Author R.J. Torbert, left, talks about his new book with John Valeri of The Hartford Book Examiner. Photo by Wenhao Ma
By Wenhao Ma
The story of a Port Jefferson murderer — albeit a fictional one — was discussed at length by a novelist and his fans in the village on Saturday.
Author R.J. Torbert brought his new book “No Mercy,” which was released in June, to a question-and-answer session with more than a dozen readers at Port Jefferson Free Library on July 16. “No Mercy” continues the story of fictitious Detectives Paul Powers and Bud Johnson of Port Jefferson, who dealt with the mysterious murderer Ghost Face, in Torbert’s first novel, “The Face of Fear,” which was released in 2013.
“He turned [the Ghost Face mask] into a home town classic.” —Joseph Borozny
“When [readers] look at the cover, they think it’s a horror story,” Torbert said in an interview after the event, referring to the Ghost Face mask on the cover. “[But] this is a relationship story, a love story,” he said.
Torbert is the licensing director of Fun Wold, a Halloween costume company. His company created the Ghost Face as part of the Fantastic Faces series back in 1991.
Torbert noted that there are many differences between his books and “Scream,” the movie that made the mask famous back in the 1990s. He said that he did not design the iconic mask, but he did come up with the name Ghost Face and has been protecting its name and trademarks for years, and even fought to keep the character wearing the mask in the movies from doing anything bad enough to give too dark of a stigma.
Author R.J. Torbert poses with a fan of his newly released novel. Photo by Wenhao Ma
“[In the first novel], the person who wore the mask was not necessarily a bad person,” Torbert said.
He said that he had always wanted to write a book, but what turned his idea into action was a novel he read on a plane. He was so disappointed with the story that he started writing on that book. What he wrote eventually became “The Face of Fear.”
“He turned [the Ghost Face mask] into a home town classic,” Joseph Borozny, a Port Jefferson resident and a fan of Torbert’s books, said, adding that Torbert used the Ghost Face character to create something that’s real, not just fictional.
Borozny brought his family to the event, including his 14-year-old son, Joey, who received a Ghost Face mask from Torbert as a gift. “If you like horror movies,” Joey said, “this is the guy you’ll love to meet. And he’s a real nice guy.”
After the question-and answer-portion, Torbet signed copies of the book and posed for photos with fans.
Blue road signs promoting the I Love NY campaign sprung up in Port Jeff on Route 25A this month, but will be replaced with smaller ones following community outrage. Photo by Alex Petroski
By Joseph Wolkin
When they opened up their eyes, they saw the signs.
Port Jefferson Village residents were furious when a New York State agency added three highway-sized road signs on Route 25A, a state road, essentially in the middle of the night earlier in July. The signs were part of the I Love NY campaign from the Empire State Development office.
“They’re outrageously huge,” Mayor Margot Garant said. “They’re metal, they’re huge and they plopped them on the middle of our sidewalks without any notice.”
Blue road signs promoting the I Love NY campaign sprung up in Port Jeff on Route 25A this month, but will be replaced with smaller ones following community outrage. Photo by Alex Petroski
Garant, who was caught off guard by the road signs, immediately contacted the office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D). After she had several meetings and phone calls with state officials, the community also spoke up. After an overwhelming volume of pleas heard by state officials, the signs were removed Saturday and, according to Garant, will be replaced with significantly smaller ones in the coming weeks.
According to the mayor, community members emailed the governor’s office and requested the signs be taken down. Additionally, a Twitter campaign was created in order to showcase the town’s fury over the signs. The three styles of large, blue signs featured the slogans “Welcome to New York,” “Explore New York History,” and “Experience New York Attractions,” with prompts to visit www.iloveny.com, a site geared toward tourists visiting the state.
“Apparently, the explanation I got was it was a [New York State] project that was on a deadline and I would probably think they wanted the deadline to be around the Fourth of July since it was right before it,” Garant said. “Because it was a heavy push with little explanation, as a result all of the communities [involved] went nuts. We had no input and weren’t given any notice. We just woke up one morning and there were these massive signs.”
Chyresse Wells, a spokeswoman for the Empire State Development office acknowledged their plan to replace the signs following the backlash.
