I was honored to be named a Person of the Year by Times Beacon Record News Media for 2015.
While I was truly honored, I was more excited at the prospect of getting the word out about the work I do with my group: North Shore Drug Awareness.
After losing my son to an accidental overdose in 2012, I was given a voice I chose to use to help other families who are struggling with addiction — to share my failures and successes, and the resources I have found and acquired through networking.
The absolute most poignant part of this story is that my story was published. The original story — in which I was named a person of the year — was seen by a woman who recognized me in my photo that accompanied the article as a client in her accounting office. She immediately shared the story with her best friend — a friend who desperately needed help with her addicted children.
A message I received from her changed a life. Linda Cirone was absolutely paralyzed by her children’s addictions. Not only did she enable her adult children, but she hid in shame. She could barely function or participate in her own life, and in her message in my Facebook inbox, she used that key word — Help.
Tracey Farrell with Linda Cirone at TBR News Media’s honorary dinner. Photo from Tracey Farrell
I brought her with me to the honorary men and women of the year dinner, because her story of how she reached out to me was too important not to share. The power of that article could potentially save a life. And it did … her own.
This past year has been a roller coaster of change for her.
She chose to finally open up and share beyond the confines of her best friend and family members who would listen. She reached out through social media to the different parent groups that she learned of and began to realize she was so not alone. She began to share her story, which, like mine, has helped others.
Her children are still struggling, and while one is improving, Linda has grown in her own recovery. Yes, her own.
Addiction is a family disease and, as a parent, you too must learn to cope, or you will lose yourself in the process. She has learned to no longer enable like she did in the past. She has also followed a dream. She moved away from her children to the warmth of Florida, and now has a lovely condo on a small waterway. While she still feels the pull of her children’s addictions, she has also started to feel some freedom. Freedom to feel the sunshine, enjoy a nice day out with friends and family she has near her. This was not even an option to her a year ago — just a dream.
While her son was in Florida after we came up with a plan for him to seek outside-of-state rehabilitation, she met a woman who is the guardian angel for parents who send their kids to Florida for rehab.
The other day, as I opened my Facebook feed, I saw a post.
Linda checked in to the Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County with that angel I spoke of. She attended her first task force meeting to help fight for positive changes in addiction services and housing in that area.
She has grown exponentially over this past year. She needed to. She was sick of hiding, but didn’t know where to look for help. And she found it. All because of an article in a local newspaper.
Tracey Farrell, previously Tracey Budd, is a Rocky Point resident who, since her son’s passing, educates others on drug abuse and assists in finding help for those who are struggling or know someone who is struggling with addiction. She is the founder of North Shore Drug Awareness Advocates and also a 2015 TBR Person of the Year.
Remember the names of Columbus’ ships, anybody? Yes. Of course you do. Everyone in this overflowing audience knows the three names. Furthermore, you all know them in the same order. Good for you! Doesn’t matter where you went to school — from the Redwood forest, to the Gulf Stream waters, to the New York island, those names were taught to you and me — and in order!
Quite an achievement. Or, is it? Of what educational value are those three names? Virtually none, except maybe to a contestant on Jeopardy. But students are in real jeopardy if we continue to consume their limited school time with pointless facts, trivia, backward thinking, and low-level knowledge.
I dub it the “Nina Pinta and Santa Marianization” of our schools. Let’s sail back in time to Columbus. The big date — you know, it rhymes with “ocean blue. What was going on in the world during that era? Was there a printing press? Was there a global power? Were there wars going on? (Good guess. Seems there’s always a war going on somewhere.) Was his trip around the time of the Great Potato Famine or the Black Death? How long would the journey take and how was it estimated? What provisions did Columbus need to stock in order to survive the journey? How did the food not spoil? How much water could be used each day by each person and animal? How many men and animals should be boarded, realizing that each man and animal consumed food and water and made the living quarters tighter? What if winds were becalmed in the Horse Latitudes and the ships barely moved? Did they need weapons, and if so, why?
How many of us considered those questions in school? The teachers didn’t ask them, nor did they know the answers. Remember, teachers are a product of the schools themselves. They are primarily people who succeeded in school, liked it, and went on to do it — not change it. They are educational conservatives.
During the eight years I directed a class for teachers, I’d give them a test developed from fourth- and fifth-grade books. Not one teacher ever came close to passing. I’d tell them that they were either not very bright or that the material we’re teaching our kids is irrelevant to a functioning adult.
