Opinion

’Tis the season to be jolly, whether you like it or not, and East Hampton’s overheated (and occasionally silly) civic discourse on holiday lights has arrived right on time. 

Bring the mini excavator. Throw a bone to put-upon pedestrians. Noyac Road needs a sidewalk.

One of the surprises coming out of the ongoing controversy over the Maidstone Gun Club land lease from East Hampton Town is what else has gone on there other than shooting and gun education.

A case is made for the 1973 Bonac football team’s inclusion in East Hampton High’s Hall of Fame — and memories are triggered.

Turned off by the N.F.L.’s enthusiasm for calling ever more penalties, a football fan finds solace in Patriot League collegiate games.

For the first time in more than a decade, the official map of plant growing zones has changed — and it affects Long Island.

What should Jews do about the rise in antisemitism? Here are a few modest proposals.

Read on for the variety of evening amusements that kept East Hampton entertained the week of Dec. 20, 1934, at the height of the Great Depression.

The brawl over the black paint job at Rowdy Hall reminded us this week how aesthetic taste isn't just totally subjective, but shifts with the passing of years.

In praise of sortition.

The Asian longhorned tick, which apparently arrived in the United States by hitching a ride on a New Zealand sheep in 2017, has been found on Long Island. 

The classics teacher in “The Holdovers” says it was always thus, that it was no different in ancient times, that there’s always been the horrific and the sublime. Yet thinking about how to get beyond it seems to be the only thing that keeps us sane.

The prevailing narrative on Representative George Santos’s rise and imminent fall has bothered me from the start.

The mission of any chamber of commerce is to promote and strengthen local business, but how can the chamber here do that at a time when locally owned businesses are fewer and farther between?

A quite noticeable fashion statement at Saturday’s N.C.A.A. Division III national cross-country championships was worn on the face. The mustache is back.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s veto of a bill that would have jump-started an overdue effort to right a wrong done to the Montaukett people was disappointing and part of a long string of similar rejections coming from successive New York governors.

The South Fork traffic mess is worse than ever, and it’s driving everyone nuts. 

I’ve stood on a ladder pointing a hose through the window of a house ablaze in the boondocks of Nova Scotia, and you can’t take that away from me.

For many of us, the holidays can be a time of shortened tempers, sadness, or feeling like not getting out of bed. But there are ways to brighten up the days, if only a little.

From the comic stage to the world stage.

With lots of Thanksgiving cooking about to take over kitchens, it is a good time to take another look at gas stoves, for health reasons and for the environment.

Playwright, lyricist, actor, debtor, here is John Howard Payne on the 200th anniversary of the unveiling of his song “Home Sweet Home.”

Don’t name your business Hampton-whatever. It just sounds generic.

It is time to ask whether the daily responsibilities of town board members may serve to maintain the status quo and prevent adequate forward thinking.

Money can’t buy you love, no, nor can it buy you peace of mind, engaged as you might well be in the constant pursuit of it.

There are no understory plants any more. No saplings coming up. The Quercus alba acorns I may manage to grow into small trees could help preserve the species.

Dr. Robert Marshall’s metaphor of the fractals within a tree is useful in explaining the infinite patterns, and from there it’s a short leap to fractals in the arts.

My children definitely don’t feel the sense of excitement we felt as children at the holidays. They’re quite blasé.

We are always pleased to see women in greater roles in government, and Tuesday night’s results on the East End bode well for where the country may be headed.

On the Day of the Dead, I think about them, my immediate forebears.