“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with local leaders which addresses their concerns but continues to promote the world-renowned I Love NY campaign,” she said in an emailed statement. “New York State tourism has generated a record-breaking economic impact of $102 billion across the state, supporting over 894,000 jobs and generating $8 billion in state and local taxes in 2015.”
State road signs in Port Jeff Village being taken down after community outrage. Photo by Drew Biondo
Village Trustee Bruce Miller received input on the issue from parents of parochial school students at Infant Jesus Roman Catholic Church regarding the poor and deteriorating quality of signs on lower Myrtle Avenue.
While Miller said road markings have been criticized, he did not know there would be several large signs placed on Route 25A. He added that little has been done to address the problem of deterioration of existing signs, an issue he said he has presented to the board of trustees in the past.
Bruce D’Abramo, another village trustee, tweeted his satisfaction to the removal of the signs in response to the news that Montauk was having its signs downsized as well.
“Port Jefferson Village rejoiced as our NY State signs came down as well,” D’Abramo said. Montauk, East Hampton and Port Jefferson were three of several Suffolk County communities saddled with the giant signs with alleged little notice.
A Greenlawn man was talking to a woman in front of his house on Lafayette Street on Tuesday night, when he was shot in the face by an unknown person.
Suffolk County Police Second Squad detectives are investigating the incident which occurred at approximately 11:15 p.m. on July 19.
According to police, multiple shots were fired. The victim was transported to Stony Brook University Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
No arrests have been made. The investigation is continuing. Anyone with information on this shooting is asked to all the Second Squad at 631-854-8252 or anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS.
Chris Lemmon during a ‘Twist of Lemmon‘ performance. Photo courtesy of Chris Lemmon
By Rita J. Egan
The question, “What was it like to be Jack Lemmon’s son,” sent actor Chris Lemmon on a life-long journey to discover the ultimate answer.
“It’s an enormous question,” Lemmon said in a recent telephone interview. His retrospective journey produced a 2006 memoir “A Twist of Lemmon: A Tribute to My Father,” which in turn inspired the multimedia production “Twist of Lemmon,” where he acts, sings, plays piano and shares his personal photos.
On July 28, Long Islanders will get a taste of Lemmon’s heartbreaking as well as heartwarming memories when he presents a new and revised version of “Twist of Lemmon” at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington. The actor, who appeared in television shows such as “Duet” and “Knots Landing,” as well as numerous stage productions, said after the book’s publication, he realized he needed to do more with the story about his Academy-Award-winning actor father.
Chris Lemmon and his father Jack Lemmon in happier times. Photo courtesy of Chris Lemmon
“The book turned into kind of a performance piece that was really touching and moving people, and I thought: Gosh, I would love to take this to the next step, and the next step, I don’t think it’s film or TV, I think it’s theater,” the actor said. “And the only way this can be a piece of theater is if I’m playing a character, and obviously the character has got be Jack.” The last year and a half, Lemmon has performed the one-man show, where he narrates the story from his father’s perspective, at small venues. He said he was “purposely flying under the radar” preparing for a big opening. “I was going with my little bag, my little show in a bag, from theater to theater. That’s what I would do, because it’s the only place you learn,” he said.
Last month at the St. James Theatre in London’s West End, a reworked “Twist of Lemmon,” directed by Hugh Wooldridge, premiered. After a successful three-week run abroad, Lemmon said the revised show, which includes added material, is now “ready for the trail” in the states. He has also increased the pace of the play by riding into the laughs, as his father would have done, instead of waiting for them to stop. The play centers around how Lemmon and his father, who passed away in 2001, mended their estrangement that occurred after the older Lemmon divorced Chris’s mom, Cynthia Stone. With yearly visits to Alaska that began when he was 11 years old, the father and son slowly repaired their relationship. In later years, they also shared a love of golf, which included participating in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am Tournament, where in his first year, the younger Lemmon made the final cut, something his father dreamed of doing for 35 years.
When it comes to his father’s shortcomings, including a battle with alcoholism, Lemmon is candid. “It’s my duty as a narrator to show everything, every bump in the road, to explore his alcoholism, to explore his fallacies and foibles and his faults as a human being as well as my own. Every single one of them,” he said. However, the tale isn’t an accusatory one. Lemmon said his father actively pursued a relationship with his son and handled his alcoholism “in the most gallant possible manner.”