So, what if our educational system comes to its senses and realizes that constructive destruction of curriculum and teaching methods is necessary, and Common Core was not a common cure? What should we teach? Here’s a start:
Personal finances. Every school should create a bank where students have the option to invest by purchasing shares. The bank would issue loans to students and would require a student co-signer. Interest would be added to the loan reflecting the amount and length of loan. Credit rating would be developed. [Yes. I’ve done it and it works.]
What is fire, auto, and life insurance — and how do they work?
The art of being skeptical without being a skeptic. Time. What it is and how to manage it.
Relationships: What are they? How do they develop? And what is their value? Introductions: How to offer and receive.
Black boxes in airplanes and cars. What do they reveal? What are mortgages? Why do they exist?
Waste management. Where does garbage go? What are sewers and cesspools? [Water, water … not everywhere.]
Logic and reasoning with and without Venn diagrams. The art of questioning and the value of wrong answers.
The media. What it is, how it works, and the choices it makes. The illusions in movies and TV through editing, music, and more. PG-13: How and why things are rated. The goals and methods of advertising.
A school farm with irrigation. Students would have scheduled time working on the farm. A student and adult committee would handle the summer months. Kitchen duty with student assignments. Custodial duty with student chores.
The science of raising, preparing, and cooking food. The food we eat: Where does it come from? What is a hamburger bun?
Negotiating and compromising. Shipping and transportation. The evolution of things: the medicine bottle, the telephone, the sneaker, etc.
Dilemmas: how can Italy, the world’s biggest exporter of olive oil, also be the world’s biggest importer? Is there such a thing as too much?
Plumb lines, centers of gravity and sea level. Architecture, engineering, stacking blocks. Physics is everything. How technology affects our lives.
Language travels with us but never reaches a final destination.
Objects: magnifying glasses, prisms, levels, stethoscopes, magnets, ball bearings. The magic of perimeters. Zero-sum games.
The gift of failure, and the hardship of failure-deprived people. Thinking about what others are thinking by using game theory.
Your body: A user’s manual.
Bruce Stasiuk of Setauket continues to teach. He currently offers workshops as an instructor in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, located at Stony Brook University.
The subject of this talk is American education; or, as I sometimes call it … artificial intelligence. Full disclosure: I admit that I don’t know much about what goes on in high school, having spent only four distracted years at that level. This presentation refers to the foundational years — the K-6 building blocks where I invested six seasons as a parochial student.
After completing the requirements at Adelphi Suffolk University, I was invited to teach a few graduate courses there. Afterwards, I spent 34 enjoyable, yet disorganized seasons as a classroom teacher, then eight more years instructing a course called Thinking Inside the Box for K-12 teachers, which gave me the opportunity to examine the species up close and personal. That comes to about 50 years in fuzzy numbers. But, who’s counting on me?
You’re urged to disagree with anything expressed here, because I make mistakes regularly, myself being a product of the American industrial-education complex. Let’s start with the premise that all knowledge is worthwhile and desirable. There is no benefit to not knowing something. Ignorance is not blissful. However, all knowledge is not of equal value. The ability to read about the inventor of the cotton gin is of more value than knowing and memorizing his name. Likewise, although there would be some usefulness in recalling every number in the Manhattan phone book, and the cognitive exercise would be an accomplishment, it would mostly be a huge waste of “edu-minutes.” Knowing how to alphabetically look up a phone number is a more valuable and transferable skill. At least until it’s made obsolete in our advancing digital world. So, can we agree that some knowledge is of lower value, some is of higher value, and some is rapidly approaching an expiring shelf life?
Since schools operate by the clock and calendar, there is a finite amount of class time for learning. There is so much to learn, but students can’t learn it all. So, choices must be made. Schools need to adopt a regular policy of knowledge triage. There’s got to be jetsam and flotsam in order to make room for the important cargo. But even if schools agreed to do it, would they flotsam the right jetsam?
Ask your local administrator what’s the last thing added to the curriculum. Then ask, what was removed to make room for it. If there’s no answer, it means the program was diluted (unless the school day or year was expanded — not a chance) or in a misguided way, the usual ballast of art and music were reduced. Like the roach motel, once something enters the schoolhouse door, it can almost never leave. Schools change very little. If you were in the fifth grade 25 years ago and you visited a class today, it would look very familiar. Computers and tablets are used like electric paper, but the substance is the same. Oh, the blackboards are now smarter … but are the kids? Old wine in new bottles.
