THANKS FOR DROPPING BY, FRIDAY!
Low moving out, high moving in... The result will be a pretty great day, mostly sunny, getting less humid as the day wears on. Temps only getting into the lower 80s, winds from the northwest. Down to around 60 tonight. And tomorrow's supposed to be even nicer!Bee meets flower. Lisa Lacasse was out kayaking at Hartland Dam a couple of weeks ago when she came on a batch of wildflowers that were obviously a hit with the local bees. Here's one of them plying its trade. No, that's not Oz. It's a double rainbow in Lyme yesterday evening—Rosie Keith caught it along Route 10. And if you're a member of the Upper Valley VT/NH group on FB, there were a bunch of stormy-sky photos posted last night (scroll down).
Last numbers for the week...
NH added 33 new positive test results yesterday, bringing its official total to 6,544. It reported 4 new deaths, bringing that total to 415. There are now 5,722 official recoveries (87%), and 407 current cases. Grafton County remains at 103 cumulative cases and Sullivan at 38. Merrimack added 4 cases, and is now at 456. There are between 1 and 4 active cases reported in Lebanon, Grantham, Claremont, and Charlestown, and New London has rejoined that cohort.
VT again added 1 new case yesterday (in Windsor County), bringing its total to 1,407. It also reported 1 new death, the first since June 18, putting that total at 57. One person is hospitalized. Windsor County now stands at 70 total cases; Orange County remains at 15. The state reports 840 people tested on Wednesday.
Eyesore bites the dust. You know that dilapidated (a word that's not remotely adequate) old house on Route 10 across from Campion Rink that you've driven past countless times and wondered why it was still standing? It's not any more. Back in January, Lebanon officials ordered owner William "Misha" Rosoff to demolish it. This week, it happened. Reader JC was driving by on Tuesday and caught the action, writing, "As someone who has lived in Hanover for nearly 30 years, this comes close to watching the old hospital implode!!!"Dartmouth Coach hopes to resume in August. But it's complicated. Along with its corporate sibling, Concord Coach Lines, it's waiting to hear whether the state will release $4 million in federal relief funds to help them resume service, the VN's John Lippman reports. In addition, there are other state approvals and guidelines to meet—and, at the moment, 52 of the company’s 55 employees have been furloughed or laid off. When service does resume, buses will roll to NYC only twice a week, and to Boston six times a day."There is just us, not us and them." Niko Horster moderates the sprawling Upper Valley Listserv, with some 9,100 subscribers—some of whom have taken to opinionizing in these charged times. Horster's had enough. "If you re-post an article from the internet without explanation on how and why the content is relevant to the Upper Valley we live in, if you post an attack on a person, if you try to educate others on the list...by shaming, lecturing, exhorting or bullying (this list is not exhaustive), THEN you will be blacklisted for two weeks..." he told subscribers (to much applause) on Wednesday. Full post at the link.PPP loans kept almost 2,000 jobs at 165 businesses in Hanover. The Dartmouth's Lorraine Liu takes a thorough look at the impact of the federal relief program on Hanover's business community, based on the SBA's recent dataset and interviews with business owners. The consensus: it made a huge difference, and Mascoma and Ledyard banks were crucial. There's also great unease about the future, though Still North Books' Allie Levy says, “So far we have seen that [it’s] the community...support that has sustained sales. That is really what's going to get us through, more so than the loan.”So, what's going on on Mt. Cardigan? If you've hiked it recently, you may have noticed half-eaten leaves in the canopy—and the sound of chewing above your head. Dorothy Heinrichs, a trustee of the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation, got curious, and she and HBRF's Anthea Lavallee checked in with Dartmouth bio prof Matt Ayres. The answer: a group of caterpillars known as Notodontidae. "This is not an 'epidemic' or anything bad," he writes. "It is the natural fluctuations of the forest community." More, plus photos, at the link. Obviously a case of gubernatorial racetrack envy! Gov. Chris Sununu is slated to take on NH Lottery director Charlie McIntyre in a school-bus race at the Epping drag strip tomorrow night. The event's a public-relations booster for the lottery's role in funding education in the state. On the other side of the river, of course, VT Gov. Phil Scott is known for his stock-car exploits at Thunder Road in Barre.No NH guidelines on alerting public to Covid cases at restaurants. Staffers at the Derryfield Restaurant in Manchester only found out that an employee had tested positive when they were notified by contact tracers to get tests themselves. Other places have taken to Facebook to alert patrons. With no protocols, reports Manchester Ink Link's Carol Robidoux, some restaurants are relying on the state health department to handle notifications, but in a statement, the department says it's up to the "private entity." VT Department of Taxes warns about potential data breach. Turns out that for three years, people who filed a property tax transfer return online "were vulnerable due to information included in public land records that could have been used to access other forms with personal information, including Social Security numbers," VTDigger reports. The department learned about the flaw July 2, and has since fixed it, but does not know whether any of the 71,000 people who filed returns since 2017 had their data compromised.Imagine if it was your doc standing up at the podium explaining Covid to the state every few days. For 23 years, Mark Levine was Paula Routly's physician, which gives her unusual insight into VT's current health commissioner. Routly's the co-publisher of Seven Days, and after four months of prodding, she got Levine to call her back for an in-depth profile: his background, his geekiness, his reluctance to simplify the complexities of either the disease or how it's being handled. "In one sense, it's an incredible honor to be presiding over a once-in-a-century event like a pandemic," he tells her. "But on the other hand, is this what I really signed up for? My gosh."
