help us understand that we must come together, moved by our empathy, and put an end to this war.
Peace and love,
TOM and HEIDI OLESZCZUK
Equals No
East Hampton
April 3, 2022
Dear David,
As a longtime Northwest Woods resident (as you know from seriously fun parties back in the day) this is my take on the airport and the helicopters: No race track (Bridgehampton), plus no truck beach, plus no mini-bikes in the trails, equals no helicopters.
If the bedroom community takes from us, then we take from them.
Thank you,
BENGT HOKANSON
Was Thrilled
Springs
April 4, 2022
Dear David,
I am writing to express my enthusiastic support of the picnic tables outside of Hampton Chutney’s new location.
I was so sad when Mary’s Marvelous closed and Chutney had to leave Amagansett. I, as well as many of my friends, were thrilled when the picnic tables appeared out on the side of the sidewalk. I am also thrilled that take-out sushi will be available next door. Finally, there will be a place to sit outside in the village with friends and enjoy lunch in a very casual setting.
Let the picnic tables stay!
HEATHER DUNN-KOSTURA
Neighborhood Benefits
East Hampton Village
March 29, 2022
To the Editor,
Per the recent commentary about picnic tables outside of Hampton Chutney’s new location on Newtown Lane, I want to speak strongly in favor of the tables. Let’s face it, that end of Newtown Lane could definitely use a little extra life and a sense of community. People dining outside in this spot achieves this. Add to this the fact that Hampton Chutney attracts some of the most mild-mannered, family-oriented clientele in the area, and has a notably wholesome atmosphere, healthy food, socially conscious, no alcohol, a sweet spiritual vibe. This is exactly the sort of establishment we should foster in our village, and if we give the patrons a place to peacefully sit and eat outside (including schoolkids, who really need a place to gather), the entire neighborhood benefits.
Knowing the owners, who have run this business respectfully for 25 years, I’m absolutely certain they will be accommodating to pedestrians passing through and will ensure that this section of the sidewalk flows perfectly. So please, everybody, bear this in mind before you go projecting negative concepts on what will be a wonderful little oasis this coming summer. Our village needs this. Hopefully, the doubters will come to see what a benefit those tables really are.
PETER KAPLAN
Alcohol and the Ocean
East Hampton Village
March 31, 2022
To the Editor:
I am trying to reconstruct a letter written to The Star on March 17th. Where it went is unknown, but I did get a response saying to call and make sure that they have it. I did on the 18th.
It was about the idea of selling alcohol at Main Beach. I’m opposed to it. The reasons are numerous but the primary one is alcohol and the ocean don’t mix well. Also the idea that it is harmless is strange since there are dozens of laws governing the sale of booze in all jurisdictions. Kids around, increased noise, and possibly additional trash are other negatives.
But the village board seems to like the additional availability of alcohol is a good idea. The beer hall (yes, they are now calling it a restaurant) on Toilsome is another instance of some on the board needing to extend the commercial zone into areas heretofore noncommercial. Yes there are offices adjacent to the beer hall spot. (Those offices have recently been sold, by the way.)
The beer hall right next to houses and across the street from a condo/co-op community will cause many problems of more than casual importance. Noise will be one, congestion another, and traffic problems a third issue.
I’m not opposed to booze. I’m not opposed to a food seller. I am opposed to them there. If it’s chiseled in stone that a “restaurant” is okayed for there, make it a great burger joint. That we could use. Or a super breakfast joint. The only one now is John Papas’s former place.
But, let it be known that I am a curmudgeon and can find things wrong with almost anything. And I can take the onslaught of people who oppose my feelings. There may well be a lot.
TOM FRIEDMAN
—
Mr. Friedman’s letter of March 17, “Keeping Up the Buzz,” appeared in the March 24 Star. Ed.
The Right Questions
East Hampton Village
April 4, 2022
Dear David,
Regarding N. Hausig’s March 28 letter, I disagree with his assessments of the Republican senators’ questioning of this nominee for the Supreme Court by Senators Cruz, Hawley, and Graham. These senators asked the right questions about her views in terms of the Constitution from her written opinions and public speeches along with her sentencing track record.