Remember, the learning clock is ticking. Time is passing. As a child, I had a fantasy of every person, at birth, receiving a huge hourglass. Except it wasn’t designed to measure an hour. It was constructed as a lifetime-glass. The top bulb contained all the sand representing one’s life according to actuarial tables. It was inverted at birth and the sand started trickling through the narrow stem passageway. One could see the top bulb dripping sand into the bottom bulb. Even at night, opening one eye, one could visualize their lifetime with the lower heap growing while the upper kept draining smaller. I wondered if a life would be led differently with such a visual aid.
Schools have to think that way. They must sort out, rummage through, and evaluate all available knowledge and select those age-appropriate things that will help develop students into educated people with transferable skills and functional wisdom. Ideally, layer upon layer will build up until enough practical knowledge and related talents enable graduates to negotiate life in a fluid and uncertain world — a very moveable feast. A friend recently told me the experience of his dental school orientation at the University of Maryland. The dean advised the new students that 50% of what they’d learn would no longer be true by the time they graduated. Furthermore, he advised, they won’t know which 50% it was.
So what did we learn in school? Reading. Of course reading. And math. Although I never did divide 4/7 by 3/9 ever again, I remember some lessons quite well. Pilgrims wore funny hats and buckled shoes. We drew pictures of them. They were brought home and taped to refrigerators — or iceboxes —remember, this was the South Bronx in the ‘50s. “Mary’s violet eyes … ” helped us learn what was, at the time, the order of the planets. But of what practical value is there in knowing that Jupiter is nearer to the earth than Saturn? So little time … so much knowledge.
Bruce Stasiuk of Setauket continued to teach after retirement. He currently offers workshops to seniors (citizens, that is) as an instructor in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, housed on the campus of Stony Brook University.
Billie Phillips, the original owner of Billie’s 1890 Saloon, will retake control of the Port Jefferson property on Main Street. File photo by Elana Glowatz
By Billie Phillips
My name is Billie E. Phillips. Thirty-five years ago, my late first wife and I, borrowed every dollar we could and spent every dime we had to open up the Bar/Restaurant, Billie’s 1890 Saloon. Like every venture into the hospitality business, it was a gamble. We were very fortunate. Through the first years it became apparent that Billie’s was becoming a special place for the community, a place for stories to be told, laughs to be had, and new memories to be made.
Since then and after my sale of Billie’s it has maintained its standing as part of the fabric of the community. Unfortunately, as most of you know, Billie’s sustained a kitchen fire and has been closed since late June. Since then, the current tenant’s lease was cancelled for reasons many people have speculated about, but most people have no true knowledge of.
Rumors have spread to the point that petitions were started to save the building from being torn down. The building will not be torn down and the bar and restaurant you have grown to love will continue on in the tradition of Billie’s 1890 Saloon for as long as I have a say in the matter.
After a brief tour of the building by the landlord, I was asked if I would be interested in leasing the property, as a new lease would not be offered to individuals of the previous corporate tenant for reasons that were explained to me. After some contemplation, I felt the reasons were understandable.
At the end of the day, I could not stand by and watch Billie’s 1890 Saloon be taken over by anyone without ties to the Port Jefferson community. In a decision that was very difficult to me because of friendships I have with people connected to Billie’s, in many capacities, my family and I have assumed control of the space used by Billie’s 1890 Saloon. It is my hope people will begin to understand this could have been the end of Billie’s as they knew it, and to some it will probably still feel this way. However, to those that are skeptical, please know my family and I will endeavor always to maintain the intangibles that make Billie’s such a special place in the hearts of so many.
Billie Phillips is the original owner of Billie’s 1890 Saloon, located on Main Street in Port Jefferson.
In 2002, my 16-year-old son Kevin had surgery on his shoulder for a football injury. He was prescribed 60 Vicodin pills with no other instructions but to take one or two of them every four to six hours for pain.
I didn’t know they weren’t like antibiotics, and you weren’t supposed to take all 60. He was still in pain, so they gave him 60 more. Well, guess who is now addicted to them? He was buying them during lunch.
This is the high school quarterback. His girlfriend is the cheerleading captain. He is beautiful, loving, fun and funny. His friends love him. His teachers and coaches love him. He has not an enemy in the world. He graduates. He works. He is a great kid.