Not only did he get help for his problem but he also admitted his struggle on the television show “Inside the Actor’s Studio.” “That takes guts, man. Back then, it wasn’t vogue. It was tantamount to career suicide. So it gives me great pleasure to tell those stories,” Lemmon said. His advice to those who are estranged from family members is to do the work to repair the relationship. During one of the show’s monologues, Lemmon delivers the lines: “We’re all human. We all make mistakes. If we can understand that about each other, accept it, instead of resenting it, then we can rise above.”
Lemmon is grateful he did all of the above when it came to the relationship with his dad. “He was not just my father; he was my very best friend. I miss everything about him. I still have dreams two or three times a week that he’s back, and we’re fishing or golfing or just doing whatever, driving around and crunching the gears in every exotic car ever made,” he said. “He was just so much fun to be with. I don’t play golf anymore. I don’t fish either. I can’t do it. It’s just not the same.” The actor also treats the audience to a taste of the golden age of Hollywood by playing “Jack” imitating celebrated celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Walter Matthau and more. Also among the photos appearing on a screen are Jack’s movie roles and co-stars.
Chris Lemmon during a ‘Twist of Lemmon’ performance. Photo courtesy of Chris Lemmon
Lemmon hopes to keep not only his father’s but also all of these legendary actors’ memories alive. “These people were not just iconic as celebrities they were really iconic as human beings,” he said. After the play, Lemmon said he will definitely have the energy for the postshow Q-and-A with the audience. “People say this must take such an emotional toll on you, because it is a very deeply, somewhat tragic in its core, father-son story, but, of course, it’s couched in the golden age of Hollywood so there’s all that shenanigans and fun,” Lemmon said. “And, he was just such a human leprechaun himself, full of so much energy. Actually, for me, because I miss him so damn much, it’s really emotionally rewarding.”
At the end of the play, Lemmon said his ultimate goal is to make audiences both laugh and cry. “Because that’s what pop always believed acting should be about — make them laugh and make them cry.”
Jud Newborn, curator of special programs at the Cinema Arts Centre, is looking forward to the “Twist of Lemmon” event. He said Steinway & Sons, Long Island is sponsoring the evening, which will begin with a demonstration of the company’s new high-resolution player piano, the Spirio. A 15-minute screen presentation will feature several pianists but without any sound as the Spirio simultaneously plays what’s displayed on the screen. Lemmon, who is an accomplished pianist, will also be playing the Spirio live during his performance. Newborn said the play will be followed by an audience Q-and-A with the actor as well as a reception in the Sky Room featuring jazz guitarist Mike Soloway.
The Cinema Arts Centre, 423 Park Ave., Huntington, will present “Twist of Lemmon” on Thursday, July 28 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $46, $38 for members. For more information, call 631-423-7610 or visit www.cinemaartscentre.org.
From left, Leslie Jones, Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon star in ‘Ghostbusters.’ Photo courtesy of Fathom Events
By Kevin Redding
What made the original 1984 “Ghostbusters” such a huge cultural phenomenon — captivating generations of proton pack-wearing kids and adults alike — was its truly unique and perfectly balanced blend of high-scale supernatural special effects and natural, irreverent comedy. Even with a great cast that included SNL alums Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd as two of four “schlubby,” everyman paranormal eliminators, nobody could’ve expected this odd anomaly to take the world by storm the way it did, shattering box office records, winning Oscars and striking a meaningful chord with pretty much anybody who would see it.
The movie was lightning-in-a-bottle, further proved five years later when the amusing but wholly underwhelming 1989 sequel failed to make an impact on its audience in the same way. It also had no pedestal to live up to when it first hit theaters.
Thirty-two years later, “Bridesmaids”/ “The Heat” “Spy” director Paul Feig’s all-female reboot has the misfortune of being held up against one of the most beloved movies of all time, a challenge even bigger than the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
However, thanks to a stellar cast, namely the quartet of spectre hunters — SNL cast members Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones and “Spy” star Melissa McCarthy — good-hearted camaraderie, a memorable batch of scary poltergeists in all shapes and sizes and a consistently funny energy throughout, this new version of “Ghostbusters” is a proton blast of summer fun, even with its flaws.
