The Long Island Museum, 1200Route 25A, Stony Brook welcomes families for Winter Break Fun in the Carriage Museum on Thursday, Feb. 24 from noon to 3 p.m.
Step back in time and explore their world class carriage collection! You’ll see amazing vehicles that show you what the world was like before cars! Docents will be onsite to share information, hands-on objects, and activities. All ages are welcome and admission is FREE!
*Please note, the Carriage Museum will be the only building open this day due to exhibition installation in other buildings.
Covid safety protocols remain in effect; physical distancing will be required and all visitors over the age of 2 must wear face masks while indoors. The LIM follows CDC-prescribed cleaning protocols for all buildings.
For more information, visit www.longislandmuseum.org.
Community leaders still await land use codes for Route 25A in Setauket after a visioning report was approved by the town in 2017. File photo by Rita J. Egan
In 2016, the Route 25A Citizen Advisory Committee, consisting of community leaders and elected officials, was formed to envision a better Route 25A in the Three Village area.
At the end of 2017, the Brookhaven Town Board adopted the visioning report, resulting from those meetings. The report included recommendations to create a safer roadway with quality buildings, improve pedestrian and bicycle-friendly activities and preserve historic and natural open spaces along the corridor. The next step was for the town to begin developing land use codes based on the findings in the report. The land use planning phase would be the most significant as the new zoning codes developed would help guide the future development of businesses and affect the community for years to come.
George Hoffman, president of the Three Village Civic Association who co-chaired the advisory committee, said there have been hurdles along the way. These obstacles have included the pandemic shutdowns, members of the town Planning Board retiring and former town Councilwoman Valerie Cartright (D-Port Jefferson Station) running for and winning her bid as New York State Supreme Court justice. Cartright also had difficulties securing funds for a planning consultant to help write the codes, which would have cost $200,000, according to Hoffman, while she was in office.
Hoffman said there is new hope that the land use planning process will begin as he and Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich (D-Stony Brook) will meet with the new planning commissioner at the beginning of March.
Hoffman said the earlier community meetings included the town hiring a planning company to help organize the focus groups and to write the report that was a result of the meetings. The members discussed a variety of subjects, including whether to allow mixed-use development, which many felt wouldn’t be the rightfit for the area.
The civic president said it has been a frustrating journey, especially as a similar process has been conducted in Councilman Dan Panico’s (R-Manorville) district and has been completed.
Hoffman said community leaders and elected officials had a consensus over what was needed.
“I don’t think it was a radical change, but there were areas we were concerned about, “ he said.
Among those areas are the southeast corner of Nicolls Road and Route 25A where buildings have different architecture and signage and the area around East Setauket Pond Park, which lies on the western side of Se-Port Delicatessen on Route 25A. Many also expressed concern regarding the former Baptist church in Stony Brook, west of Stony Brook Road.
“Right now developers are driving what the development will be on 25A and not the community and the town,” he said. “That’s why you want the land use plan.”
Kornreich said he believes there are opportunities “to add amenities that are of the quality that people would expect in a community like this.”
He added in addition to taking the recommendations made by the visioning committee and adapting to land use codes, there are other strategies, too.
He said one opportunity is talking to property owners along 25A in the Three Village area.
“I started sitting down with the property owners in that corridor to see if we can find ways to bring them together to see if we can work together, maybe by them combining their properties and looking at things in a more imaginative way,” he said, adding it may lead to more dramatic and impactful solutions.
“Part of it is just simply using the existing rules that we have now to try to encourage people to redevelop their properties,” the councilmember said.
Abhay Deshpande with a group of students at Stony Brook University. Photo from SBU
By Daniel Dunaief
The American Association for the Advancement of Science recently named physicist Abhay Deshpande a Fellow.
Abhay Deshpande. Photo from SBU
Deshpande, who thinks big about small matter, has distinguished himself with his discoveries, ideas, leadership, innovation, and mentorship. The Director of Electron Ion Collider Science at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and SUNY Distinguished Professor at Stony Brook University will become a fellow as part of an online ceremony on Feb. 19.
“I was really pleasantly honored” to be a part of a group that includes so many leaders in science, including actor and science advocate Alan Alda, who founded the eponymous Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook, said Deshpande.
Deshpande’s collaborators and scientific colleagues said Deshpande deserved the AAAS honor, which the society has given since 1874.