Kevin chose to smoke pot instead of taking the pills soon after high school, but at some point he went back to the pills — especially since I was on him all of the time to stop smoking. He had multiple concussions over his high school football career. After his last one, I saw a change in his personality. He was easily angered, depressed, anxious — all things he was not before.
I didn’t know at the time that marijuana and opioids help make all of those symptoms so much better. The drugs make them disappear. I didn’t know that the only enemy he did have was the one within himself.
Tracey Farrell and her son Kevin Norris in 2010. Photo from Tracey Farrell
When Kevin went back to the pills, he began snorting them this time. A lot of them. Once I saw a powder residue on his glass desk and, only knowing what I saw on TV, I put it on my tongue to see if it would numb it.
Nope, not cocaine.
I knew deep down something was going on. He didn’t shower as often or take care of his teeth. Changes in his habits were starting to happen.
These Oxycodone pills are expensive, and make you painfully sick when you don’t have them. An addict becomes so desperate that they will beg, borrow and steal to get them — literally. Eventually when you have exhausted stealing your family’s available cash, you steal their jewelry, sports memorabilia and anything else of value you can sneak out of the house. You write bad checks from your mom’s bank account. Eventually you realize there’s an alternative available and you turn to heroin. It’s cheap, and readily available. You just have to put money in your mailbox and drugs appear moments later.
That point happened some time in 2011. I assume he started snorting it before he shot it.
Nine years in and I am still clueless, uneducated, unaware to so much of it. Kevin never, ever looked high in front of me. I was missing spoons, which are used to melt the heroin down to a soluble form, but I still thought maybe they were thrown out by mistake? Yes, he had been to rehab, but I didn’t know that it didn’t fix you. I didn’t know that me giving him no option but to enter rehab wouldn’t work. I didn’t know that he had to want to be in recovery.
I learned how to be manipulated. I enabled everything. I believed every lie he told me and would hand over money in fear he would be killed for the money he owed.
Eventually, he must leave the house. Kevin would live in his car, on which I was now making the payments and insuring. It’s winter and I cannot fathom the thought of him in a car at Christmas, so I get him an apartment. I sent his stepfather over many times to see if he was alive when I couldn’t get in touch with him. I even called 911 on him when I thought he was suicidal, which resulted in a short hospital hold. I started to understand that he does not want this for himself, but doesn’t know how to stop. He fears withdrawal, and I hear his pain and cries when he begs me for money because he is so sick. He is eventually hospitalized for a blood infection. I realize I can no longer keep him in that apartment.
I clean the place out.
He didn’t need much food. The only thing in the fridge was water. I find all the things he has used as a tourniquet. There is an amazing amount of plastic garbage bag drawstrings removed from bags, Q-tips everywhere with the cotton taken off which are used as filters. So many water bottle caps. So many syringes.
“There were times I threw money into his car so angrily when he asked me. I struggled between loving him and hating him.”
I didn’t want my son to die, but I’m realizing I’m making it more comfortable for him.
Through most of his addiction he was highly functioning, always holding down a job. This was no longer the case.
He gets out of the hospital and is back to his car. I’m giving him $20 a day. He gets food stamps and Medicaid from the Department of Social Services. I find he sells what’s on his food stamp card. I pump gas in his car, but I do not hand over more cash. There were times I threw money in his car so angrily at him when he asked.
I struggled between loving him and hating him.
He began living in a hotel with his dealer and got arrested for possession of a syringe. He’s assigned a public defender, but of course Mom pays the fees and it’s knocked down.
But a few days prior, he made the choice on his own — which is key — to seek help.
He made the calls on his own, instead of me doing all of the legwork, to enter South Oaks Hospital in Amityville. His third try at rehab. But now, he wants it.
I went to a family meeting about 10 days in.
There he is. My son, my real son. Thank you, thank you and thank you.
He was enrolled in a 28-day program. He went to Mainstream House in Riverhead, a sober house. We do family things together again. We shop, we go to lunch, dinner. He wanted to be around us again. I haven’t had this in years. We laugh, we cry.
He got kicked out of sober living for having Ambien, a prescription drug, because he had a hard time sleeping. I let him back home. Kevin has a new job, a new girlfriend. He seems happy.
