Village Times Herald

Long Islanders gathered at Babylon Town Hall, above, to show support for Ukrainians. Photo by Carolyn Sackstein

Ukrainian and Russian émigrés, Ukrainian-Americans, local elected officials and Long Islanders of various political stripes demonstrated their support for the defense of Ukrainian sovereignty and against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal war initiated in the wee hours of Feb. 24 against Ukraine. 

Suffolk County Legislator Kevin McCaffrey, below right, was on hand for the rally. Photo by Carolyn Sackstein

While some people rally together in their support for Ukraine, others find their way to church sanctuaries to offer prayers for the safety of Ukrainian soldiers and citizens, who are also taking up arms in defense of their homeland.

Anna Konny, from Vinnytsia, Ukraine, a dental hygienist and U. S. citizen, who lives in Woodmere, attended a rally in Lindenhurst at Babylon Town Hall with her aunt, Nataliya Soliternik, who lives now in Hewlett. 

Konny, draped in the Ukrainian flag, was a vocal advocate for those defending Vinnytsia, a city in west-central Ukraine. She has been able to stay in touch with family and friends who are still in Ukraine by using free calling cards provided by Verizon, T-Mobile and other major communication carriers. 

The dental hygienist showed photos of families using subway stations and basements of municipal buildings as bomb shelters. She claimed these shelters are also being used at night by saboteurs and Russian infiltrators as they hide among the patriots they seek to destroy. By day, these infiltrators use luminous paint to paint the roofs of buildings, barricades and other locations to be targeted during nighttime bombings and artillery shelling. 

Konny advocates for weapons and ammunition to be sent to those fighting from World War I-style trenches surrounding the cities and towns. Someone in the crowd asked if she feared reprisals. Konny’s answer was a firm, “No. If these photos get back to Ukraine, I want my friends and family to know that I stand with them.”

Suffolk County Legislator Kevin McCaffrey (R-Lindenhurst), presiding officer of the Legislature, saw Konny and came over to hear her pleas for aid, both military and medical first aid materials. After speaking with Konny, McCaffrey addressed the crowd to resounding applause. “It is appalling what Vladimir Putin is doing, how he is attacking a sovereign nation like Ukraine,” he said. “It makes us wonder who is next. The Ukrainian people have done nothing to incur the wrath of Vladimir Putin. All of us are encouraged by the fight of the Ukrainian people, who are standing against this aggression. I believe the U.S. should do more to stand up for the Ukrainian people.”

Janet Byler, from Huntington, has children serving in the U. S. Army based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She felt compelled to attend the rally to support those serving with NATO forces in Europe. Mark Czachor, of West Babylon, said, “Every American should be supporting Ukraine’s fight. As long as we don’t give up, Putin can’t win.”

On Friday, Feb. 25, the Rev. Bohdan Hedz of St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church in Riverhead opened the sanctuary to a resident of Texas, who was born and raised in the Riverhead area. He had returned recently to care for his very elderly parents. He had missed the service which had been celebrated earlier that day but was welcomed by Bohdan to pray in the quiet and intimate sanctuary. Unafraid of reprisals, the gentleman, who wished anonymity for personal privacy reasons, spoke of marrying his Ukrainian wife in Kyiv.

“My wife would leave today to take up arms,” he said. “The world is called to speak and to act. Ukraine will fight!”

During this conversation, a woman from the congregation of St. John the Baptist R.C. Church in Wading River came in with an offering of a bouquet of red roses and a prayer. It was her way of giving support to the local Ukrainian community.

Hedz and his congregation have been raising funds and material support for Ukrainian defense since the Russian invasion of the country in 2014 that resulted in the annexation of Crimea. Hedz expressed the belief that “Putin will not stop at Ukraine.”

With this greater invasion into the whole of Ukraine, Hedz said the defenders of Ukraine need warm winter clothing, personal hygiene medications such as pain relievers, cold and flu treatments, and first aid supplies for treating wounds.

Donations can be dropped off any time at St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church located at 820 Pond View Road, Riverhead. If the sanctuary doors are locked, one may call the reverend at 631-727-2766.

