Now we're seeing (Montauk) monsters in Southold

It's no secret that the Hampton set has "discovered" the North Fork.

But this month, the migration of the Hampton scene to our bucolic surroundings has perhaps gone a bit too far.

The Montauk Monster has arrived in Southold.

No kidding. A blogger who writes under the pseudonym Nicky Papers and publishes montauk-monster.com says he laid eyes on a bloated animal corpse on the beach at Founders Landing Park in Southold last week. It bore an eerie resemblance to the now-infamous "monster" of Hamptons fame, which washed ashore in Montauk last July.

Mr. Papers (yes, I can't help giggling at his chosen nom de plume) says he was contacted by a Southold couple who made the grisly discovery at Founders Landing Park while out for an evening stroll last Wednesday.

The couple, who, Mr. Papers said, want to remain anonymous, e-mailed him through his Web site at about 8 p.m. that evening. He beat feet to Southold and by 9:30 he was snapping pictures and recording a video of the latest "monster" to wash up on a Long Island area beach. (There was the one in Montauk, one on a New London, Conn., beach and one in Rocky Point. Mr. Papers said he believes the Rocky Point carcass was a "copycat scam.") One of his pictures is reprinted here.

Mr. Papers told me yesterday the Southold couple put the carcass in a plastic bag and took it home with them. He hasn't heard from them since.

What to make of all this?

We've had a bull running loose and even some mysterious "mountain lion" sightings around here, but a monster like this is definitely something new.

Mr. Papers is pretty convinced that these carcasses have something to do with Plum Island. There may be good security on the island, which is now managed by the Department of Homeland Security. "But everyone should keep in mind that security is never 100 percent foolproof," Mr. Papers said.

That's true enough, I'll admit. But what could the explanation be? Lab animals running amok, getting into the water and drowning? Animals lost in shipment? Stolen from the lab?

Homeland Security adamantly denied the Montauk Monster has anything to do with Plum Island.

There are all kinds of theories about the monster, ranging from the aforementioned Plum Island connection to a so-called viral marketing publicity stunt for a movie to an outright fraud. Both the New London and Montauk carcasses disappeared. Maybe the Southold beast will also never be seen again. Until it turns up on the cover of some supermarket tabloid.

Poking around on the Internet for "monsters" reveals some interesting stuff for sure. There are the famous ones, such as Sasquatch and Loch Ness. Then there are the lesser-known creatures, like the New Jersey Devil and, believe it or not, the Bayview Beast. That's the name given to the big cat some people reported seeing in the Bayview section of Southold last fall. Imagine my surprise when, scrolling through Nicky Papers' montauk-monster.com site, I came across my own name (in connection with my reporting on the big-cat sightings here last year). At first, I thought I was seeing things -- possibly a side effect of the anesthesia last week. But no, there I was.

People get pretty crazy about monsters and such. So I've got to give Mr. Papers credit for trying to debunk some of these tales.

The new monster sighting right in our own backyard will whip the crazies into a lather. The media will encourage the frenzy, of course. I predict we'll soon be seeing a caravan of satellite trucks on Main Road, heading to the beach at Founders Landing. Now we have to pretend to be in the Hamptons, and act like we don't notice or don't care.

Just because they say it's so ...

Column published in The Suffolk Times, Aug. 21, 2008

If something is repeated often enough, it becomes "true," right? That's why I'm compelled to answer the spin being spun about The Suffolk Times by various letter writers. The current flurry of criticism started with our "Gay on the North Fork" series in June and hit a crescendo following the publication of a reader's "Guest Spot" denouncing the use of torture of prisoners of war by the U.S. military.

We've found ourselves on the receiving end of many letters and e-mails -- some sent anonymously, so they never made it into the paper, because we require all letters to be signed by their authors -- accusing The Suffolk Times of all sorts of things, including printing only letters to the editor that conform to the editor's opinion about the president, or the war, or __________ (fill in the blank); of "slanting" our "reporting"; of having a "liberal agenda" instead of being "fair and balanced" (like Rupert Murdoch); and of not "reporting local news" (in favor of national or international news) in furtherance of our liberal agenda.