“Everything [Deshpande] has been doing is advancing science,” said Haiyan Gao, Associate Laboratory Director in Nuclear and Particle Physics at BNL.
Fundamental questions
A physicist who earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Bombay, which is now called the University of Mumbai, his Master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and his PhD at Yale University, Deshpande has put his academic and intellectual talents to work answering fundamental questions about atoms.
In his research, Deshpande studies protons in the nucleus.
Inside protons and neutrons are quarks and gluons, which are fundamental particles. Gluons have no mass and bind the quarks together, which suggests that the mass of protons must come from quarks — except that it doesn’t.
“The surprise is that all quarks together only account for about one percent of the proton’s mass,” Deshpande explained in an email.
Researchers don’t know how the components of quarks and gluons and their energies contribute to the proton’s mass. At the same time, Deshpande wants to know about the origin of a proton’s spin.
Quarks constitute about a quarter of a proton’s spin and gluon’s another quarter, which suggests that the remaining spin should come from their orbital angular momentum.
Deshpande never thought about the mass deficit until a few years ago because of his focus on a proton’s spin. “The same rotational motion of the quarks and gluons could not only explain the spin, but hopefully explain the mass,” Deshpande said. Such a solution to both unanswered questions would be “elegant,” he said.
EIC champion
A$2 billion Electron Ion Collider, which the Department of Energy awarded BNL in 2020, will take measurements that will study the origin of the remaining spin and mass. BNL will start building the EIC, which will take eight years to construct, in 2024.
Dmitri Kharzeev, Distinguished Professor and Director in the Center for Nuclear Theory at Stony Brook University, helped nominate Deshpande to become a AAAS fellow in part because of his work developing BNL’s EIC bid.
Deshpande “really played a major role in bringing this project to Long Island,” Kharzeev said. “It means a lot for BNL, and it also means a lot for Long Island as a whole. A lot of people will be hired to work on it.”
Kharzeev said Deshpande is the leader of the science effort at the EIC “precisely because of his status in the scientific community.”
Kharzeev said some of Deshpande’s papers are “among the highest-cited papers in experimental nuclear physics,” which is considered a reflection of the importance of the work.
Gao credited Deshpande and other key leaders in the community for preparing a “white paper which laid out the science in a very convincing and powerful way,” which helped make the EIC a reality.
In addition to Deshpande’s accomplishments as a scientist, Kharzeev lauded his colleague’s leadership. Deshpande brought together researchers from BNL and Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia, which were originally competing for the rights to build the EIC. He helps researchers “put science first and scientific politics second,” which is a “spectacular achievement,” Kharzeev said.
Throughout his career, Deshpande has sought to find complementary strengths among his colleagues.
He is the founding director of the Center for Frontiers in Nuclear Science, which is a joint operation between BNL and SBU and is passionate about sharing the excitement of research with people who work outside science.
“The science we do, the excitement we feel, needs to be talked about to high school students, to college students, to their parents” and to others, Deshpande added.
Decision-makers in the government need to understand the benefit of the research, as well as the general public, whose taxes ultimately fund future discoveries, he said, and believes communicating science requires connecting with a range of audiences.
Science communicator
Deshpande’s colleagues gave him high marks for encouraging productive collaborations. He is “able to make very good, easy connections with people,” Gao said and is “approachable and easy to work with.”
Ciprian Gal, Assistant Research Professor at Mississippi State and Visiting Scholar at the Center for Frontiers in Nuclear Science, was a graduate student in Deshpande’s lab from 2010 to 2014
While he appreciated Deshpande’s intellectual acumen and knowledge of physics, Gal admired his mentor’s accessibility and eagerness to share his passion for science.
“He’s always very open” to everyone, Gal said, including students of any age. During Summer Sunday events at BNL, Deshpande spoke at length with middle school students and their parents.
“He instills a desire to communicate in all of us,” said Gal, who also appreciated how Deshpande made himself available to the graduate students in his lab during off hours and on weekends.
Engaging audiences
While he was interested in science during his formative years in high school in Mumbai, India, Deshpande also participated in several dramatic productions that were in Marathi, his native language. Typically, the plays tried to convey messages such as the importance of literacy and education or against blind faith and misinformation. Deshpande sees a benefit to using the techniques of drama to engage the audience.