Photo from Pixabay

By Jim Hastings

The recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia sent shockwaves around the world. The images of troops, tanks and bombed-out buildings have left many feeling enraged, frustrated and helpless. TBR News Media took to the streets of Port Jefferson and Stony Brook Village to get local residents’ perspectives on the situation. 

 

Photo by Jim Hastings

Debra Saparito, Mount Sinai

“It’s going to affect us as a country, because we can’t have someone just bow to another. We allow that to happen in one portion of the world, then everybody’s going to think, ‘Well, we can do that too.’ We have to step up as a world, whether they’re part of NATO or not. We have to do what’s right for the people. After what we’ve been through in the world in the last two or three years, we have to humble ourselves and look at each other as people.”

 

 

Brian Israel, Setauket

Photo by Jim Hastings

“It’s unbelievable that a sovereign country can be attacked, really, with no real consequences. Understanding that, you know, any military action could cause a larger conflict, but it’s just unbelievable that it was allowed to get this far.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Jim Hastings

Kathryn Schoemmel, Setauket

“It’s scary. I have a family member over there. She’s still in Ukraine. She’s hoping she has a home to go back to.”

Pictured with husband Leon.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Jim Hastings

Ernesto Cruz, Coram

“It’s pretty senseless. It just seems like there’s no real reason to be doing this. We’re getting to a stage where, through social networking and all that, the world’s becoming that much more interconnected and it’s like, we can feel each other’s pain. It’s no longer what the government tells us or what the news tells us. We can see what each person is feeling, truly, through their words and their actions.”

 

 

 

Photo by Jim Hastings

Clara Rosenzweig, Poquott

“I definitely feel horrible for the people going through it. I think it’s completely unnecessary what’s happening over there and I hope that everything gets resolved.”

Pictured from left are Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich; Victoria (Chef Filomena’s family); chamber members Colette Frey-Bitzas and Michael Ardolino; owner/chef Filomena Lombardi; Scott (Chef Filomena’s Family); Farm to Table Catering and Café staff members; chamber members Martha Stansbury, Kenneth Kroncke and Carmine Inserra; and Jenna Alberti from Assemblyman Steve Englebright’s office. 
Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich with owner Filomena Lombardi

On February 17, Farm to Table Catering and Café by Filomena, located at 2460 Nesconset Highway, Suite #1 in Stony Brook, celebrated its grand opening with a ribbon cutting ceremony.  The new business is a full-service catering company founded by head chef, Filomena Lombardi. 

The event was attended by Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich, the Three Village Chamber of Commerce and Jenna Alberti from NYS Assemblyman Steve Englebright’s office.

“It was a pleasure welcoming Farm to Table Catering & Café by Filomena at their new location in Stony Brook. The food and service brought by Filomena is like no other, offering a homemade variety of avocado toasts, sandwiches, wraps, salads, cookies and baked goods that provide a healthy alternative for those who are looking for a clean diet. I love seeing our local businesses thrive and encourage everyone to try an avocado toast from this new eatery,” said Councilmember Kornreich.  

For more information, call 631-675-9066.

Photos courtesy of Johathan Kornreich’s office.

Island Sports Physical Therapy, located at 6 South Jersey Avenue, Unit 6B in East Setauket, celebrated its grand opening with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Feb. 16. The new office is the second to open in Brookhaven Town. Services include spinal rehabilitation, sports specific therapy, fitness programming and more.

The event was attended by Town of Brookhaven Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich, Jenna Alberti from NYS Assemblyman Steve Englebright’s office, members of the Three Village Chamber of Commerce and Michael Murphy of Douglas Elliman.

“Our community is so lucky to have a facility like this where patients looking for physical therapy can heal in a supportive environment,” said Councilmember Kornreich. “Island Sports Physical Therapy works together with local businesses, hospitals and schools to provide care for anyone and everyone who need rehabilitative services. I encourage those who are recovering from injuries and those who want to prevent future re-injuries to stop by this location to learn more about their services.” 