Tracey Farrell, a Rocky Point resident and founder of North Shore Drug Awareness Advocates, displays her luminaire in memory of her son Kevin Norris during the third annual Lights of Hope event in Port Jefferson on Aug. 31. Photo by Nora Milligan
I didn’t go to the classes I should have. I didn’t learn that someone new to recovery does not want their past thrown at them. One day at a time is their mantra. Yesterday is the past. He’s going to his meetings on a regular basis, but now that he is working, that starts to not be as often. Anything that goes missing I automatically accuse him. He wants a new phone because his is old and cracked. I bought him a new one and he “lost” it. I still tell him that if he didn’t sell it he would have it. He tells me he is working an honest program and that he has told me everything — including that he did not sell the phone. I apologize and tell him I am proud of him.
Kevin is working for a company which does party rentals.
One Sunday, in September 2012, he came home looking tired. He was thrilled that they gave him a $100 tip. They even gave him the leftover cake, which we of course ate together. We spoke of the cotton candy on his sneakers, because he worked the cotton candy machine. He thought it was fun.
The next day, his sister found him dead in bed. It was an accidental overdose.
They say money is a trigger.
I will never know what led him back. I know now I didn’t cause it. I couldn’t control it and I couldn’t cure it. I prepared myself that this day could come, but I thought he was in the clear. Our very last conversation was about cotton candy, one of the things I craved most when I was pregnant with him.
I still have the cotton-candy-covered shoe laces. I miss him every day. I still struggle with not doing the things I now know I should have done, and I try to teach people every day to not make the same mistakes I did. Learn from me please. Let me tell you anything and everything that may help you or your loved one. It helps me to help you.
I just went to a celebration meeting of one of his best friends celebrating one year of sobriety on Sunday, and he said, “I think he may have died so I can live.”
Tracey Farrell, formerly Tracey Budd, is a Rocky Point resident who, since her son’s passing, educates others on drug abuse and assists in finding help for those who are struggling, or know someone who is struggling, with addiction. She is the founder of North Shore Drug Awareness Advocates and also a 2015 TBR Person of the Year.
Marisa Vitali, creator of “Grace,” speaks after the screening of the film. Photo by Victoria Espinoza
By Marisa Vitali
Life happens in the in-between spaces, from here to there. Recovery happens in the in-between spaces, when no one is looking and no one is around. How do we choose to live? How do we choose to be in those quiet moments with self? Have I filled my void, my spirit with happiness?
Or do I look outside myself for a drink, a drug, food, sex, shopping, cigarettes; to make myself not feel; to fill the void, the gaping black hole of low self-esteem and low self-worth?
I’ve learned that in recovery I have a choice. I’m no longer a slave to my next bag of dope and I can choose to see the glass half empty or half full.
Myself, I want it all, but when I logically prioritize, longevity and quality of life are on the top of the list. Every minute I spend obliterated is one less finite minute I have to feel life.
I do my best on a daily basis to choose happiness; to live happy, joyous and free. Recovery allows me to be in a place of rediscovery. To relearn the wisdom I was born with and somehow let slip between the fingers of my mind.
Just to be living is truly a gift and one not to be squandered on those people, places and things that cause us pain. Life is a gift to be celebrated and shared with those we love and who bring us even more joy than we may already be feeling.
Having this opportunity to live in recovery, I so know it didn’t have to be this way.
I always say: My life is nothing what I thought it would be and yet nothing I ever could have imagined it to be.
I don’t know the source of life, but I do know the humility I feel when confronted by nature and the magical way everything is prepared for every situation it could possibly encounter. That delusion in and of itself eliminates anxiety and I’m in deep.
I have come to the realization that living life to the fullest is not about my achievements — it is about my breath.
“I’ve learned that in recovery I have a choice. I’m no longer a slave to my next bag of dope and I can choose to see the glass half empty or half full.”
—Marisa Vitali
This moment, right here and now. Feeling everything there is to feel and experience in this one breath of in and out. This is what is intended. To soak in every drop of this thing called life.
We all intellectually know about breath and present moments so I will spare you the details in favor of encouraging you to do what you truly desire before it’s too late. Or keep collecting excuses that will serve you well in your final moments.
Because all we really have is today. There is no need to mar this experience with drugs and alcohol in order to escape this moment, this breath.
Not to make you nauseous with platitudes, but I do feel an urge to recap the classics. Living at the highest-level means feeling good about your life. There’s give and take without malice or greed, there is healthy socialization with challenging, stimulating people of integrity. There is reverence way before relevance, so if you turned down that road, I suggest you make a U-turn in the first driveway.