He believes the EIC will provide precise knowledge of properties of the proton and the nuclei. “I promise that we will learn lots of new things,” he said.
Kindergarten connection
The celebrated physicist is married to Arati Deshpande, who works at American Health Pharmaceuticals. The couple, who met when they were in kindergarten and now live in Miller Place, have a daughter, Pooja, who is a graduate student at the Gillings School of Public Health in Chapel Hill, N.C. and a son, Ameesh, who is in high school.
As for his advice to students, Deshpande urges them to “identify a good scientific problem and pursue it no matter the cost or time.”
Judith Kalaora will portray Revolutionary War hero Deborah Sampson on Feb. 21. Photo by Vincent Morreale
Meet the first woman to secretly serve in the military at TVHS living history event
By Melissa Arnold
If you could spend an hour with any historical person, who would it be?
Many people have answered this question as part of an ice breaker or an online survey. It’s a fun dream to consider.
But what if you actually could meet and talk to someone who left a significant mark on American history? On Feb. 21, the Three Village Historical Society will welcome “Deborah Sampson,” a daring woman who bound her chest and hid her identity to serve in the Revolutionary War. Sampson, played by Judith Kalaora, will share her dramatic and captivating story and take questions from the audience about life in the 18th century.
Judith Kalaora as Deborah Sampson during a livestream event.
Kalaora is the founder and artistic director of History At Play, a living history performance group. She has made it her life’s mission to connect people in personal, immersive ways to fascinating historical figures. But for Kalaora, who holds a Bachelor in Fine Arts degree in Acting from Syracuse University, it’s about so much more than entertainment.
“I’ve always believed that theater is a wonderful teaching tool. I had phenomenal teachers growing up who utilized role playing and activities like Mock Trial, and that’s all acting. It became very clear to me that there was an avenue to explore and that I wanted to teach, but I wasn’t sure what. I was drawn to history because it’s all about stories, and ultimately became a historical interpreter in Boston right out of college.”
A historical interpreter is highly educated in a particular period of history, and teaches by wearing the fashions of the era and playing the role of a historical figure, whether that is a specific person or just a common citizen.
For that first job, Kalaora chose to portray a woman named Deborah Sampson, a self-educated indentured servant who chose to disguise her identity and join the American military. Sampson fought under the alias Robert Shurtlieff and later became the first woman to be honorably discharged.
“She is the official heroine of Massachusetts, but I never learned about her when I was in grade school,” Kalaora explained. “I was always a tomboy, really interested in the military and weaponry from a young age. And as I looked through history books trying to decide who I would portray, I fell in love with Deborah’s life.”
Judith Kalaora will portray Revolutionary War hero Deborah Sampson on Feb. 21. Photo by Bjorn Bolinder/Find The Light Photography
Tourists of all ages and nationalities were fascinated by Deborah’s story as well, and it inspired Kalaora to write a one-woman play called “A Revolution of Her Own.” Since its debut in 2010, she has taken the show from coast to coast for more than 2,000 performances, including on 42nd Street in New York City.
When the pandemic shut down theater performances around the world, History at Play had to get creative. Thanks to Zoom, audiences can meet Deborah Sampson and learn from her in the comfort of their living rooms. The event is a part of the Three Village Historical Society’s (TVHS) monthly Lecture Series, which hosts prominent and emerging historians, authors, genealogists, archeologists and storytellers from around the nation.
“The first lecture at TVHS was in 2003, and happened occasionally. It officially became a monthly offering in early 2006,” said TVHS executive director Mari Irizarry. “TVHS has proudly offered an average of nine monthly lectures to the public for nearly 16 years with the intention of furthering the mission of the Society by educating the public about our rich history.”
The historical society was introduced to Kalaora thanks to historian Margo Arceri, who runs Tri-Spy Tours which offers walking, biking and cycling tours around the Three Village area.
“This will be our first living history performance! We’re very excited about introducing this as a new offering from the Society,” Irizarry said. “The event is perfect for the entire family, and we hope that our younger audience attends this online presentation as well. The story of Deborah Sampson is largely unknown and we believe that our audience will be awe-inspired by her legacy.”
