NICE OF YOU TO DROP BY, FRIDAY!
Umm, even warmer... That high pressure's still around through today, and temps are going to be reaching toward 90. Changing airflow aloft will kick up the humidity a little, and if you're headed for the mountains there's a chance of rain and thunder this afternoon, but nothing for around here. We'll probably see a few more clouds than the last couple of days. Lows only in the 60s tonight. No Daybreak Monday. Just taking a breather—back in your inbox Tuesday.Little Bear checks things out. This past Monday morning, Lorin Durand was at home in Quechee when a bear cub—well, more like a young middle-schooler—came sauntering through the yard, poking here and there, coolly surveying the scene. Until some Town of Hartford trucks drove by and spooked it back into the woods.Heck, let's make this a double bill, since there's no DB on Monday. Yesterday's gray fox photo brought in this video from Vic Henningsen and Russell Rennie in Thetford Center. It's a litter of six bouncy fox kits back in May. Filmed through binoculars using an iPhone, so don't be expecting Animal Planet here, but if these guys don't perk up your day, nothing will.Oh, yeah, okay, I suppose...
NH added 17 new positive test results yesterday, bringing its official total to what you'd think would be 5,453 but it says is 5,450. There are 4,140 (80%) recovered cases and 331 deaths (up 1), yielding a total current caseload of 979. The state added 1,470 tests. Grafton County gained one case and now stands at 76 total, while remains at 24. Merrimack County remains at 392. Claremont, Lebanon, Plainfield, Charlestown, and Newbury each have between 1 and 4 active cases.
VT reported 6 new cases yesterday, bringing its official total to 1,135 (though yesterday's count of 1,130 suggests it should be 1,136). Two more people have recovered, bringing that total to 917. Two cases are hospitalized (up 1), and the state logged its first death since May, bringing the total to 56. Windsor and Orange counties are still at 55 and 9 cumulative cases. The state added 1,082 tests; it's now done 54,745 altogether.
Leb may have just one polling place for election. The city usually has three, but is seeking state permission to consolidate them for balloting in November, the VN's Tim Camerato reports. City Manager Shaun Mulholland told the City Council on Wednesday that many volunteer poll workers are leery of the coronavirus, and won’t be available. “It’s going to be tough for us to staff three polling places,” he said. City Clerk Kristin Kenniston tells Camerato she's looking at “very large venues” for a replacement, including possibly a hangar at Leb Airport.
No Amtrak service through WRJ at least until August. Not that it really changes anything, since Gov. Phil Scott suspended it back in March. But this week Amtrak announced it's suspending all service on the Vermonter north of New Haven, CT (does this mean it's now the Nutmegger?), and the Ethan Allen Express north of Albany. “At this time, AOT does not know when service will resume but expects that it will be no earlier than Aug. 1,” VTrans spokesperson Amy Tatko tells the Rutland Herald. “We are continuing to maintain all railroad infrastructure to Amtrak standards so that we will be ready to resume service." Hanover to remove weather vane...from town logo. The logo currently features Dartmouth’s Baker Library tower with the weather vane that the college plans to replace. It "appears in several places, including on police cruisers, letterhead, uniform patches, trailheads and on the Hanover website," writes the VN's John Gregg. Though town manager Julia Griffin notes that many of the logos in town show three pine trees on the weather vane, rather than the figures of Eleazar Wheelock and a seated Native American that have led to the actual weather vane's removal."Spending time reading poems, reading speeches, doing voter registration work—all of that is working in the spirit of Juneteenth." Dartmouth history prof Matthew Delmont talks to Dartmouth News about today's holiday—its origins and significance and resonance at this moment. "Our country's done a poor job of remembering the history of slavery," he says, "and so setting aside a day to think about Juneteenth, slavery, emancipation, and the fact that African Americans have been fighting for freedom since 1865, is deeply important."Dartmouth will lead national "Internet of Things" security effort. The five-year program is funded by the National Science Foundation to the tune of $10 million, NH Business Review reports, and the college, as lead institution, will receive about half of that. “The technology in the average home today is radically different from even a decade ago and is likely to change even more rapidly in the coming years,” says computer science prof David Kotz, who is lead principal investigator for the project. “Home is a place where people need to feel safe from prying eyes."It just feels like we're in a speculative fiction novel, but for the real thing... The Neukom Institute at Dartmouth just announced the shortlist for its 2020 awards, which honor fiction and plays that act “as gadfly for the good, provocateur and satirist when the sciences overreach, but also far-seeing prophets of scientific potential.” The winners will be decided by spec fic writer Sam J. Miller. Who says, “There’s lots to be angry about, and plenty of reasons for pessimism, but this list is proof that today’s speculative fiction writers can still help us imagine—and create—a better future."