That’s what we’re all here for: to live the good, the bad and the ugly. To feel, to grow, to better ourselves and to help one another. We are here to serve, regardless of our elitist aspirations, so share your talents and energy freely. Our influence is exponential and will outlive us for eternity.
If one falls, we all fall, and so it’s a treasure and an opportunity to uplift one another in times of need with love, compassion and authenticity.
We all fall eventually. I fall at the door of a true friend. One of the most vivifying experiences is the exchange of love, and that I’m not afraid to express anymore.
This life, this recovery is a journey; it’s all in the same, with twists and turns, mountains and mole hills.
No matter what I choose not to use. I am evolving into whatever my imagination is capable of, without ego and defects of character that keep me small, dictating how it all should play out.
We are so much more powerful than we could possibly acknowledge. Tap into that source. Your source of creation, whatever that may be for you. The answers you seek are deep within.
There but for the grace of God go I. Live free, as the only thing constant is change.
So change! Do something different. I dare you. If nothing changes, nothing changes. Simple yet true.The clock is ticking. Seize the day and all that carpe diem s—.
But seriously, take a look around – this is all of your creation. You did this, you made this happen, you made these choices.
Will you run and hide like you’ve always done, or will you stand tall in the eye of the storm and dance in the rain?
We all have choices. I know what I choose. Do you? I dare you to live.
Marisa Vitali is a Northport native actress who created a short film about the journey of recovering from drug addiction.
Huntington town officials hope federal funding will help crack down on drug use and gang violence. File photo
State legislation
In the 2016 legislative session, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed a comprehensive package of bills, aimed at increasing access to treatment, expanding community prevention strategies and limiting the overprescription of opioids in the state. Some of the most important parts of the bills are highlighted below:
• Legislation now ensures insurers must cover “necessary” inpatient services for substance use disorder treatments for as long as an individual needs them. Review from the company can only begin 14 days after treatment to ensure each patient has two weeks of uninterrupted and covered care.
• Insurers are prohibited from requiring prior approval for emergency supplies of these medications.
• Insurers must use objective state-approved criteria to determine the level of care for individuals suffering from substance abuse.
• Insurers must cover the costs of Narcan to families with individuals suffering from substance abuse.
• Families now offered 72 hours of emergency treatment, instead of 48 hours, for family members so they can be stabilized and connected to longer-term addiction treatment options while also balancing individual rights of the incapacitated individuals.
• Requires hospitals to provide follow-up service options to individuals upon hospital discharge to connect patients with nearby treatment options to provide continuous medical care.
• Reducing opioid prescription limits from 30 days to seven days, with exceptions of chronic pain and other conditions.
• Health care professionals must complete three hours of education every three years on addiction, pain management and palliative care.
State budget
The 2016-17 state government has allotted funding to help curb the growing substance abuse problem. A breakdown of the budget below:
• Nearly $200 million through the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services will be used to combat the heroin and opioid epidemic, an 82 percent increase in state spending since 2011.
• This investment includes $66 million for residential treatment beds, including counseling and support services for roughly 8,000 individuals.
• $38 million to fund medication-assisted treatment programs that serve about 12,000 clients in residential or outpatient settings.
• $25 million in funding for state-operated addiction treatment centers.
• $24 million for outpatient services that provide group and individual counseling.
• $8 million for crisis/detox programs to manage and treat withdrawal from heroin and opioids.
NYS Heroin and Opioid Task Force
Comprised of health care providers, policy advocates, educators, parents and New Yorkers in recovery, the task force will build on the state’s previous efforts and use its expertise and first-hand experience to develop a comprehensive action plan to combat the state’s opioid epidemic. The task force will focus immediately on expanding awareness of heroin and opioid addiction; enhance statewide prevention efforts; increase access to treatment; improve support for those in recovery; and concentrate on law enforcement recommendations to reduce the supply of opioids. Members plan to hold public sessions across the state.
Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, 2016
• Signed into law by President Barack Obama (D) in July.
• $8.3 billion in addiction funding.
• $160 million for the expansion of medication-assisted treatment options, including grants that will be awarded to state, local and tribal governments to provide opioid abuse services.
• $80 million in funding to help prevent and treat addiction on a local level through community-based education, prevention, treatment and recovery programs.
• $103 million to establish a community-based competitive grant program to address and treat the problems of heroin and opioid addiction and abuse.
• Grants will help fund programs that could expand treatment alternatives to incarcerations — with consent of attorneys and participants — for individuals who meet the program’s criteria.