Pictured seated from left are Executive Director, Keith A. May; Director Brendan McCann; and Office Manager, Kayla O’Brien. Pictured standing from left are Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich; Three Village Chamber member Martha Stansbury; Brendan McCann’s wife Kelli McCann; chamber members Carmine Inserra and Eliel Pimentel; Jenna Alberti from NYS Assemblyman Steve Englebright’s office; and Michael Murphy of Douglas Elliman Commercial Real Estate.

For more information, call 631-675-1706 or visit www.islandsportspt.com.

An overhead view of flooding at the Ranomafana area in Madagascar, above. Photo by Dina Andrianoely

Stony Brook University distinguished professor and award-winning scientist Patricia Wright has been traveling back and forth to Madagascar for over 34 years to study the charismatic lemurs on the island nation off the southeastern coast of Africa.

A damage to a road in Madagascar. Photo by Dina Andrianoely

Recently, Wright was in Madagascar when Tropical Cyclone Emnati struck the nation, tearing roofs from homes, destroying crops and polluting drinking water.

“The actual howling of the wind was very eerie,” said Wright in an interview a few days after returning from Madagascar. “The river is right beneath the station and it was scary to watch it go from white water rapids, into roiling coffee-colored water. Every 15 minutes, you could notice a difference” in the flooded waters.

Wright, her daughter Amanda Wright Poston, who is a project manager with the Woodwell Climate Research Center, and PhD candidate Amanda Rowe are seeking donations through WISE Tropics.

Created in 2020, WISE Tropics, which stands for Wright’s Institute for Science & Environment, has numerous goals, including saving lemurs, planting new rainforests and helping people in Madagascar and other tropical countries that have high biodiversity and high poverty.

In response to Tropical Cyclone Emnati, which is the fourth cyclone to hit Madagascar this year, WISE Tropics is trying to raise $20,000 from donors to provide food for people whose crops were destroyed by
the storm.

“People are displaced from their homes and they are really hungry,” Wright said. “The crops are gone: they are washed away.”

Wright said she hoped to buy as many as 100 bags of 50 kilograms of rice, plus beans, sugar and salt that could support communities around Ranomofana National Park, which provides the nearby setting for research through Stony Brook’s Centre ValBio.

She hopes to raise enough money that she can provide additional food every two weeks for the next two months.

A week after Emnati, residents of Madagascar were also struggling with contaminated drinking water, which was causing diarrhea. 

Wright said she hasn’t seen this level of devastation to Madagascar in about a decade.

An overhead view of flooding at the Ranomafana area in Madagascar, above. Photo by Dina Andrianoely

She hopes Long Islanders support those struggling after a spate of storms disrupted their lives and threatened their futures.

“Long Islanders are very generous when it comes to donating for disasters,” Wright said. “We had Sandy ourselves. We can make this island to island connection.”

Wildlife on Madagascar, like endangered lemurs, are often able to survive during natural disasters.

Lemurs move close to the center of trees and lower down to avoid the strong winds, Wright described. While she has seen lemurs who died amid storms, many survive by finding natural protection.

Wright recognizes that the number of crisis points in the world has grown, with refugees and survivors leaving their homes in Ukraine amid Russia’s armed attack and amid flooding in parts of Australia.

One of the lessons she’s learned from working with people in Madagascar amid past disasters is that donations sometimes meet the immediate need but don’t always provide enough sustained support.

Origins of WISE

Amanda Poston said they established WISE Tropics to give donors who wanted to give 100% of their gifts directly to specific efforts.

“We created this so we could really have them participate in these on-the-ground projects,” Poston said.

Before the cyclones hit, donors had contributed to reforestation efforts and lemur research, which is at the heart of what Patricia Wright studies.

“People who are interested in Ranomofana and have a connection to Madagascar are able to help” through these donations, Poston said.

WISE Tropics has almost no overhead, which means that donations go directly to the intended recipients.

At this point, the need to help the Malagasy people get food and shelter is high, as the island nation recovers from storms that have closed off roads and demolished bridges.

