Category Archives: Uncategorized

Great fun serving as the photographer for this piece by…. By Megan Naftali On the count of three at 1:47 p.m. May 4, two Hofstra University students pulled down a dark cloth covering the brick wall outside the WRHU Radio station at the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication, revealing a sign to mark the newContinue reading “‘Eyewitness News’ sets up shop at Hofstra’s Herbert School”

I was happy to serve as the photographer for this Long Island Advocate story…. By Damali Ramirez and Hunter Spears Gov. Kathy Hochul landed at Kennedy Memorial Park in Hempstead April 19 to promote a $1 billion plan to repair New York’s broken roads as part of what she is calling “Operation Pave Our Potholes,”Continue reading “Governor Hochul talks $1B pothole plan in Hempstead”

LI Advocate By Scott Brinton Sautéing onion scented the air in the ring-shaped main hall of St. Vladimir’s Parish Center in Uniondale last Sunday as a frenetic swirl of people moved about carrying trays full of varenyky — potato-and-cheese dumplings. The event, one part of a three-day fundraiser for Ukraine relief, brought together volunteers from across LongContinue reading “Celebrating Ukrainian cuisine to fundraise for relief”

My latest #LIHerald.com column…. The 2019 documentary “Biking Borders,” chronicling the nine-month, 9,320-mile cycling adventure of two college friends, Max Jabs and Nono Konopka, from Berlin to Beijing, opens with the pair struggling to stay upright as they pedal down a snow-covered road in eastern Turkey shortly after Christmas 2018. These guys are just nuts,Continue reading “‘Biking Borders’ brings out the best of humanity”

Our latest #LIHerald.com editorial…. Bruce Blakeman’s first public act as Nassau County executive-elect, in the second week of December, was one of rebellion. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, had ordered mask use in indoor spaces where people gather to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. Blakeman, a Republican, said he would defy the order, refusingContinue reading “Nassau should enforce state’s mask mandate”

By Scott A. Brinton “The Event,” a 2015 found-footage documentary by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, opens with black-and-white images of mostly men marching in August 1991 through the streets of Leningrad, in the then Soviet Union, overturning a trailer and grabbing all manner of furniture to erect hastily constructed barricades. Worry was etched on theContinue reading “Recalling two failed coups that will live in infamy”

My latest #LIHerald.com editorial… Bravo to New York state voters for overwhelmingly passing a ballot referendum last week adding wording to the New York Constitution’s Bill of Rights guaranteeing the right to clean water, air and a healthful environment. The measure passed with nearly 70 percent of the vote. Some 1.9 million New Yorkers votedContinue reading “Think green — clean your vehicle at a car wash”

By Scott A. Brinton My latest #LIHerald.com column…. It’s rare that you get the chance to meet your professional heroes, so when one of mine, former Newsday environmental reporter Dan Fagin, now the director of NYU’s graduate Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program, recently came to Hofstra University to give an hour-long talk on hisContinue reading “A famed journalist enlightens us on cancer reporting”

My latest #LIHerald.com editorial…. Columbus Day has been celebrated in the United States since 1971, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed legislation proclaiming it a federal holiday. For years, the holiday has been controversial.  It is a source of pride for many Italian-Americans who commemorate the global reach of Italy’s most celebrated explorer. At theContinue reading “Recalling Long Island’s indigenous peoples”

By Scott A. Brinton My latest #LIHerald.com column… Long Island recently lost its last Sears, that once ubiquitous powerhouse retailer that sold a range of goods, from sturdy jeans to solidly built power tools and refrigerators. Started in 1893 as a mail-order catalog to peddle watches to farmers, Sears built a favorable reputation through muchContinue reading “Elegy for Sears — and, perhaps, mall culture”

By Scott A. Brinton I was mowing my backyard lawn in Merrick last Saturday when I was suddenly struck by the strange sensation that I had missed the bus to my race — that I should, at the moment, have been running a 5K or a 10K at a frantic pace instead of plodding along,Continue reading “Are interscholastic sports really worth the cost?”

By Scott Brinton My wife called soon after 9 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, her voice measured but tense. I was half-awake, preparing myself for the day, while our then 1½-year-old daughter slept in the next room of our Long Beach apartment.  “Turn on the TV,” Katerina said.  There were the twin towers ablaze inContinue reading “Memories of covering 9/11 haunt me still”

Here is my #LIHerald.com editorial to mark the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center: The Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pa., set off a cascade of worldwide catastrophes over the subsequent two decades — the wars in Afghanistan andContinue reading “Reflecting on the Sept. 11 attacks 20 years later”

By Scott Brinton My latest #LIHerald.com column looks back fondly at my two years of Peace Corps service… Thirty years ago this week, I hopped on an electric train with a bright-red engine, a nervous energy pulsing through my arms and legs straight to my fingers and toes, which fidgeted uncontrollably. My head was spinning. Continue reading “The two most adventurous years of my life”

My latest #LIHerald.com column: In the early morning of April 28, I tiptoed into my dew-coated backyard in Merrick to watch as an orange sun slowly migrated upward, sending its rays streaming through the hundreds of flower-covered branches on the three cherry and two apple trees that my wife and I planted nearly 20 yearsContinue reading “Restoring a lost habitat in our backyard”

The United Nations’ latest climate crisis report is frightening. You know I had to write a #LIHerald.com editorial: To the climate deniers, we say this: Wake up. July was the hottest month in the past 142 years, since humans started recording climate data, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. July had previously beenContinue reading “U.N.: Climate change is real, and it’s getting uglier”

My latest liherald.com editorial…. Plans to construct a wind farm in the ocean 15 miles south of Jones Beach will undoubtedly be met with opposition. The Long Island Commercial Fishing Association has already weighed in against the project, saying it could disturb vital fishing grounds. There will likely be others to follow during a two-yearContinue reading “The time is right for offshore wind”

By Scott Brinton Here’s my latest liherald.com column: Until recently, I had never thought deeply how radical my parents were when I was a child. I’m not sure they realized it at the time. In 1972, when I was 5, they put me on a big yellow school bus whose primary route wound through GordonContinue reading “A writer enlightens us on anti-racism”

My latest #LIHerald.com editorial…. The New York State Department of Health should move immediately to ban cookies laced with the THC chemical delta-8, a natural hemp extract that is now legal under the state’s medical marijuana law. Natural and legal, perhaps, but it gives users a high just like marijuana. State lawmakers like Sen. ToddContinue reading “State must ensure THC products don’t target kids”

My latest liherald.com column…. By Scott Brinton Birds have fascinated me since I was a boy growing up in Yaphank, in Suffolk County, in the 1970s. My parents spread birdfeed on our slate-covered cement patio in winter, and we would sit — my mother, father, brother and I — and watch the show from ourContinue reading “Audubon Society confronts its racist namesake — sort of”