Opinion

It has been a relatively long time since a tropical storm or hurricane hit Long Island straight on.

A poll last week released by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that more than half of adults thought the crisis was affecting their mental health.

I texted a neighbor the other day asking how the mosquitoes were over her way. Lucy, who usually has a decent amount to say, responded with just one word: bad.

The median income among Peloton owners is in the high six figures, if the marketing is to be believed. The purchase of one — and the cost of the monthly fees — is a luxury bordering on the inexcusable in these times of trouble.

It is painfully ironic that that the federal agency created to keep the United States safe after the Sept. 11 attacks now targets Americans.

Cribbage? You never know what will bring two strangers together.

My success at underachieving is undoubtedly my extraordinary ability at staying supine on the couch. During these difficult days, what more valuable skill than the ability to put in long-term couch time.

It’s been weeks since the last sustained soaking.

The Far Right found me a month or so ago, and now not a day goes by that I don’t get half a dozen emails from Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump Jr., or worse.

Southampton Town officials had stars in their eyes when they granted permission for a giant pop concert held in Bridgehampton on Saturday, attended by an estimated 3,000 guests.

I don’t believe there are any secret spots anymore. That was certainly the case on Saturday, when the middle child and I went to a normally empty place along the ocean for a late-afternoon swim.

I have an unhealthy relationship with large home appliances.

If there was ever a moment for the myriad school districts on Long Island to cooperate, this is it. By working together across district lines, schools can help reduce the risk of a renewed Covid-19 outbreak.

I’ll be goddamned if all those cassettes I lost to a flooded basement didn’t help catalog a life.

I have a question about the plans for a new park in Wainscott, at the site of the memorable, irreplaceable Club Swamp.

As the Black Lives Matter movement focuses attention on the legacy of slavery and racism in the United States, there is a sense that the assessment is incomplete

It’s gratifying to have memories of a youth ill-spent.

The death of Jeffrey Gantt by apparent drowning in Montauk’s Fort Pond on Sunday is a tragedy for his friends, families, and business acquaintances, and is a reminder how quickly things can go wrong on the water, even in the most seemingly benign places.

Wainscott might be headed toward incorporation for all the wrong reasons. But if in doing so it can avoid the worst of what has happened elsewhere in East Hampton, forming its own village might just be the best thing that could happen to it.

For a long time, this newspaper has called for bike lanes on county, town, and village roads in a general sense. Instead of just keeping to that, we now suggest that several specific roads should be considered for widening to accommodate bicycles.

A trip to the sporting goods store turns into a moment of reflection.

The passing of Carl Reiner reminds us of an era when perhaps 80 percent of leading comics were Jewish. The passing of a style of humor we might call earthy, clever, slapstick, and/or Jewish.

The deer I was prepared for. The rabbits I was not.

From early in the pandemic, it was clear that resort communities were different. Ski areas, which attract visitors and seasonal workers from across the United States and other countries, became hot spots for virus outbreaks. In Colorado, while the rest of the country was just becoming aware of the danger in March, numbers were already beginning to appear in places like Vail and Aspen.

When I was very small I had a conception of the calendar year as a wheel, with different hues in sections at the end of spokes — a wagon wheel, a View Master card, a color wheel.

Every American should have the experience of complete, untethered freedom, if only for a while.

In recent years, while I migrated to South America, a multinational Latin American community has established roots here, and as I drive around town, I find myself becoming reacquainted with a new East Hampton.

With mounting evidence about a Russian plot to pay bounties to fighters in Afghanistan to target United States and coalition troops, one might have thought an Army veteran like Lee Zeldin would sympathize with the American military personnel who may have come under attack, but that would be wrong.

My mom’s ability to reach out, give you the spotlight, kill at cocktail hour, and, by God, hold up a conversation, is a source of endless luxury for my dad, sister, and me.

As summer began, Covid-19 prevention on the East End looked dangerously inadequate.