The Suffolk Times consists of about 100 pages each week, give or take. There is nothing but local news between its covers, except on the commentary pages, which are reserved for editorial and reader opinion. Local news is what we do. It's all we do. And it's what we've been doing for 151 years, since August of 1857. It's what community journalism is all about. It's been, and continues to be, this newspaper's formula for success.

We don't "report" on the war or, generally, the federal government, except as its actions and policies affect local people and issues. Yes, we have opined about the war, though not as much as some folks would have you believe. But news articles and commentary are two different things.

I'll readily admit I'm not a fan of Mr. Bush or the war. So I started wondering whether we've printed more editorials and op-ed columns criticizing the president and the war than I realized. I decided to do some research.

I searched The Suffolk Times Web site for all instances of the word "Bush" in editorials and columns between Jan. 1, 2004, and Aug. 7, 2008. That's roughly 238 editions of this newspaper.

In that time, in those 238 weeks, the word "Bush" appeared in editorials 12 times. One was in an editorial about the Iraq war, on the occasion of the U.S. military death toll's reaching 2,000. One was reflecting on the 2006 midterm elections. One was an endorsement of John Kerry for president (an endorsement, as I recall, some unhappy readers complained we, as a local paper, had no "right" to make.) One mentioned the president's name in passing, in an editorial about a former supervisor's "taking a page right out of the Bush-Cheney campaign handbook." The other eight all referenced the president in connection with local issues, such as Broadwater (four editorials), the effect of budget cuts on local hospitals (three), and immigration reform (an editorial in which we praised the president's position opposing a bill passed by the House.)

The word "Bush" also appeared in "columns" 36 times during the past four years and seven months. Seven of those references were completely unrelated or were mentions in passing in "columns" that were not commentary columns, such as the garden column or the Southold Seniors column; the search picked up references such as "under the bushes" and mentions of a local couple getting a tour of the White House but not seeing the president. The other 29 references were in op-ed columns in the commentary section.

The vast majority of those 29 columns had little or nothing to do with Bush or his policies -- they merely mentioned his name. Nine were "guest spot" or "equal time" columns submitted by readers. Of those, one, on Nov. 15, 2006, defended the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. One was about humorous campaign bumper stickers and one was about the number of Bush lawn signs versus the number of Kerry lawn signs.

Of the 20 columns mentioning Bush that were written by staff members, only six were actually about Mr. Bush or his administration's policies, and I wrote all six of them. Their topics? Two were about Broadwater, one was about Plum Island, two were about the war, and one was about the proposed marriage amendment. All of these big issues have big local impacts and I make no apology for thinking about them or speaking out on them.

I believe the commentary section of The Suffolk Times is a valuable forum for community discourse -- even discourse on non-local topics. It's one of the few forums where Southolders can publicly debate issues with one another.

We don't "censor" letters or op-ed columns. We do edit them, which can be a hefty job. We get lots of them, and I read and edit every one myself. I bend over backwards to help many letter writers make their points (whether I agree with them or not), taking a lot of time to correct grammar, syntax, usage and spelling, to make some letters more readable and others comprehensible. I ask people to tone down personal attacks. And I suggest substitutes for obscenities that some letter writers use (because this is, after all, a family newspaper).

What don't we print? We don't print letters that are libelous, because by publishing a libelous statement we bear legal responsibility for its libelous nature. We don't print letters to the editor generated by letter-writing campaigns mass-mailed to media outlets across the nation. (We get these every week.) And we don't print "open letters" to public officials or the community at large or letters to specific people (other than the editor).

If you would like to see more commentary supporting Mr. Bush, or the war, or expressing an opinion on any topic that interests you, then contribute something. This is your forum. Write a letter (350 words maximum, please), or an op-ed column (about 750 words). Put your name (no pseudonyms, please) and hamlet of residence on it, provide a contact phone number where you can be reached, and e-mail it to editor@timesreview.com. (Documents in Word format, attached to the e-mail message, please.) If you're not computer-savvy, we still accept letters the old-fashioned way, addressed to: Editor, The Suffolk Times, P.O. Box 1500, Mattituck, NY 11952 or faxed to 631-298-3287. Please type or print. If we can't read it, we can't publish it.

We look forward to hearing from you, even if it's to tell us how wrong we are or how stupid our opinion is. It reminds me of how much I cherish my freedom of expression.

