Daybreak Monday 4/25/22

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Partly sunny, warm. Nice day out there! There's high pressure overhead and warm air wafting in on southerly breezes. We're expected to get into the mid-60s by this afternoon (mid-70s west of the Greens, by the way). But—because there's always a but—there's weather moving gradually our way from the west, and we may see some rain overnight. Mid-40s tonight.Sometimes rainbows can be so considerate. Like, when you can see from one end to the other, as happened with the bottom arc of this double rainbow on Lake Morey Friday morning right in front of Alisa Brisson.It's road construction season! And every Monday, VTrans has a rundown of what's ahead for the coming week. There's bridge work on I-89 in Sharon—and, of course, over the CT River. Lane closures on I-91 around Bradford and bridge work between Fairlee and St. J. Also: resurfacing on VT 113 between Chelsea and Thetford, and milling and paving on Route 4 in Hartford. And here's a map of projects in NH and VT (and ME, for that matter).Valley News wins NH Supreme Court right-to-know case. On Friday, all five justices upheld a lower court ruling that an investigative report on alleged misconduct by then-Canaan police officer Samuel Provenza should be made public. Provenza had sought to keep under wraps the report on allegations by Canaan resident Crystal Wright that he'd used unnecessary force during a 2017 traffic stop. "We conclude that Provenza's privacy interest here is not weighty," the court wrote. Jim Kenyon, who filed the first right-to-know request, approves and summarizes the case and his takeaways.Woodstock's on-farm restaurant debate gets even fiercer. Last week, the town reached an agreement with Peace Field Farm, which wants to build a restaurant on its property, in which it said in essence that it supports the idea. That agreement is here. In the meantime, the selectboard last week began hearings on a petition by residents, opposed by the planning commission, aimed at making it easier for similar on-farm restaurants to set up. And that, in turn, on Friday prompted the resignation of planning commission chair Sally Miller, reports VTDigger's Ethan Weinstein. He walks us through the fracas.JAG grows. It began as a one-man staff, with Jarvis Antonio Green handling pretty much everything. But the Upper Valley-born "incubator for Black, Brown, Queer, and Trans artists" has been gaining steam, and Friday it announced its first full-time managing director: Jason Schumacher, who has been running ZFX Flying Effects, which creates flying effects for theatrical and other events (his credits include Wicked and Pippin on Broadway, and SNL).More on LockNLube's purchase of the Valley News building. The VN's John Lippman covers the acquisition with a brief history of LockNLube (founded in Lyme in 2013 by Russell Barnes, who was looking for a better way to grease his logging equipment, bought five years ago by Jay Boren) and more on the newspaper's plans. With its presses gone it doesn't need all that space and will move its newsroom and offices to the second floor. “It’s certainly easier to move a floor up than it is to another building,” publisher Dan McClory tells Lippman."Find at least 20 used electric rice cookers." That, writes Charlotte Albright for Dartmouth News, is step one of the directions for creating a multi-media installation in which rice cookers produce music. Trevor Van de Velde, a grad student in "Digital Musics" at Dartmouth, has done just that, using Arduino (an electronics platform) to hack rice cookers to create sounds and emit light—and then has asked the New-York-based piano duo Chromic Duo to perform. On rice cooker. This coming Saturday. "And he’ll also dish out the cooked rice at the end of the performance," Albright writes."Before you get to the differences, there are first and foremost faces, beautiful in their unmasked glory and individual expression." There's an exhibition just off the rotunda on the main floor of DHMC, The New Faces of Genetics and Beyond, that Susan Apel recommends you go see. It's a set of photographs by Rick Guidotti of people with Down's, albinism, and other genetic differences that in one way or another set them apart. "I found myself looking at Rick Guidotti’s photographs and wondering about the very definition of disability," Susan writes.Fortunately for beavers, Great Blue Herons can't carry logs. But pretty much anything smaller is fair game, and this is nesting season, writes Mary Holland on her Naturally Curious blog. They nest in colonies—up to 500 nests might show up  "in dead snags and trees bordering or in swamps, ponds and woodlands." And shortly after she posted that, she happened upon a heron "with an extremely efficient and energy-saving strategy for accomplishing this task": pillaging a beaver lodge just below its nesting tree.The "bottle herd." That's what researcher Nichole Price, in E. Boothbay, ME, calls the lab's-worth of fake cow stomachs—in reality, vials filled with the fluid from cows' stomachs—in which she and her team are testing seaweeds native to the Northeast to see if any can cut down on the methane cows produce when they burp. Cattle, reports WBUR's Walter Wuthmann (via NHPR) are a prodigious methane emitter, the second largest source in the US, according to UNH researcher Andre Brito.“He built his reputation up brick by brick, like the foundation on a house.” You may have read over the weekend about the passing of WMUR political reporter John DiStaso, a giant in the state's press corps. Deeply competitive, deeply knowledgeable—and, a lot of colleagues remember, deeply generous even with competitors. In the Union Leader, where DiStaso began his Granite State career, Josie Albertson-Grove reviews his legacy.As pandemic funding disappears, VT food groups cut back on meals. The influx of federal cash helped them ramp up food for people in need: Meals on Wheels, school meals programs, and other services. But now, reports VPR's Peter Hirschfeld, those various benefits have disappeared and prices are rising and those providers aren't sure how to keep things going. Legislators are considering a one-time boost for the school meals program, but so far have resisted help for the VT Food Bank.Norwich University hazing probe yields criminal charges. It all stems from a report of hazing on the women's rugby team, in which several team members were held down and allegedly branded and waterboarded, as one Northfield police officer described it. In all, six students were issued "hazing tickets" and three of those were given criminal citations for simple assault and/or reckless endangerment, reports VTDigger's Alan J. Keays."I get offers, like, 'Come out to Seattle and you can live in our basement, Mom...' And I'm like, 'I don't want to live in a basement in Seattle.'” Instead, a lot of older Vermonters want to stay in their homes as they age, but when you're on a fixed income it can be tough. So for the latest episode of VPR's Brave Little State, Nina Keck offers tips and insights. VT, for instance, is one of 13 states that tax Social Security; she talks ins and outs with VPR's Bob Kinzel. And explores "dialing down wants" with W. Hartford's Sonja Hakala. Plus documents you need, costs, where to get advice, and plenty more.Measure once, drill twice. Or, really, six times, if you've got curious dogs and a big fence.

Heads Up

Just one of the great songs and great, wistful performances: Leonard Cohen, live in London in 2008, with "Tower Of Song." It's kind of like Lear: Only elder statesmen get to sing it, and Willie Nelson's just released a cover, so you can compare and contrast. Me, I go for the original.See you tomorrow.

Written and published by Rob Gurwitt   Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter   Poetry editor: Michael Lipson  About Rob                                                    About Tom                                 About Michael

If you like Daybreak and would like to help it keep going and evolve, please hit the "Support" button below and I'll tell you more:

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!