Today brings another mix of opinions about life and times on Long Island: opinions offered positively, with thumbs up, or, negatively, with thumbs down.

To start, thumbs up:

To the feisty newspaper newcomer, the Long Island Press, which recently announced hiring veteran Newsday Columnist Ed Lowe who will continue spinning yards about the foibles of Long Islanders, joining columnist-colleague Amy Fisher, who knows a thing or two about foibles. The upstart weekly performed a public service by breaking stories about Newsday's circulation scandals; events leading veteran writers like Lowe to accept retirement buyouts. Thanks to the Press, we can still read Ed Lowe.

And thumbs up:

To Islip Supervisor Pete McGowan and Southwest Airlines Chairman Herb Kelleher for turning Islip's MacArthur Airport into a first class regional jetport for Long Island with Southwest's new $55 million terminal and concourse. Next, Southwest plans to spend another $20 million rebuilding its old terminal. And they certainly dreamed up a catchy name for the new Peter J. McGowan Concourse.

And thumbs up:

To the Village of Lloyd Harbor for permitting the state to hold a night time hunt to reduce the population of deer that mysteriously showed up at Caumsett State Park in recent years, causing accidents on village roads.

But thumbs down to the village for not providing advance warning to neighbors, roused from their beds by sounds of gunfire. Outraged by it all, Huntington's weekly Long Islander called for an end to deer hunts, "lest one of Santa's reindeer be picked off by an overzealous marksman."