Feig and co-writer Katie Dippold have crafted something that will appease fans of the original — with plenty of nods and references, and cameos from most of the main cast, including a very touching tribute to the late Harold Ramis, to whom the movie is dedicated — while, most importantly, giving a whole new generation of kids their own heroes to look up to and dress up as. And these heroes are cool, science/tech savvy and laugh out loud funny.
Kristen Wiig — at her most endearingly awkward — is Dr. Erin Gilbert, a physicist on her way to secure tenure at Columbia University, whose paranormal-investigating past comes back to haunt her in the form of a newly republished book she co-wrote alongside her former best friend Dr. Abby Yates (McCarthy). With her academic career threatened, Gilbert confronts Yates, who now works at a small technical college with the eccentric and scene-stealing Dr. Jillian Holtzmann (McKinnon).
Yates and Holtzmann are all about seeking out the paranormal, but Gilbert wants nothing to do with that field of study anymore. The three wind up face-to-face with a free-floating apparition at a historic mansion, where Gilbert finds herself a believer once again after she’s showered with all the concrete evidence she needs: the spirit’s ectoplasmic slime.
Setting up shop above a Chinese restaurant, hiring a whole-other-level-of-stupid receptionist named Kevin, played by “Thor” himself Chris Hemsworth, and rounding out the team with an MTA worker named Patty Tolan (Jones) who knows New York City inside and out, the Ghostbusters are ready to equip a whole slew of ghost-trapping gadgets and find out why there’s been a sudden emergence of paranormal activity lately.
Feig and Dippold understand what people love most about the original — the characters — and run wild with that, taking the main basic concept of realistic people hunting ghosts in the Big Apple and doing their own thing with it. Some jokes fall flat — as is common in an improv-heavy ensemble — and the plot loses steam once it kicks into high gear, making for a second half that’s a bit bloated.
But overall, like in the original, it’s really fun hanging out with these characters and seeing them play off one another. The first half especially, when the group is forming and getting into the swing of their newfound business, is an absolute delight. Also, the ghosts on display here are all wonderfully designed, and the movie contains some legitimately creepy scenes. There’s plenty of room in the world for two different groups of Ghostbusters, and this one certainly holds their own. In fact, it’s when the movie hits the audience over the head with nostalgia and restricts itself from being its own “entity” altogether, by not putting complete trust in its four funny leads to make it work without help, that it suffers.
From left, postdoctoral associate Yuanheng Cai, biological research associate Xuebin Zhang and plant biochemist Chang-Jun Liu in the BNL greenhouse. Photofrom Brookhaven National Laboratory
By Daniel Dunaief
It provides structural support, allowing gravity-defying growth toward the sky. While it offers necessary strength, it also makes it more difficult to get inside to convert plant biomass into fuel.
Lignin is the major component that makes cell walls harder. Plants can tolerate the loss of lignin, but dramatically reducing it or altering its structure could severely affect its growth, which makes any effort to modify lignin challenging.
Seeking to balance between the plant’s structural needs and the desire to gain access to biofuel, Chang-Jun Liu, a plant biochemist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, added a step in the synthesis of lignin. “Most studies in this field rely on knocking down or knocking out one or two biosynthetic pathway genes,” said Liu. “We added one more reaction” that competes for the precursors of lignin formation. Liu said he and his collaborators figured that adding that last step in the production of lignin, which is a natural part of plant cell walls, would have the least effect on plant growth while it can effectively reduce lignin content or change its structure.
Liu said he redirected the metabolic precursor by using a modified enzyme he created over the course of several years. The enzyme diverts biosynthetic precursors away from making lignin. Plants typically have three types of lignin, called S, G and H lignin. In a wild-type aspen tree, the ratio of S to G is two to one. This change, however, altered that, turning the ratio to one to two. The general perception is that increasing G lignin would make the cell wall structure stronger and harder, making it harder to release simple sugars. The surprising finding, however, was that reducing S and maintaining G greatly enhanced the release of sugar with digestive enzymes from aspen cell walls.