Poston, who spent a good part of her childhood in Madagascar, said the Malagasy “respect [her mother] and are amazed at her continuous contributions to their country.”

Metro photo

As COVID-19 infection rates and deaths begin to decline, more attention to the pandemic’s effect on mental health is needed.

In “Amid declining COVID infections, worry about mental health remains” by Daniel Dunaief featured in the Feb. 24 TBR News Media newspapers and online, Dr. Gregson Pigott, commissioner of the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, cited two Centers of Disease Control and Prevention studies.

The research shows that the children’s mental health crisis alone has gotten worse during the pandemic. The CDC’s Household Pulse Survey also shows 39.2% of people nationally aged 18 to 29 had indicators of anxiety or depression between Jan. 26 and Feb. 7 of this year. As the group members increased in age, the percentage decreased, with 9.3% of those 80 years and above reporting mental health issues.

We have heard many times throughout the pandemic that the isolation and precautions needed to slow down the infection rate could increase anxiety and depression in people. At a press conference last week, held at the Smithtown Senior Center, elected officials discussed the importance of seniors returning to the activities they love and spending time with family and friends, which is vital for their overall well-being.

People need interactions with others to stay healthy and have someone to remind them that they are a good person and that the world is a better place with them in it. As we begin to remove our masks, it’s time to smile again and have conversations with those we encounter in our everyday lives.

Understandably, getting the virus under control during the height of the pandemic was a priority. Now, it’s more important than ever to talk about mental health and stop sweeping things under the carpet.

For most people, that could mean checking in with loved ones. Even if an in-person visit isn’t an option for some right now, a phone call or text message can make a difference.

While it was innovative and necessary to hold doctors’ visits, including those with psychiatrists and therapists, over Zoom during the pandemic, this is not the best option for everyone. Just as some students don’t do well with remote learning, many people don’t respond well to remote therapy.

Sometimes a person needs a one-on-one conversation face-to-face, not only with someone who isn’t judging them or doesn’t have an agenda, but also a professional who can see if they are making eye contact or fidgeting or not responding well to medication. Sometimes body language needs to be read to see if a patient is being truthful or just going through the motions.

While a conversation with a mental health professional is always a wise thing to do — whether in person or online — sometimes, for the real work to be done, it needs to be one-on-one in an office. So, if you need it, don’t hesitate to ask for an office visit. Most therapists are beginning to offer them again.

During the pandemic, people learned new ways of doing things to stay healthy, and some of those ways may be better. But meeting up with a friend and talking while eating or drinking coffee, or sitting on the couch in a therapist’s office — truly connecting — that can’t be beaten.

Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

If I knew exactly when Russian president and peace shatterer Vladimir Putin were planning to attack Ukraine, I could be spectacularly rich.

Putin, however, knew exactly when he was going to give the order to start shooting, causing markets around the world to plunge.

No stranger to making a buck or two, Putin, whose wealth is estimated in the billions, may have seen the opportunity to create suffering for everyone else, while making himself even richer.

Have options markets around the world checked the trading just before the day he started killing people in Ukraine? Does anyone know whether he, through shell companies or, perhaps even more directly, through trades he holds in his own name, made a financial killing by destroying neighborhoods and shattering peace on a scale not seen since World War II?

Maybe he positioned his portfolio just as he was moving his military. He could have also dabbled in the commodities markets, where wheat, aluminum and gold prices have soared.

While the Russian president may not need the money personally, he could offset some of the effect of sanctions through the equivalent of his own “big short” on stock markets, betting in a game he helped control that the markets would fall.

Putin could have gone to stock markets outside of Russia, where he could have set up huge trades just a few days before a move the previous president of the United States described as “genius.”

Perhaps Donald Trump, who is also no stranger to capitalizing on financial opportunities, recognized the financial move Putin was making. Putin doesn’t appear to care much about the people he’s displacing or the Russian soldiers who may no longer return to their families to pursue a war against a neighbor whose biggest offense seems to be that they live in a democracy and want to join NATO, whose members consider an attack against one of them as an attack against all of them. As the “Between You and Me” column in these papers from last week made clear, Ukraine has abundant natural resources, which raise its appeal to Putin. At the same time, though, maybe he also saw this move as a chance to make money and to stay relevant.