What matters is how she will strengthen democracy according to our Constitution and laws. She would not answer what a woman is, claiming not to be a biologist, yet she’s married to a medical doctor.
Judge Jackson was evasive to the questioning and appears to be very hard-left-leaning with a soft-on-crime perspective. What a hypocrisy, and how dare the Democrats and others compare Jackson’s questioning to the nasty and insincere smears thrown by them at Judge Amy Barrett’s hearing about her desire to adopt children from Haiti? Or Judge Kavanaugh’s high school sex allegations and drinking? They could not consider leaving the children and families of these candidates as off-limits. The only jackassery I witnessed was from Senator Cory Booker.
ANN CHAKINIS
Unquestionably Racist
East Hampton
April 4, 2022
David,
In the mindless miasma of our political universe, when Republicans aren’t getting their rocks off on Hunter Biden they turn to critical race theory. If Hunter Biden needs to go down, let him go. C.R.T. is way more important. Its importance is that while it has become an issue of major political significance, virtually no one knows anything about it. It would be a “duh” moment, like another Trump wet dream starring V. Putin, but it isn’t.
I watched both Ted Cruz and Trump talk about the need to ban teaching C.R.T. in public schools. My father would call them schmucks — not ordinary schmucks but evil schmucks.
There are two competing yet associated concepts at play with C.R.T. The first is to find a subject of which the public has little knowledge and turn it into a major issue, essentially manufacture a problem that doesn’t exist (like looking at the sun during the summer solstice will cause impotence). The second is to take the protests of an oppressed group, i.e., Blacks in the United States, and turn the victims into aggressors and the aggressors into victims. Poor whitey, he can’t possibly bend over any farther.
If people are worried about C.R.T. affecting their kids they should go to Google and look it up. Give it 10 minutes and if it still bothers you, you need to stop sucking your thumb and see a therapist or look in the mirror and ask yourself how you got the swastika emblazoned on your left cheek or sign up for Racists Anonymous and get 10,000 free miles if you get the credit card.
Searching for the correct analogy for our obsession with C.R.T. is not easily done. Is it Chicken Little and the sky is falling, or is it more like the Thirty Years’ War in the 16th century where Catholics and Protestants butchered each other in the name of Jesus? Given it’s the U.S., it is probably a mix of mindless delusion and evil destructiveness. Currently, seven states have banned teaching C.R.T. and 16 more have pending legislation.
C.R.T. is an intellectual theory, or study, on the relationship between the legal system and race. It could easily be expanded to include poor and working class people of all colors. It is a college or graduate level analysis that opens discussion on this subject. There is an underlying assumption that racism is not genetic, it is learned.
I was first introduced to C.R.T. working with the New York United Council of Churches in 1969. They were doing a study on institutional racism that included the legal system. Fifty years later and massive volumes of research have definitively proven that institutional racism is alive and well and even thriving. What to do about it requires a broad discussion and interrogation of the problem. In a world where institutional racism thrives, the reaction is not to discuss but to ban or limit the dissemination of information on the subject.
The true test of racism is the denial of its existence, meaning that there is nothing to discuss. Translating to mean that the motivation of the 23 states prohibiting C.R.T. is unquestionably racist.
While being racist is not a good thing, fabricating a story with no basis in reality to empower racism is way worse. It’s a function of our inability to differentiate between truth and lies.
The better question is: Should these politicians and parents who are so virulently protecting our kids by banning C.R.T. be allowed anywhere near our schools? Do we put our and their children’s futures in the hands of deranged idiots? Is it fair to our kids?
So, in time of war Trump asks Putin not to stop the war, but for info on Hunter Biden. Cruz knows about C.R.T. but fabricates stories that are all crap. Twenty-three states buy the bullshit. We dig our heads a little deeper into the sand.
NEIL HAUSIG