Scientific partners including John Ralph at the University of Wisconsin and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center confirmed the alteration of lignin structure. Liu tested his enzyme in his earlier work on the flowering plant Arabidopsis. When it worked, he moved on to aspen trees, which grow rapidly and can thrive in environments where typical farm crops struggle to grow. The aspen experiments proved more fruitful in part because these trees contained more S lignin, and the enzyme he developed preferentially blocked the S lignin. The aspen trees with the modified enzyme can yield up to 49 percent more ethanol during fermentation, compared to controls.
Using infrared light at the National Synchrotron Light Source, Liu and his collaborators were able to see an increase in the production of cellulose fibers, which are a primary source of sugars in the cell wall. This may contribute to the release of simple sugars. Liu will continue to explore other possibilities. Other lignin researchers applauded these results.
Liu’s “approach will definitely have a great impact on the cost reduction of cellulosic biofuels,” Dominique Loque, the director of Cell Wall Engineering at the Joint BioEnergy Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, explained in an email. “With no impact on biomass yield and a reduction in recalcitrance, it will reduce the conversion costs of biomass to fermentable sugars.”
While this research, which was recently published in Nature Communications, shows potential commercial promise, Liu and his team are working to answer basic questions. He is interested in further testing his approach in grasses and different trees to determine the effects on lignin content, structure, cell wall digestibility and plant growth. The trees in this experiment were grown in a greenhouse, where scientists could control light and temperature and mimic the natural environment without natural stressors, like insects or fungus. Loque suggested that Liu’s approach can be “easily and quickly optimized to alleviate potential issues such as susceptibility to pathogens” if they exist.
Liu has planted 150 of these altered trees in the field. So far, he said, the biomass yield is not compromised with these experimental plants. “Field tests will allow evaluating the impact of engineering on predators, pathogens and other stresses,” Loque said. Liu was able to create this enzyme after developing an understanding of enzyme structures using x-rays at the NSLS. In that research, Liu was able to gain a better knowledge of how the enzymes that occur naturally worked. Once he knew the structure and method of operation of the enzymes in the lignin pathway, he could make changes that would alter the balance of the different types of lignin.
Liu lives with his wife Yang Chen, a teacher’s assistant in Rocky Point Middle School and their two children, 16-year-old Allen and 14-year-old Bryant. For the last few years, Liu and his family have added hiking, table tennis and tennis to their recreational repertoire.
Liu is encouraged by these findings and is extending and expanding his studies and collaborations. He will work with a Department of Energy sponsored Energy Frontier Research Center. He will also pursue more applied studies to explore the more efficient use of cell wall biomass to produce biomaterials or bio-based products. He is forming a collaboration with Stony Brook’s material science team and with the NSLS-II. “Plant cell wall represents the most abundant biomass on Earth,” Liu said. “Understanding its synthesis, structural property and efficient way in its utilization are critical for our future bio-based economy.”
Say Meatball! The Man in the Yellow Hat, Curious George and Chef Pisghetti pose with members of the audience after the show. Photo courtesy of SPCA
By Rebecca Anzel
Curious George is still going on adventures after 75 years of entertaining children. Through Aug. 28, the actors at the Smithtown Center for the Performing Arts transform the story of “Curious George: The Golden Meatball” into an hour-long musical performance.
In this play, George helps his friend Chef Pisghetti cook meatballs for the annual All You Can Eat Meatball Day. George had been excited to help the chef cook and serve guests, but when the day came, there was no one in Chef Pisghetti’s restaurant to serve the meatballs to. Instead, the crowd was captivated by Phinneas T. Lightspeed’s meatball-making machine. Upset by Lightspeed’s rhymes, fancy coat and blue meatballs, Chef Pisghetti declared he would never cook again. George, though, wants to help the chef rediscover his passion and talent. He travels all the way to Rome to enter his friend’s meatballs into the Golden Meatball Contest.
This story is based on the originals written by Margret and H.A. Rey, who took their manuscript of “Curious George” out of Paris during World War II. As Jews, the Reys decided to flee Paris before the Nazis seized the city. H.A. Rey assembled two bicycles, and they fled Paris just a few hours before it fell. Among the meager possessions they brought with them was the illustrated manuscript of “Curious George.”
The stories were later turned into a PBS Kids cartoon, which is still airing.