It’s not every day that people write your name, even if it’s for nefarious actions, in papers throughout the world. Sitting on a stockpile of nuclear weapons that could easily turn Global Warming into a distant afterthought if he and his intended targets used them, Putin is dominating news coverage around the world, displacing COVID. Too bad there’s no vaccine for the world’s population against Putin.

By putting his nuclear forces on high alert after disrupting peace with his attack on Ukraine, he also gets to play bully and victim at the same time. He’s a bully for sending his armed forces into a neighboring country and killing men, women and children. Bullets don’t discriminate between innocent civilians and members of an opposition’s armed forces.

He is also a victim, claiming the heated rhetoric against his military’s unprovoked attack is enough of a threat to him that he needed to put his nuclear arsenal on high alert. His despotic desperation suggests maybe he needs a hug or some counseling.

He also defies logic by calling the Jewish president of Ukraine, Voldymyr Zelenskyy a “neo-Nazi,” when some of Zelenskyy’s own ancestors died in the Holocaust.

Putin may not make sense, but, at least in the first few days after his unjustified attack, he may be making tons of money.

John Landy (right) with Roger Bannister in 2004. Photo from Wikipedia

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

These are difficult times, but we’re not going there. As President Joe Biden pointed out in his State of the Union Wednesday night, the war in Ukraine, inflation, Covid and climate change are some of the troubles before us. Further, for Pete’s sake, the owners and the players of major league baseball are so far apart in their negotiations that we don’t even have an opening day. And it seems that potholes on local roads multiply overnight. Let’s talk about other things.

Have you ever heard of John Landy? I had, but not by name. Many of us know who Roger Bannister was. It was breathtaking news when he broke the four-minute mile at 3:59.4 as a runner on May 6, 1954. Until that day, humans were not expected to run that fast. Bannister always gave credit to the guy behind him, and in the subsequent race billed as the Mile of the Century, on August 7, it was John Landy.

Landy, an Australian academic, was also a runner. Graduating from Melbourne University that famous year with a degree in agricultural science, Landy and Bannister, an Englishman and medical student at Oxford at the time, ran against each other on Aug. 7 at the British Empire Games in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was to be the first time two men would better four minutes in the same race. Landy had previously run on June 21, in Turku, Finland, scoring 3:57.9. (The current record, by the way, is 3:43.13, held by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco.)  

They were the only two who had individually broken the four-minute mile record earlier that year, and their race generated huge excitement. Bannister finished first. Eight-tenths of one second separated the two. Bannister saluted Landy for offering the fierce competition that pushed him just a little bit harder to win. You might wonder how I know all this. Landy died last Thursday in Australia at the age of 91, and there was an appropriately in-depth obituary about him in Sunday’s The New York Times, so I attribute all this information to obit writers Frank Litsky and William McDonald.

“As expected, Landy led from the start, building a 15-yard lead. But Bannister … closed in on the last lap and Landy could sense him coming. Rounding the final turn, he peeked over his left shoulder to see where Bannister was. But Bannister was on his right, and as Landy’s head was turned, Bannister stormed by him, and won in 3:58.8. Landy came in second, in 3:59.6

“Only later was it learned that Landy had run the race with a wounded foot. By his account, he could not sleep the night before the race, so he got up and, barefoot, walked the streets — only to gash a foot on a photographer’s discarded flashbulb. He allowed a doctor to close the wound with four stitches, but only after the doctor swore that he would keep the incident quiet,” according to The NYT.

It was Dr. Roger Bannister, however, whose name “became synonymous with singular athletic achievement,” according to Wikipedia. He died in 2018, making Landy the winner in longevity.