“A Revolution of Her Own! Deborah Sampson, Immersive Living History” will be presented online via Zoom at 7 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 21. The evening is free for members of the Three Village Historical Society, and a suggested donation of $5 is requested for all others. For more information or to register, visit www.tvhs.org/lecture-series or call 631-751-3730.
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TVHS lecture series line-up for 2022
All lectures begin at 7 p.m.
MONDAY, FEB. 21
“A Revolution of Her Own! Deborah Sampson, Immersive Living History”
Presented by Artistic Director of History at Play Judith Kalaora
Sponsored by Tri-Spy Tours
MONDAY, MARCH 21
“History of the LIRR with a North Shore Perspective”
Presented by Railroad Museum of Long Island President Don Fisher
MONDAY, APRIL 18
“A New York Experience: AConstant Affair”
Presented by art historian Louise Cella Caruso
MONDAY, MAY 23
“A School with a Vision: Celebrating 100 Years of The Stony Brook School”
Presented by Stony Brook School History Faculty David Hickey
MONDAY, JUNE 13
“The Drafting of a Radical Idea –The Declaration of Independence”
Presented by Stony Brook University Senior lecturer &Faculty Director Tara Rider
MONDAY, JULY 18
“Winning Votes for Women on Long Island and the Nation”
Presented by author and professor Emerita Natalie Naylor
MONDAY, OCTOBER 17
“Mafia Spies: The Inside Storyof the CIA, Gangster, JFK and Castro”
Presented by author, journalist and television producer Thomas Maier
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14
“William Sidney Mount’s Long Island and the People of Color”
Presented by authorsKatherine Kirkpatrickand Vivian Nicholson-Mueller
The evenings are free for members of the Three Village Historical Society, and a suggested donation of $5 is requested for all others. For more information or to register, visit www.tvhs.org/lecture-series or call 631-751-3730.
A sampling of Indian food for the restaurant’s lunch special. Photo by Julianne Mosher
The Curry Club officially has a new look, now with a water view.
Previously located in Setauket at 10 Woods Corner Road, the family behind several local eateries and venues has merged two favorites into one large palace of spice.
Indu Kaur, owner of SāGhar in Port Jefferson, said that when her family purchased the building located at 111 W. Broadway, the original plan was to eventually move The Curry Club in — but then COVID-19 happened and everything changed.
Kulwant Wadhwa, the family’s patriarch and owner of The Curry Club, kept his location the same, and everything they had planned stalled. The Wadhwa/Kaur family devoted their time to helping first responders from Riverhead to Manhattan by feeding them good, wholesome Indian cuisine as they renovated the former Harbor Grill and Schaffer’s into SāGhar — an Indian-American fusion restaurant, with a gorgeous upstairs bar overlooking the harbor.
SāGhar, translates to “Home of the Sea.”
The family is also behind The Meadow Club in Port Jefferson Station, which reopened last year after a fire devasted the catering hall back in 2018.
“So, we kind of took the challenge,” Kaur said. “And over the last year, we became well known in the community.”
Now, nearly two years after purchasing the new Port Jefferson village spot, the dream of integrating The Curry Club into SāGhar has officially become a reality.
“It’s all blended very well,” Kaur added. “It’s our story. We started from an authentic Indian restaurant, and now here we’re the next generation, adding a more modern fusion touch to the menu.”
And as of Tuesday, Feb. 8, The Curry Club at SāGhar was born.
The move
Indu Kaur (far left) with father Kulwant Wadhwa and family in Port Jefferson. Photo from Kiran Wadhwa
Practically overnight, Kaur said they finalized dinner in Setauket, and after sending their customers home they moved out.
Monday night, the family moved from the former location into the downstairs room. Wadhwa said that SāGhar has given them more space to cater to more people — roughly 75 seats upstairs, 55 in the Harbor Room up front, 35 in the Captain’s Room and 45 in the Schooner Room. The Curry Club at SāGhar is on the same lot where the famous Schooner Restaurant sat years ago.
The lease will officially be up at the old location on May 31, and until then the family will continue to operate The Velvet Lounge adjoining the restaurant.
But the two are excited for SāGhar’s new look. According to Kaur, a lot of it will look similar but now they will offer a full buffet — just like The Curry Club was famously known for.
“In Port Jefferson, there is nowhere where you can actually grab and go pick food, especially for nurses meaning to get out in two minutes who are only a mile away to the hospital,” she said.