Six VT inmates returning from privately run Mississippi prison test positive. They were transferred from the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, MS to Rutland's Marble Valley facility, where they were isolated and tested. “What we hope is that the Vermont model of mitigation works in this situation,” James Baker, interim corrections commissioner, said in a statement. In all, Vermont now has 219 prisoners at the Mississippi prison, VTDigger's Alan J. Keays reports.“These cows as well cared for as any animals in Vermont, maybe any animals in the country." Those would be UVM's roughly 100 dairy cows, who didn't really care whether or not the campus was shut down and all students sent home during the pandemic. When that happened, the herd manager was inundated with messages from anxious students and alums volunteering to take care of them. Only seven were needed, and they've been stalwarts, rising at 3:30 am to milk, cleaning stalls, helping with births. “They have really, really shined in every single way possible and I am, I will never forget them,” he says.Rainbow hummingbirds. Photographer Christian Spencer, whose 2011 film of black Jacobin hummingbirds in Brazil won a series of awards, decided a few years later to use a still camera to capture the phenomenon that had first caught his attention: the birds' wings refract sunlight to create a prism. The result is a reminder of how much jaw-dropping beauty there is that we rarely get to see.Or hear, for that matter. Imagine what this would have been like around 7 yesterday evening! Experimental musical artist Nina Keith built what she's been told is a rain metallophone. Whatever. You could just loop this and carry it around as your daylong personal soundtrack. News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:
At 4 pm today, Northern Stage's "Play Date" continues with Samuel Beckett's Endgame. The company has been trying to produce it for years with Gordon Clapp (NYPD Blue, Robert Frost: This Verse Business) and David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck, any John Sayles movie you've admired) directed by Neal Huff, to no avail. So today, instead, they've got the three of them talking about the play. Call the box office ((802) 296-7000) to register if you haven't already.
At 5, Graziella Parati, who teaches Italian language and literature as well as Comp Lit at Dartmouth, will be discussing what fascism actually is, its history, and its roots in Italy in the early twentieth century, hosted by NH Humanities. Register at the link.
Pentangle Arts' Down By The River concert tonight features Interplay Jazz doing jazz, blues, and swing—with a twist: Founder Fred Haas' daughter Samantha will be joining co-founder Sabrina Brown on vocals, along David Westphalen's daughter Elizabeth! (who'll also be on trombone). Billy Rosen, and Tim Gilmore fill out the septet. Starts at 5:30, reservations are required (at the link).
And, of course, darkness lights up the drive-in screens. Raiders of the Lost Ark in Bethel, and a memorable double-bill—Grease and Dirty Dancing—at Fairlee.
Finally, starting tomorrow, the NH Craftsmen's Fair goes online for the first time ever. The League of NH Craftsmen's been holding it for 87 years, more than 50 of them at the Mt. Sunapee Resort in Newbury. This year, though, you can shop, do studio tours, watch demonstrations, take classes, and catch musical performances all online. (Thanks, CP!)
Reading Deeper
As far back as March, UNC-Chapel Hill prof and
Atlantic
writer Zeynep Tufekci was warning about the importance of widespread mask-wearing. Until the pandemic, she was best known for her work on the sociology of emerging technologies, but since then she's become one of the more clear-eyed advocates for basing pandemic responses on what the science actually tells us—she's been hammering the press, for instance, for "beach-shaming" when there's scant evidence that Covid is passed along outdoors.
looking at the accumulating evidence that Covid is passed along via the air, and arguing that this should change how we handle protocols: mandate masks indoors but not necessarily outdoors; make sure that the person
speaking to
a roomful of listeners is wearing a mask (not the other way around); and get serious about indoor ventilation, especially in classrooms.
Let's go into the weekend on a high note: The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band from Beanblossom, Indiana,
with video snippets in perfect rhythm submitted by fans, friends, and family.
The darker the nightThe brighter the lightYou can't steal my shine.
See you Monday.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to hit the blue "Subscribe" button below. And thanks! And hey, if you're that friend? So nice to see you! You can subscribe at:
Thank you!