GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
A cold rain, tapering off west to east. Unless you're right up by the international border, in which case it's a warm—or at least, wet—snow. Regardless, there's low pressure sliding by to the south, and showers should end in the afternoon. Highs only in the mid or upper 40s, and with clearing skies tonight, it looks like we'll be below freezing by early tomorrow morning.On a day like today, we need some color. Which, thankfully, Janice Fischel sends along: a tree (and flowers) by the Howe in Hanover, in radiant fall glory.And we could use some thoughts of snow, too. Even if it doesn't fall from the sky. Here's something you may not have thought about: It's more complex to create snowmaking for cross-country ski trails than for alpine trails: more twists and turns, and more ups and downs. That's one of the things the Valley News's Liz Sauchelli learned on a tour of Hanover's Oak Hill Ski Area, where construction is winding down on the first phase of a $5.5 million renovation project that includes not just snowmaking—"it is the future," says designer Tom Wells—but more trails for beginners. Sauchelli gives a preview.Hanover police arrest two Dartmouth protesters at college's request. Early Saturday morning, shortly after midnight, officers arrested the two students on trespassing charges; on Friday, they'd set up a tent in front of the administration building as part of a call for the college to adhere to a list of demands, including divsting from organizations doing business in Israel and providing reparations to Native Americans. In a campus letter Saturday, President Sian Beilock wrote that "the situation changed when two students … threatened in writing to ‘escalate and take further action,’ including ‘physical action,’ if their demands were not met," write Taylor Haber and Charlotte Hampton in The Dartmouth.Wondering what all those trailers are doing behind a wall at the I-91 North Hartford rest area? So did the VN's Jim Kenyon. He dropped by unannounced the other day to check them out, only to be stopped. “Do not get out of your vehicle. You need to leave immediately,” a federal official ordered. “This is FEMA property.” Though there's rampant speculation of all sorts on social media, the feds' explanation is that the trailers are for Vermonters displaced by floods, and the wall is "for safety," a FEMA official says. Kenyon got permission to see the site—but not to go inside any of the trailers.At New Hampshire Hospital, Dartmouth prof's substance use screening tool gets a real-world workout. The challenge, says Corneliu Stanciu, who both teaches at Geisel and directs addiction services at the state psychiatric hospital, is that people being admitted to the hospital with acute psychiatric issues aren't always in a condition to talk about substance use; the tool he developed, writes Hadley Barndollar in NH Bulletin, pulls from medical records, blood tests, prior involvement with law enforcement, and other indicators to help doctors decide if they need a multi-pronged approach to treatment.In VT, another body is found in the woods. It happened on Friday, when a couple and their son found what turned out to be the body of a 42-year-old Barre man on their property in Plainfield. An autopsy yesterday determined he'd died of a gunshot wound, state police say. The discovery follows similar instances last week in Eden and Washington, and is the seventh suspicious death in the state in October. “As far as we can tell, they are all isolated incidents with no corresponding trend that we can identify at this point,” says VSP head Matthew Birmingham. VTDigger's Diane Derby details the cases.VT explores what it would take to help townspeople envision creating denser housing themselves. The state project, which is being tried in five municipalities, is designed to tackle the housing crisis by identifying "nooks and crannies where residents and small developers could build new housing," writes Emma Cotton in VTDigger. It's worked with a Boston firm to show, block by block, where new housing—from single add-on units to four-unit apartments—could go in traditional downtowns. “It’s local people deciding that they would like to maybe develop further on their own lots," says a state planner.WindowDressers: Inefficiency that warms people and the community. What started in ME has spread to VT and now has a foothold in NH, with people getting together to build window inserts designed to keep houses warm in winter. Norwich/Hanover and Hartford have happened, Woodstock's is under way, and Bethel, Bradford, and New London are coming up. On his Granite Geek blog, David Brooks describes why he likes the effort: While "gathering volunteers to do something is no way to 'scale' an operation...the modern world is making me think that we’ve got to stop thinking that efficiency is always a good thing. More often than not it results in some sort of dehumanizing change that takes the fun out of life, increases the gap between haves and have-nots, and generates a world with 'more' but not better.'”The Monday Vordle. With a word from Friday's Daybreak.
Heads Up
At 7 this evening, the Newbury Library and the Center Meeting House in Newbury NH host an NH Humanities talk on the Smuttynose Island murders of 1873 by Portsmouth-based writer J. Dennis Robinson. Robinson argues that the long-established narrative about the deaths of two Norwegian women on the Isle of Shoals isn't actually what happened. The Center adds two advisories: the evening's not for kids; and the building's not heated, so dress warmly.
This evening at 7:15, Dartmouth's Dickey Center and various Dartmouth programs host "Hope Interrupted in Israel/Palestine: The View from a Vacant Lot." For some time, Carleton University political scientist Mira Sucharov, a former columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and University of the Pacific law prof Omar Dajani have been collaborating to explore the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in personal terms, through the lens of a vacant lot in Jaffa—now part of Tel Aviv—where Dajani's ancestral home once stood. "Recent devastating events have challenged their assumptions and emphasized the urgency of understanding," Dickey Events writes. In-person in the Loew Auditorium and livestreamed.
No music today. Back with it on Wednesday.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: Jonea Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Michael
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