She added that they will continue doing live music every weekend, and host other fun events for the community like psychic nights.
With the move came a whole renovation to their kitchen and an addition of a whole line of Halal wines — champagnes, reds and whites created with 0% alcohol.
And Wadhwa said there is something for everyone at the “new” Curry Club.
“We’ve got vegetarian options, vegan, nonvegetarian, gluten free … we thought of everything,” he said.
They’re also continuing their balanced lunches.
“Those are always very popular,” Kaur said. “This is a must-have.”
For just $20, the lunch portion includes eight samplings of different Indian dishes and a side of rice to try them with. It also comes with a side of naan bread for easy dipping.
Some history
Wadhwa was not always a restaurateur. In fact, the family originated in Afghanistan where he was a pharmacist.
“A lot of things happened with our country,” Kaur said, adding that the family eventually moved to India to escape.
As his children began getting older and started to marry, Wadhwa decided that moving to America would be the best option for his family. In the early 1990s, he came to Long Island, where his brother-in-law was a chef. Together, they decided to open what was believed to be the first Indian restaurant in Suffolk County — The Curry Club.
Wadhwa “started working in the kitchen,” Kaur said. “Dad didn’t even know how to pick up a glass of water, but now he’s running three bars.”
And just like that, he changed his career “because of family survivorship,” she said. “America has been a blessing that we were able to survive.”
The original Curry Club was actually located where Bliss is currently occupied.
Wadhwa said that at the time the only other well-known Indian restaurant was located in Hicksville and they were worried if it would work out.
“From the day we opened the door, we got busy,” he said. “We got so busy that a line was outside — people were waiting.”
Now, nearly 30 years later, the family is excited to continue bringing flavor to the North Shore.
“We want to bring color,” Kaur said. “And spice and happiness. That’s our goal, to just serve our community and see everybody happy with food.”
The daughter-and-father duo said that they can agree seeing people happy when they leave with full bellies keeps them smiling.
#15 Anthony Roberts takes a shot at last Sunday's game.
Photo from Stony Brook Athletics
In a scoring performance not seen since Jameel Warney’s 2016 America East Championship output, Anthony Roberts lit up the scoreboard to help the Seawolves to a second consecutive win on Feb. 13 in Bangor, Maine.
He hit nine 3-pointers, the most by any player in Seawolves program history, as Stony Brook cruised to an 85-74 victory at the Cross Insurance Center. He finished the day with 40 points, the seventh time that milestone has been hit by a men’s basketball player.
A 10-3 run in the first half help the Seawolves seize the lead, with Tykei Greene chipping in half during that stretch. Maine would pull ahead as much as four in that stanza at 26-22, but the Seawolves responded again with a 13-3 run, during which 11 of the points came from Roberts, to take the lead for good.
The Seawolves were able to gradually extend their lead as large as 16 in the second half, keeping Maine at bay with the lead being double figures for the majority of the final ten minutes.
“It was a big road win for us. I’m really proud of our guys for rallying shorthanded and with all of the stuff they’ve been forced to deal with. It has been a very difficult couple of weeks for us. Tykei was able to play a really nice game for us and Anthony Roberts played at an extremely high level,” said head coach Geno Ford.
The team headed from the northern-most league opponent to the southern-most, heading to UMBC on Wednesday night in Baltimore, Md. Results were not available as of press time.
Head coach Ashley Langford celebrates her team's victory during last Monday's game.
Photo from Stony Brook Athletics
The Stony Brook women’s basketball team bounced back after a tough loss to Maine to defeat UMBC, 64-48, on Feb. 14 in Baltimore, Md. The Seawolves improve to 21-3, 12-2 America East on the season.
Graduate forward Leighah-Amori Wool lit up the scoreboard for Stony Brook leading all scorers with a season-high 23 points. Wool is the latest player to knock down 20+ points since graduate forward India Pagan finished with 21 against Binghamton on Jan. 19.
Senior guard Anastasia Warren and Pagan followed behind Wool also finishing in double-figures on the night. Pagan finished with 14 points and added 10 rebounds to secure her fifth career double-double and second on the season. Warren filled the stat sheet for the Seawolves chipping in 12 points and grabbing a season-high nine rebounds.