Landmark status is granted to The Jazz Loft building in Stony Brook. File photo
The following is an edited Town of Brookhaven public comment presentation made Sept. 1.
Good evening, Mr. Supervisor and town board members.
My name is John Broven, author of three books on American music history. I am privileged to live in a historic district of East Setauket, part of the beautiful Three Village area. My late father-in-law, Clark Galehouse, founded Golden Crest Records out of Huntington Station in 1956 and released many jazz albums among others — I think you know where I’m coming from.
I fully endorse the recommendation of Town Historian Barbara Russell and the Historic District Advisory Committee to accord The Jazz Loft building at 275 Christian Ave., Stony Brook, landmark status. I would like to read my historical notes in support of my position.
The Jazz Loft building, in fact, consists of two historic structures: The Stone Jug and the 1921 firehouse. The building accommodated the first museum in Stony Brook, founded in 1935 by real estate broker and insurance agent O.C. (Cap) Lempfert, a keen hunter and taxidermist. At first, the museum was located in the home of Arthur Rayner where Saturday nature talks for children became a weekly event; naturalist Robert Cushman Murphy, of R.C. Murphy Jr. High School, led some of the nature walks.
Originally called the Suffolk County Museum of Natural History, it became known as the Little Museum in the Jug after it was moved to the Stone Jug storage building — a former tavern and social center of the village — with the backing of Mr. and Mrs. Ward Melville. The museum was formally incorporated as the Suffolk Museum in 1939.
You may be amused by a quote from a history of the Museums at Stony Brook, a later name before it became today’s prestigious The Long Island Museum: “The move was no small task since by that time the collection include a 400-pound loggerhead turtle, an eagle with a 6-foot wingspread, a trumpeter swan, and hundreds of small collection items.”
I am aware that Mr. Lempfert’s granddaughters, Mary and Jane L’Hommedieu, who both now live on the West Coast, are delighted at the town’s potential recognition of their grandfather’s museum building — and thus his pioneering work. Jane tells me he also made and exhibited duck decoys, collected Native American artifacts from his property for the museum and even constructed a wigwam. A major achievement of the museum to this day was to collect and show the fabulous paintings of William Sidney Mount.
It is wonderful that the building has come alive this year after careful restoration as The Jazz Loft incorporating a museum — how appropriate! — live jazz and education facilities. What Tom Manuel, a talented jazz musician, educator and historian, his board and The Ward Melville Heritage Organization have done to date is very impressive, not only for the Three Village area but also for Long Island tourism — and jazz itself. I know Supervisor Ed Romaine (R) and Councilwoman Valerie Cartright (D-Port Jefferson Station) attended the opening. By granting The Jazz Loft building landmark status, in effect the town will be protecting and preserving our past, present and future heritage. I trust the town board will support its Historic District Advisory Committee because I consider all the historical and cultural boxes have been ticked.
The result: A unanimous vote in favor.
John Broven is a member of the editorial staff of this newspaper. He gives thanks to Joshua Ruff, director of collections and interpretation of The Long Island Museum, for providing historical detail by way of “The Carriage Museum” (1987) publication.
The college ranking system fails to take into account the intangibles of a university. Photo from Ryan DeVito
By Ryan DeVito
A certain manufactured meritocracy exists in the United States. Success has become indelibly connected to elite college education in the minds of parents and students. Consequently, a student’s potential is dictated by his or her triumphs in the college arena. The logic goes like this: the higher an institution is ranked by U.S. News & World Report, the better a student is and the better their life will be.
College ranking systems are psychological demons. Thousands of data points tell a story that, year after year, paints a skewed picture of higher education. These ranking systems use algorithms to transform a host of statistics about one school into a single score. Students often use this score to make college decisions.
The existing ranking systems are silly, though. They attempt to compare completely disparate institutions on one inflexible scale. As a result, The Ohio State University can be compared to Pepperdine University. The former is an enormous public university in the middle of a large city; the latter is a small private Christian college perched above the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by mountains. Essentially opposites, U.S. News & World Report tells us that these schools are the same.
Ohio State and Pepperdine scored the same in the rankings algorithm. But these institutions are impossible to compare. Ohio State dominates downtown Columbus with nearly 60,000 students and another 20,000 staff members — all spread across dozens of various colleges, schools and departments. How could you possibly reduce the complexity that is The Ohio State University down to one solitary number?