A testament to Landy’s sportsmanship occurred in 1956 at the Australian track and field championships in Melbourne. (Bannister, by the way, retired from competitive running in 1954, to concentrate on medicine.) As Landy was running in the race, hoping to break the record again and participate in the coming Olympics there, a 19-yeaar-old competitor, Ron Clarke, was bumped and fell down ahead of him. When Landy leapt over his body, he inadvertently spiked his right shoulder. 

Landy stopped, ran back to Clarke, brushed cinders from Clarke’s knees and said, “Sorry.” “Keep going,” Clarke said. “I’m all right.” Clarke got up, and he and Landy started after the others, who by then were 60 yards ahead. Landy caught them and won in 4:04.2, according to The NYT.

Landy, in his own words, had “an extraordinarily interesting life.”  I hope you find his story uplifting in what is today a darker time.

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The Ward Melville Heritage Organization (WMHO)’s Stony Brook Grist Mill, a nearly 300-year-old building, has undergone a series of procedures to stop water from entering its basement. Groundwater around the foundation of the building has been leaking through the walls due to the hydraulic pressure from upstream for years.

To halt any further damage and repair the structure, Excav Services Vice President Dylan Governale was retained. Excav Services has already begun their work waterproofing the wall below the footing with black mastic against the foundation along the fiberboards and then protection board and installing drainage at the bottom of the trough, as well as installing three inches of clay material and fabric and then backfilling it. 90% of the water has stopped leaking. To find the remaining 10%, the interior wall was pressure washed to see where the water was coming from and then they will inject those spots with a compound to fully stop leakage through the walls.

The Stony Brook Grist Mill (c. 1751) is Long Island’s most fully operational mill. A mill is a place that grinds grains such as wheat, barley, corn and oats. Grist Mill has played a role in the development of Stony Brook since its original construction in 1699. It was once even a health food store and grain was shipped to 46 states. 

New stories have been uncovered about the Stony Brook Grist Mill, including ones about its patriotic owners during the American Revolution, a scandalous will and its suffragette owner in the early 1900s who sought an experimental child birthing experience.

People of all ages are able to experience the history and inner mechanics of the mill in the WMHO’s Dusty Program.

The Stony Brook Grist Mill will be open for the 2022 season on Saturday, April 16 and will be open on weekends through October starting the weekend of April 23, from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. for tours ($4 for adults, $2 for children), as well as its Country Store. For more information, call 631-751-2244 or visit www.wmho.org.

Esther Takeuchi

Esther S. Takeuchi, PhD, Distinguished Professor and the William and Jane Knapp Chair at Stony Brook University is being honored by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and will receive the Award in Chemical Sciences. This award is in recognition of her breakthrough contributions in the understanding of electrochemical energy storage.  

Takeuchi, who holds a joint appointment at Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, is an internationally recognized inventor, researcher, and educator in the fields of materials science, chemistry and renewable energy. She will be honored in a ceremony during the NAS 159th annual meeting on May 1 and will receive a medal and prize of $15,000 sponsored by the Merck Company Foundation.

The award cites Takeuchi’s contributions “to the materials and mechanistic understanding relevant to electrochemical energy storage, using chemical insight to address issues of critical importance.”

“I am sincerely honored to receive the National Academy of Science Award for Chemical Sciences,” said Takeuchi, also the Knapp Chair Professor of Energy and the Environment in the Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering “The fundamental chemistry of electrochemical energy storage is complex and the subsequent development of viable energy storage devices is made even more challenging by the unique demands of each application.”

Takeuchi’s research has been instrumental in energy storage improvements that meet societal needs and can be applied to electric vehicles, medical devices, and batteries that back up the power grid. Among her numerous and notable inventions is a compact lithium/silver vanadium oxide battery that increased the lifespan of implantable cardiac defibrillators, a solution that reduced the number of surgeries patients needed to undergo to replace the devices that detect and correct irregular, potentially fatal, heart rhythms.

Takeuchi was recently elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has also been inducted into the National Academy of Engineering and selected as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was selected as the 2013 recipient of the E.V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry from the American Chemical Society. She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2011. In 2009, President Obama presented Takeuchi with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor possible for technological achievement in the United States.