Stony Brook came out strong with an early lead, but the Retrievers would eventually take a 28-22 lead off a 9-0 scoring run in the second quarter. The Seawolves were able to gain momentum in the second half and come out on top after a layup from Wool to 9:38 to go in the third quarter. Stony Brook would not trail for the remainder of the contest.
The team was back in action Feb. 16 when they took on UMBC back home at The Island. Results were not available as of press time.
A friend who is the same age as I am recently and suddenly died, leaving behind a wife and two daughters in college who are the same age I was when my father died.
I feel like I’m at the center of a prism, with light bouncing out in so many directions that it’s difficult to track each path.
I am devastated for my friend. I know he will miss many of the same things my father never got to experience. He won’t see his daughters graduate from college, develop their careers, and enjoy learning about themselves through relationships.
He also won’t get to wake up another morning and see his wife’s smile, make plans for the day, and make the kinds of decisions we take for granted, like where to go on vacation, whom to see over the weekend, what friend to call and visit, or how to brighten someone else’s day.
I knew him as a dedicated father, who beamed when he spoke of his twin daughters. Unlike so many other parents whose children play sports, he didn’t need his daughters to be superstars. His joy mirrored theirs.
I’m sorry for his wife, too, who shared two decades of experience with him and their two children. She went from being in an empty nest to being in an empty house in 18 months. Everywhere she looks, she will see reminders of her husband and the life they shared.
I relate to his daughters. I know how strange it is to be in college, surrounded by friends who suddenly don’t know what to say to them. If friends ask the girls how they are doing, will they tell them, leaving many of their friends without the tools, experience or words to respond?
Death leaves a hole in our lives. The friends they have in college, like mine decades ago, may not know about that hole and may not have even met the man missing from the center of their lives.
A week after I buried my father, I was back at school, finding it difficult to concentrate or even to care about upcoming exams or responsibilities.
When I told a math professor about my loss, he went out of his way to tutor me, to ask me how I was, and to be patient, waiting for me to tell him when I was ready to take a midterm. He arranged for me to take an exam on my own. He made a point of looking for me after each lecture. I appreciated the support and, yet, I felt so weak and angry that I needed it.
I remember the first horrifying moment I didn’t feel the weight of the loss of my father. I was wracked with guilt. What kind of son was I that I had, even for a moment, neglected to mourn?
I also recall the first person I met in those turbulent few weeks who didn’t know my story, who treated me like everyone else and who didn’t say she was sorry for my loss. We had the closest thing to a normal evening, which, at that time, was extraordinary.
In the weeks, months and years ahead, my friend’s daughters will remember the great moments with their father. They will look back at their idyllic childhoods and remember the mom and dad who made that possible.
In the days ahead, however, they will feel a flood of emotions and have a range of thoughts. I hope that they find the kind of peace that comes from appreciating what they had and knowing that, no matter how much they might feel this way, they are not alone and that others share their experiences and care for them.
If it was President Vladimir Putin’s intention to be the center of global attention, he has certainly succeeded. Not much can push the latest COVID news off the top spot. Maybe inflation and how it is affecting the average resident can, but that’s nothing compared to the dominance of the situation in Ukraine and the speculation about what Putin’s next move will be. There seem to be numerous Putin specialists who profess to have studied the Russian dictator’s every move for many years and know what his plan is. Or, does he have a plan? Is this a story that he is writing as he goes along? This makes for lots of rhetoric among the pundits.
One thing is sure. The serious possibility of Russian aggression has caused North Atlantic Treaty Organization members to stand together and reaffirm their alliance. Perhaps this was Putin’s test. There was little reaction when the Russians invaded and took over Crimea in 2014. Would anyone really care if they took over all of the Ukraine?
Well, the answer to that question is decidedly YES. And the United States has stepped forward to reaffirm it alliance with and leadership of NATO by organizing the threat of severe economic sanctions against Russia, sending military equipment to Ukraine and finally sending a symbolic number of troops to NATO countries that border on Ukraine, namely Poland and Romania. A small number of soldiers also went to Germany, perhaps to bolster the resolve of the newly elected German leader, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, to honor its alliance.
Germany has the most to lose as far as its energy supply goes. Some 38% of the European Union’s natural gas comes from Russia, according to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office. Much of it is imported by Germany to heat homes in winter and enable factories to operate. The loss of that source of energy would certainly cause economic pain to Germans and other European residents, who would have to pay more for significantly less supply. And of course, that furthers the impact of inflation.