Say Meatball! The Man in the Yellow Hat, Curious George and Chef Pisghetti pose with members of the audience after the show. Photo courtesy of SPCA
Directed by Brianne Boyd, the adult cast of “The Golden Meatball” kept the audience laughing throughout. Marisa Guardino, as George, is complemented perfectly by the other five actors, each of whom played more than one character. It is a testament to costume designer Ronald R. Green III that each of those wardrobe changes happened seamlessly.
Brian Gill, who plays the Man in the Yellow Hat for all Sunday performances, was excellent. Gill brought the same spirit to the role as the character he plays is known for — a responsible and trusting parent to George who can laugh and have fun.
Bobby Montaniz was convincing as Chef Pisghetti. His playful Italian accent and spirited exclamation of “ba da boopie” at the end of a few of his phrases elicited giggles from the audience. Tommy Castelli (Phinneas T. Lightspeed and others), Emily Attridge (Netti and others) and Meagan Materazo (Doorman and others) all worked well with Montaniz in the various roles they performed as partners. The four delivered punchy jokes aimed at parents expertly, like one when Castelli was delivering a package to George by himself, and Materazo asked him where his fellow delivery men were. Castelli looked at the audience, shrugged and replied, “budget cuts.”
Guardino as Curious George stole the show. Her voice perfectly mirrored that of the cartoon character, and her dance moves, from shakes to splits, endeared her character to the children in the audience. The audience also participated during several of the times Guardino and others would ask for directions or confirmation. The cheers for her at the end of the performance were the loudest.
With original music by John Kavanaugh and book and lyrics by Jeremy Desmon, the songs in “The Golden Meatball” were lighthearted and familiar to a few of the children, who could be heard singing along — especially with the Curious George theme song with which the show started and ended.
After the cast sang “George Goes to Rome” and “A Buddy like you,” Chef Pisghetti thanks his friend for traveling all the way to Italy to enter him in the meatball competition. “I’m so lucky to have a buddy like you,” he tells George, whom he affectionately calls Giorgio. George ends up having to cook the chef’s meatballs all by himself at the competition, and he is worried he does not have the chef’s secret ingredient. But after he wins the competition and Chef Pisghetti finally makes it to the contest, he tells George the meatballs he cooked came out so well because he had the secret ingredient — love.
With the cast’s energy and familiar songs, “The Golden Meatball” is the perfect show for young children. Just bring a sweater — the theater is a little chilly. The actors are available after their bows for photos and autographs, although Artistic Director Ken Washington warned that because George is a monkey, “he can’t really sign things.”
Children’s theater will continue at the Smithtown Center for Performing Arts, 2 E. Main St., Smithtown, with “Elf the Musical, Jr.” from Nov. 25 to Dec. 30, “Shrek the Musical, Jr.” from Jan. 21 through Feb. 26 and “Annie, Jr.” from March 18 to April 15. All tickets are $15. To order, call the box office at 631-724-3700 or visit www.smithtownpac.org.
The fight against opioid abuse took a step further this week as U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) plugged new legislation. The freshman congressman is a co-sponsor of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which plans to spend $8.3 billion in funding to help combat widespread drug addiction, especially to heroin.
CARA passed through the House of Representatives last week with a bipartisan vote of 407 to 5.
Zeldin, who is a member of the Bipartisan Task Force to Combat the Heroin Epidemic, said he has been a proud supporter of this bill for more than a year now.
“As a co-sponsor of CARA, I have been a vocal supporter of this bill since it was first introduced at the beginning of last year,” he said in a statement. “Over the past year … I have worked closely with our local community, hosting multiple drug task force round tables here on Long Island, to bring together local elected officials, law enforcement, health professionals, community groups, parents, concerned residents and those in recovery, to discuss and develop a more localized solution to address this crisis.”
Zeldin has held heroin events in Smithtown and Brookhaven to meet with community members and keep the discussion open.
The specifics of CARA include $80 million in funding to help prevent and treat addiction on a local level through community-based education, prevention, treatment and recovery programs; $160 million for the expansion of medication-assisted treatment options; and $103 million to establish a community-based competitive grant program to address and treat the problems of heroin and opioid addiction and abuse. Additional funding will also help supply police forces and emergency medical responders with higher quantities of naloxone, known more commonly as Narcan, a medication that is proven to reverse an opioid overdose.