Whites, Greens, is there a difference? Yes, of course there is. And Outside magazine parses it in a "Guide to Hiking the White and Green Mountains" that just went up online. If you want high peaks and vistas, waterfalls, backcountry hiking, easy trails, they've got recommendations.Wait. Now there's a drought? You don't have to be a farmer to notice we've had a pretty rainless summer so far. It's been especially acute in southern NH, which has gotten less than an inch of rain since May 15, making the past month the driest on record there. The state's Dept of Environmental Services says drought conditions may be developing in the southern tier and part of the Lakes Region, and says residents with home wells should start conserving now.Well, at least your flying car can be street-legal. Amid the pile of bills passed by the NH Senate on Tuesday, the Concord Monitor reports, was one adding "roadable aircraft" to existing laws for vehicles, though you won't need a license plate if you've got an FAA number on your tail. Oh, also, you can't take off or land from a road, just an airstrip, unless it's an emergency.There are no houses for sale in NH. Okay, that's not quite true, but the state's inventory of homes for sale is down 40 percent year-over-year, writes NH Business Review's Bob Sanders. "Homes are so scarce that if none came on the market, there would be none for sale in less than two months," he says, though of course that's not going to happen. Still, demand remains steady, which is one reason the median home price in May was up 6.6 percent over a year ago.NH amusement parks, movie theaters, performing arts venues get guidelines for reopening. They'll be able to open their doors, with plenty of restrictions, starting June 29, as will adult day care centers. Links with details at the link."They did something right." That's Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, talking to The Washington Post's Maria Sacchetti about Vermont's coronavirus trajectory. Sacchetti looks at VT's relatively low numbers, despite being so close to states that accounted for a large portion of the country's early cases. Quick state action, a small population—"neighbors are easy to avoid," she writes—and above all the fact that most Vermonters stayed home all contributed. Of course, as the state reopens and visitors arrive...VT Legislature has momentum on policing reforms, but unions want it to slow down. The most likely bill to move forward, reports VTDigger's Alan Keays, would set a statewide standard on use of deadly force, ban chokeholds, and tie state grants to compliance with racial data collection policies. The unions say progress has been too hasty, and have concerns about the chokehold ban and use-of-force policy. Senate President Tim Ashe counters that the time is now for reform efforts and that “the constant can kicking on these issues” needs to end.
Sure, you could sift through those old photos one more time... or you could help identify modern slavery, find missing people, or put a dent in child abuse. Those are just some of the ways people sitting at home during the pandemic are spending their time, writes Frank Swain in the BBC's Future. He details initiatives that are crowdsourcing everything from tracking invasive species in the ocean to naming the uncredited female scientists who appear in historical photos to helping Europol identify objects and locations in images taken from child porn. "What links all of these projects, however, is that they rely on the goodwill of strangers to work toward a common goal," Swain writes.This is pretty much 1 minute and 9 seconds of adrenaline. Donato Sansone is an Italian filmmaker known for his playfulness and visual experimentation. A few weeks ago he put up his latest, a mind-bending ode to the airborne-ness of summer Olympic athletes. It's pretty unforgettable, but maybe don't watch it on your home IMAX.
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ShiftMeals, the expanding Skinny Pancake effort to expand access to land and food for people facing food insecurity, has launched a program that gets you a CSA share in exchange for weeding, seeding, harvesting, fixing and in general working on a farm site. You'll need to commit to up to 8 hours a week for the rest of the growing season. Farms in the program include Niko and Liana Horster's Broad Acres Farm in Vershire.
BarnArts' "Safe-Distance" Race Around the Lake starts today. The race benefits its youth programs, and this year you have until June 28 to do the 5K or 10K run or walk around Silver Lake. Though despite the Tower Road climb, it seems unlikely you're going to need all that time. There's also a virtual version you can do wherever you are.
You could take a cartooning lesson at noon today with Liniers (Ricardo Siri), the Argentine illustrator and artist who teaches Spanish at Dartmouth. He'll take as his subject matter Baker Tower. It's part of the college's "Pre-Union" events for alums, but is open to the general public. You'll want paper and pen/pencil handy.
Hartford's official Juneteenth celebration starts at 6 pm today. It's virtual, with readings, performances, and speakers including former selectboard member Jameson Davis, Rutland NAACP head Tabitha Moore, and Hanover Co-op board president Allene Swienckowski. You can watch via Zoom or on CATV's YouTube channel.
This evening at 7 it's "Songs That Feed the Soul," an online concert hosted by the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, featuring four members of the Negro Ensemble Company New York along with Broadway diva N'Kenge. They'll be featuring songs "that defined certain eras in African American history," from spirituals to Motown.
And at the drive-ins... The Fairlee Drive-In has Sonic the Hedgehog and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, starting at 8:45-ish tonight and tomorrow, while the Bethel Drive-In has Jaws—yeah, the original—tonight, tomorrow and Sunday starting around 9:15.
And the Norwich Inn reopens for dining tonight, mostly out on the patio but there'll be a few tables inside. Full dinner Fri-Sun, reservations required; lighter menu Mon-Thurs, no reservations needed. They'll also be partnering with Dan & Whit's to host food trucks on those weeknights.
Reading Deeper
The Atlantic has been around for 163 years, and it's just put together "How Did We Get Here?", a compendium of the work it's published during that time on race, racism, abolition, the Civil War, segregation, civil rights, policing, economic inequality... You'll find links to writing that, as editor Gillian White puts it, "have improved the broad understanding of injustice in America, and also works that furthered ideas and theories that ultimately were proved wrong or harmful." Some of these have re-oriented the way America thinks: Frederick Douglass on Reconstruction, Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," Jonathan Kozol's "Death at an Early Age," George Kelling and James Q. Wilson's "Broken Windows," but there's an entire summer's worth of compelling reading in here about the span of American history from 1857 to right now.
You may remember that the last production Northern Stage ever did at the Briggs was Jason Robert Brown's
Songs for a New World
. Several of its songs have become musical theater/piano bar mainstays, including the opening anthem, "The New World."
conceived and directed by actor Jimmy Larkin and starring an entire Broadway show's worth of Broadway, Off-Broadway and otherwise talented singers, dancers, and musicians.
(Thanks, CC!)
Have a fine weekend. See you Tuesday.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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