Russia’s overt demands include halting NATO’s expansion and reducing its military exercises and presence in Eastern Europe. Specifically, Putin wants guarantees that Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO, which its current leadership has indicated it would want to do in the future. However, noted globalist and New York Times columnist, Thomas L. Friedman, suggested in the issue of February 16, that Putin’s fear is that “Ukraine becomes Westernized. He fears that one day Ukraine will be admitted to the European Union.” Ifsuch an event were to happen, which Friedman believes young Ukrainians dream about, they feel it could “lock in their frail democracy and lock out corruption and Putinism.”
Friedman goes on to point out that “Putin seized Crimea and first invaded part of Eastern Ukraine in February-March 2014. What else was happening then? The European Union’s 28 member states were forging a new E.U.-Ukraine Association Agreement to foster closer political and economic ties, signed on March 21, 2014.” Putin’s greatest fear, according to Friedman, “is the expansion of the E.U.’s sphere of influence and the prospect that it would midwife a decent, democratic, free-market Ukraine that would every day say to the Russian people, ‘This is what you could be without Putin.’”
Meanwhile, Putin is deciding, according to Friedman, “IfI go ahead with a full scale invasion and it goes bad — wrecking Russia’s economy and resulting in Russian soldiers returning home in body bags from a war with fellow Slavs —could it lead to my own downfall?”
Whatever Putin’s thoughts are, he has used the threat of military force to bring the Western leaders to the table for extensive talks. Perhaps the diplomats will remake the Eastern European map without resorting to war.
Until there is some sort of resolution to this stand off, what can we, here in America, expect? We will have to deal with the possibility of growing shortages and accompanying inflation, which in fact we are already experiencing at the gas pumps.
As of Feb. 10, New Yorkers are no longer mandated to wear masks in most public places, even though some business owners may still require customers to wear one. Photo from METRO
By Amanda Olsen
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) administration has allowed the mask-or-vaccinate mandate for public spaces to lapse as of Feb. 10, effectively leaving masking decisions to local officials and business owners. Masks are still required in health care facilities, on public transportation, in correctional facilities and in shelters. Masks are also still required in schools for the time being, with a reevaluation planned some time in early March, after the winter break.
Leaders in health care, business and labor fields were generally supportive of Hochul’s decision. Gary LaBarbera, president of Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, said in a statement. “The mask mandate has helped keep New York’s working men and women safe and healthy during the most uncertain and volatile moments of the public health crisis. The easing of indoor mask mandates for businesses is a positive sign in New York’s recovery, as it’s a direct result of COVID-19 cases dropping across the state and, hopefully, the pandemic itself receding.”
New York State AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento said in a statement. “In light of the announcement today, we thank the governor for ensuring employers still have responsibilities under state statute, including the Public Employee Safety and Health Act and the New York HERO Act, which remain in effect. These laws establish safety protocols to protect workers and the public. Moving forward, in the absence of the mask mandate, employers must continue to work with their employees to make sure appropriate protections are in place.”
On the local level, some people are comfortable leaving masking up to the individual, including Anthony Bongiovanni, of Rocky Point Jewelers.
“If you feel for your personal safety, you should wear one, by all means,” he said.
However, not every business is ready to leave masks behind. Richard Smith, from Buttercup’s Dairy Store in Port Jefferson Station, is keeping some masking rules in place. “We’re still requiring employees to wear masks. We don’t require customers [to do so].”
Others are continuing to follow federal guidelines, regardless of what is happening at the state level. Paul Vigliante, of Branch Funeral Homes in Miller Place and Smithtown, said that he intends to follow “whatever the CDC guidelines are” at the time.
Some business owners expressed mixed feelings about leaving masking up to the individual, since policing customer behavior has been challenging even with the mandate in place. Smith said that they have “had to call the police a couple of times” but overall “95% of people have been respectful.”
Not all businesses had difficulty. Bongiovanni said, “There was never a problem.” Vigliante also had no issues: “Everyone was very respectful … we were very fortunate throughout.”
Each new phase of the COVID pandemic brings its own set of challenges for both business owners and individuals. Everyone is feeling some degree of pandemic weariness.
“Everybody’s sick of it,” Smith said. “Just a lot of frustration.”
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