College ranking systems fail to take into account the intangibles that make a college great. Academic reputation — among leadership at peer institutions — and faculty resources are the two variables given the greatest weight in the U.S. News ranking algorithm. The weight on these variables creates an obvious skew toward the well-endowed private universities that consistently grace the top of the rankings list. Rankings drive reputation and funding, and so a glass ceiling forms that keeps lower-ranked schools from every establishing their brands. But these variables tell us nothing about the ability of the institution and its faculty to inform and inspire students.
It’s the intangibles that enable success in students — regardless of whether they attend a top-ranked institution or not.
Students who are engaged and encouraged in their learning are better off. So the ability of professors to get their students excited about learning is much more important than how much research funding they have. The extent to which professors care about their students as people and are willing to act as mentors has a major bearing on the student’s potential for engagement. These are the intangibles that college rankings system could never take into account.
Of course, top-ranked institutions can offer these intangibles. My point, though, is that you can be engaged and encouraged anywhere. There are obvious flaws in the college ranking systems that we all too often rely on when making college decisions. A great college experience is not limited to the top of any ranking’s list. Success after college is not dictated by the ranking of the college you attend.
Rather than depending on any murky ranking system, search for the college that has the greatest potential to inform, inspire and challenge you personally. Your success after college depends most on your ability to find that engaging environment. Four years of engaged learning are more valuable than any ranking on its own. And it’s the engaged student, not necessarily the elite student, who has the potential to achieve the greatest success after graduation.
Ryan DeVito is a Miller Place native who started a college advising company, ScholarScope, to help Long Island students. Learn more at www.ScholarScope.org.
The audience at Cinema Arts Centre enjoys a scene during the horror movie marathon. Photo by Kevin Redding
By Kevin Redding
Living corpses, seductive vampires, hungry werewolves, mutant children, body-swapping aliens, a book that unleashes demons and evil spirits, and a whole lot of blood.
Projected on the big screen in beautiful 35mm prints, all these things brought great joy and camaraderie to a roomful of strangers last Saturday night, Aug. 27, at Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington.
A total of 115 eager horror fans packed the theater — fully equipped with pillows, blankets, snacks, and plenty of caffeine — ready to take on the 12th annual Pay To Get Out Horror Movie Marathon that started at 10 p.m. and didn’t finish until a little after 8:30 a.m. the next morning. Five movie titles are released to the public, with the sixth kept a secret until you’re in.
People from all walks of life were huddled together with an instant, unifying bond: a love for all things scary.
At 10 p.m., there was a buzz in the air as everybody settled into their seats. Just before the marathon started, Michael and Nina Ciani of Retro Picture Show, co-presenters of the marathon, announced three raffle ticket winners and presented each of them with a vinyl soundtrack for Lucio Fulci’s “The House By The Cemetery,” one of the better and more intense entries of the night.
The movies ranged from schlocky and ridiculous fun with “The Hidden” to a little bit dull ‘The Company of Wolves” to downright scary David Cronenberg’s “The Brood”, and I loved every second of it. When there wasn’t laughing and hollering at cheesy acting and unintentionally funny moments, there was cheering when the protagonists escaped their monsters’ clutches and gasping at grisly kills. We, as an audience, were treated to a reel of classic trailers that ran before the movies, pertaining to the theme of each one. Before “The Hidden,” we got John Carpenter’s “They Live;” before “The Brood,” we got “Videodrome;” and before “The Company of Wolves,” we got Joe Dante’s “The Howling.”
The big question of “what the final mystery film would be?” hung over the theater all night.
As we took our seats one last time at around 7:10 a.m., we were all quiet with anticipation.
As soon as the black screen filled with fog and a few seconds of musical score blared, the theater erupted, instantly recognizing the Sam Raimi classic “Evil Dead II,” perhaps the greatest movie choice to be experienced by this kind of crowd in a theater. Bruce Campbell’s demon-induced pratfalls were never more exhilarating.
Throughout the marathon, the film prints were scratchy and crackly in the best ways possible, only enhancing the atmosphere. But no print was more fitting than the one of “Evil Dead II,” which warped and fizzled out a few different times early on as characters were undergoing the wrath of the Book of the Dead. An audience member put it best when he shouted out, “This film is possessed!”
It’s a testament to the love and passion for the horror genre that almost everybody in attendance,including myself, stuck it out to the end of the marathon with a healthy dose of energy and excitement intact.
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