Copyright 2008 Times/Review Newspapers

Gay on the North Fork

We've started a month-long series in Suffolk Times and News-Review this week (to coincide with gay pride month) about being gay on the North Fork.

This week, I've written an article about local reaction among gays and lesbians to the governor's executive order requiring NY state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

Next week, I'm writing about federal issues affecting local gay people, focusing on immigration. The following week, I'll be writing about gay parents raising families on the North Fork. And the week after that, I'm writing about "then vs. now" — how things have changed, how they haven't.

If you've got a story to share for any part of this series, I'd love to hear from you. Please send me an e-mail at denise@timesreview.com. I can protect your identity if you want to remain anonymous (though I will need to verify your identity myself.)

Also, please visit our Web sites www. timesreview.com and vote in this week's online poll question: Should NY legalize same-sex marriage? (The poll is at the bottom of the home page, on the right.)

Chopped liver on the North Fork

It must be nice to run a giant utility. You just do whatever you please, the people be damned, and if enough of the right people get mad enough, you can get them to pay you to stop doing what's making them mad.

At least that's how things have played out with our friendly electric company, the Long Island Power Authority, and the upper crust on the South Fork.

LIPA and Southampton Town have cut a deal whereby LIPA will bury all of a new nine-mile-long 69-kilovolt transmission line through Southampton -- and Southampton rate payers will pick up the extra cost associated with going underground by way of a "scenic view preservation" surcharge. The new surcharge will raise about $10 million to bury the entire line. LIPA was planning to bury part of it, but string 45-foot-tall poles through some of Southampton's most scenic farm vistas.

If this sounds familiar, don't fret. It should. LIPA has buried new power lines on the South Fork before: more than 22 miles worth nearly a decade ago at a cost of more than $70 million. Meanwhile, it insisted on erecting big, ugly new poles on the North Fork, in spite of vocal opposition here. That prompted Southold Supervisor Jean Cochran to ask, "What are we, chopped liver?" A few years back, Riverhead actually sued to stop the erection of a new aboveground power line. And it won the suit because LIPA failed to conduct the proper environmental review mandated by state law. But Riverhead and LIPA eventually came to an agreement under which LIPA buried a small portion of the new heavy-duty line on its easternmost end, near the new substation in Northville.

But the scenic farm vistas of the North Fork continue to be blighted by the towering, unsightly high-tension power lines. And the once-magnificent old trees lining the Sound Avenue historic corridor and the Main Road continue to be "pruned" -- to protect the LIPA lines -- into distorted figures, some so drastically that they become diseased and must be taken down altogether.

Now why didn't we think of absorbing the cost of burying new power lines with a surcharge, like our neighbors to the south?

For one thing, LIPA didn't give us the option. We're not as rich or influential as those Hamptonites, even with the influx of the new, wealthier second-home owners around these parts. More of us are less able to afford the extra $44 a year most Southampton residents are going to cough up to pay for the underground line. And if they don't pay their bills, the town has guaranteed to pony up the money. (Maybe this is an acceptable use of the community preservation fund dough they're apparently flush with over there?)

But who wants to pay another LIPA surcharge, anyway? The power company already has effectively doubled our energy costs by adding, without review or approval by any regulatory agency, a "power supply" charge on top of the per-kilowatt hour rate approved by the Public Service Commission. And now LIPA is planning to increase the power supply surcharge because of skyrocketing oil prices, even though LIPA has overestimated fuel costs -- and overcharged its customers -- by hundreds of millions of dollars over the past couple of years. Indeed, LIPA's financial statements show "excess income" over expenses of $93 million for 2007 and $118 million for 2006. If LIPA were a private company, that would be called a profit -- and a tidy profit at that. So what's the pubic power authority doing with all that "excess" dough? Hopefully, the audit begun by the state comptroller earlier this month at the insistence of North Fork Assemblyman Marc Alessi will give us rate payers a definitive answer.

Meanwhile, if we want to enjoy scenic farmland vistas unspoiled by towering utility poles, we'll have to brave summer traffic in the Hamptons and take a ride through Southampton. Unless, like the rich folk on the south side, we can afford to charter one of those noisy helicopters buzzing overhead and do a flyover. It's much more civilized than sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on County Road 39 -- even in the back of a limo.