“We must always continue our fight to provide local communities with the resources necessary to help stop and prevent drug abuse through treatment, enforcement and education.”
—Lee Zeldin
Another part of CARA’s funding focuses on pain management and prescription.
According to the bill, the Department of Health and Human Services is required to assemble a Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force, which will review, modify and update the best practices for pain management and prescribing pain medication, and examine and identify the need for, development and availability of medical alternatives to opioids.
The grant aspect of CARA is connected to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. CARA is set to amend that bill to authorize the Department of Justice to award grants to state, local and tribal governments to provide opioid abuse services, including enhancing collaboration between criminal justice and substance abuse agencies; developing, implementing and expanding programs to prevent, treat or respond to opioid abuse; training first responders to administer opioid overdose reversal drugs; and investigating unlawful opioid distribution activities.
CARA currently has 44 co-sponsors and is set to go to a vote in the United States Senate.
The North Shore is not immune to the heroin crisis. According to a New York State Opioid Poisoning, Overdose and Prevention Report from 2015, Suffolk County has the highest heroin-related overdose fatalities of any county in New York.
Zeldin said he hopes the Senate will act fast to approve the bill.
“I implore the Senate to act quickly to pass this bill, so that we can start providing the necessary resources to those in need,” he said. “While there is not just one piece of legislation that will solve this crisis, we must always continue our fight to provide our local communities with the resources necessary to help stop and prevent drug abuse through treatment, enforcement and education.”
Pigeons and humans have a long history of mutual benefit
By Elof Axel Carlson
When I was a child growing up in New York City, I used to watch the rooftops in my neighborhood and would see a person on the roof with a long pole guiding pigeons to stay aloft for their exercise. Pigeons were raised for squab, as the butchers called their featherless bodies lined up in trays. All of our American pigeons came from Europe. They were domesticated first in the Middle East. Ancient Greeks used them as carriers of Olympic victory results throughout the Greek empire as early as the eighth century BCE. Breeders found them enjoyable to study and many breeds arose. There are pouters, crested forms, carrier pigeons, fantails and about 40 other breeds.
In 1855 Charles Darwin began purchasing breeds of pigeons and cultivated them and studied their anatomy. They all trace their origin, Darwin claimed, from the rock pigeon and belonged to one species, Columba livia. Domesticated pigeons, used for food and to serve as carriers of messages, came to the New World and some escaped and became feral. The pigeons in our American cities are similar to rock pigeons in appearance, but they came from the domesticated imports some 400 years ago. As the industrial revolution shifted human living from farms to cities, the pigeons learned to build their nests on the ledges of windows and roof tops and to gobble up the crumbs of food scattered on sidewalks and in the gutters of streets. They are often thought of as flying rats by many city dwellers who loath their presence because they leave feathers and their wastes on the city streets and smear the statues in parks as they roost on the bronze heads of past heroes.
Darwin’s inference was confirmed by a study in 2013 at the University of Utah by biologist Michael Shapiro. He and his colleagues obtained DNA from 40 varieties of C. livia, including two feral strains. They showed that all the pigeons were descended from the ancestral rock pigeon and they showed how each breed arose through a specific mutation. They also showed that the crested forms involved a gene mutation that reversed the direction of feather growth in the neck region so that they form a cape or crown or tuft depending on where the mutation in that gene arose. The gene regulates a streak of cells in the neck region of the pigeon embryo that gives rise to the neck feathers.
For Darwin the domestication of pigeons with its many breeds was a clue that selection can be quite powerful in human breeders’ hands. They can isolate new varieties and combine multiple traits from different breeds to satisfy their tastes. However, in nature, he argued, each variety of pigeon would be tested in its environment on whether it was a beneficial variation or harmful, leading to its swift extinction. When Darwin returned from his voyage around the world on the HMS Beagle, 1831-1836, he began his 20-year study of his field notes and an immense amount of scientific studies from around the world that became the basis for his book on the origin of species by natural selection. New breeds can be observed in a matter of months or years for a breeder. For new species of pigeons it would be tens of centuries or longer for new species to emerge.
Elof Axel Carlson is a distinguished teaching professor emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University.
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