Notes From Around the Village
Guild Hall News
Hats off to GH. Well, maybe in this weather you might want to hang onto your hat, but let’s all congratulate GH in whatever way we can.
The Museum at Guild Hall of East Hampton—to use its proper title—has again received the museum world’s highest national recognition, accreditation by the American Association of Museums (AAM). It’s an honor from the reviewing commission and also an important signifier of excellence to the museum community and the museum-going public. It enables loans of objects from other museums, particularly internationally, as well as funding from many philanthropies and foundations, and support from local, municipal and state government.
"Guild Hall is without a doubt the leading cultural asset of the six towns of Eastern Long Island" according to the certifying committee.
Only 4.5 percent of the nation's nearly 17,500 museums are currently accredited, so it really is something to celebrate.
Reading the Future
After yesterday’s post on the beauty of our beaches, it was distressing to read a long, detailed and complex article in today’s New York Times on climate and rising sea levels: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/science/earth/14ice.html?_r=1&hp. It is of course a threat to major cities around the world and even whole countries, but my thoughts were more narrowly focused on the place I know and love, the Hamptons. Projecting from what scientists predict globally, life as we know it here could be radically different by the end of the 21st century. Wetlands and low-lying areas—vast parts of Eastern Long Island —might be inundated, and the kind of storm that appears once a century or so, like the hurricane of 1938, might become a regular occurrence.
It is dreadful to think that our villages and hamlets, which have been evolving since their settlement in the mid seventeenth century, could be altered beyond our imagination. I remember how thrilling it was in 1998 when East Hampton celebrated its 350th anniversary (technically, our sesquarcentennial or semiseptcentennial) and Main Street was entirely closed to cars for a day while we strolled around, greeting one another, happily celebrating our past and our present, taking the future for granted. Now, I wonder, what will it be like 2098?
Downzoning: Bad for Your Health
We don’t have fast food outlets in East Hampton, although we are threatened with the possibility of a convenience store like Seven Eleven on North Main Street if the town zoning board continues its feckless actions and shabby favoritism. A convenience store is not the same as fast food but it’s close enough.
I just read in The Huffington Post that one in five breakfasts in America is from McDonald’s. Family meals occur only three times a week for most families and are down to only twenty minutes accompanied by television and texting. The effects on health and obesity are clear.
I guess we are fortunate here in East Hampton to be geographically at the end of an island, with a small population, and with plentiful local produce in season and local seafood throughout the year. But the trends in processed foods and industrial agriculture that influence what and how we eat and drink in this country are worrisome.
The most powerful tool you have to change your health and the world is your fork, according to the Huffpost article. Here in East Hampton at the moment, you can add zoning on North Main Street to that list.