Daybreak Thursday

NICE TO SEE YOU, UPPER VALLEY!

Looks like rain today, snow tonight. There's a polar front drooping down from the north and moisture headed our way from the south. This is producing light snow to our west and north, but here it'll be rain when the weather gets here, which probably won't be until this afternoon. It's already above freezing in plenty of spots, and temps will be getting into the high 30s or low 40s. Tonight, temps drop and so, probably, will some flakes. Break out the scarf tomorrow...Well, that's a Veterans Day observance to remember. Phil Vietje flies Black Hawk helicopters for the VT National Guard on medical evacuation missions. Yesterday, 20 years after graduating from Thetford Academy, he and his team flew in in a Black Hawk, circled the athletic fields, and set it down at the finish line of the cross-country course. “The kids were sort of excited to hear he was coming, but it was one of those things where you don’t quite believe it until you see it,” elementary school teacher Ben LaRoche told the VN's David Corriveau.Ready or not, here they come!

No, Dartmouth's not looking for oil... The college announced yesterday that well-drilling rigs will appear soon on the Green and in Dewey Field parking lot as it tests the suitability of "geoexchange" heating and cooling systems. If the tests pan out, wells beneath the Green could handle most of the Rauner Library's needs, and a 300-well system below the Dewey Field lot could "provide 50 to 80 percent of the cooling and 15 to 30 percent of the heating for the entire campus."Perhaps she wants to rephrase that? NH House Speaker Steve Shurtleff has suspended Democratic Rep. Tamara Le from the House Education Committee for a Facebook post in which she — cover your ears — wrote "fuck private and religious schools." She was calling them out for lacking anti-discrimination polices to protect students with disabilities, but Republicans complained. It was, Le admits, a "bad choice of words."NH House committee wants to repeal Medicaid work requirement. Expect a lot more maneuvering on this. As you may remember, the state wants to require about 25,000 beneficiaries to work at least 100 hours each month or risk losing their health insurance; a federal judge has ordered a halt to its implementation. Now the Health and Human Services Committee is proposing getting rid of the requirement altogether. Even if the legislature passes a repeal, though, it's unlikely to get past Gov. Chris Sununu.Boy, that's a lot of birds in a hurry... A woman over in Lee, NH (not far from Durham) managed to catch video of a huge flock of migrating red-winged blackbirds and uploaded it to WMUR. The "challenges and joys of living in Vermont." In case you didn't make it to the Chandler last week for "Rural Stories on Stage," VT PBS has the video. Five central Vermonters — Randolph's Morgan Easton; Chelsea's Will Gilman (you may have stopped by his store); Ray Hull, who grew up in Reading and moved back from Michigan to take over the family farm; Sharon Academy's Amber Wylie; and Bill McGrath, president of Randolph's LEDdynamics — tell their stories and talk things over with VPR's Jane Lindholm.Marlboro College ponders closing, shifting programs, profs and students to Boston's Emerson College. The two colleges announced yesterday that they're exploring a "merger," due to be finalized next July. Marlboro would close its campus after this academic year, give its $10 million-worth of landholdings and $30 million endowment to Emerson, and live on in name as a liberal arts program in Boston. Current students would finish up at Emerson, and tenured faculty could teach there."Safety, Sportsmanship, Fun.” That was the mission statement seven guys in Middlebury wrote down on a notepad a dozen years ago, as they set out to keep football from dying as a sport in Vermont. Now The Washington Post is up with a story about how the flag football league they created has become a model for youth football in the state.Um, yes, well, um... Over the weekend, the NYPD announced proudly that it had seized a 106-pound marijuana shipment from a farm in New Haven, Vermont. The shipment was from GreenAngels CBD, and the police arrested the owner's brother when he showed up to claim it on Saturday. The problem? It was hemp, tested and documented to contain legal levels of THC. The firm's out $30,000 at the moment. “I want it back. It’s 100 percent legal," GreenAngels' Oren Levy told the New York Post.Ben & Jerry's cows sue for stronger wifi. Already dealing with a class-action lawsuit for its "happy cow" marketing, Ben & Jerry's now faces a suit from the cows in question, who contend that wifi in their barn is too weak to allow them to watch Netflix and Hulu while they're being milked. “The cows were afraid to say anything before,” attorney Dexter Shorthorn says, “but with the lawsuit against their employers, and all of this evidence coming to light, they felt they couldn’t hold their tongues any longer.” Okay, yeah, it's satire: The Winooski.

If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:

SO MUCH TO DO, SO LITTLE TIME!

For instance, the Parish Players' Ten-Minute Play Festival kicks off tonight.

 This is the 14th year the Thetford theater ensemble has put on its highly popular festival. This year's features a passel of local actors and directors and seven plays, including one by local film actor and producer Faith Catlin. They're mostly comedies — a dog therapist, an unusual take on DNR, what could go wrong with an AI-enabled digital home assistant... At 7:30, runs this weekend and next.

Meanwhile, A book report on Peter Rabbit, Pe-e-eter Rabbit, Pe-e-eter Raa-aaa-aaa-aaa...abit!

 Sorry, got carried away.

You're a Good Man Charlie Brown (Revised),

an updated version of the classic 1967 musical, will be at ArtisTree's Grange Theater in Pomfret. Two new songs have been added to the original dozen. Runs just this weekend, starting tonight at 7:30.

And if that's not enough theater for you, Hanover High's Footlighters are launching Two Gentlemen of Verona

. Onstage band, a dozen '80s-era hit songs... this is not your great-great-great-great groundling's

Two Gentlemen

. “The show is about young people leaving home for the first time, and all of the discoveries that they make and all the mistakes they make,” director Amanda Rafuse told the VN a bit ago. “It made me think of John Hughes’ films, as a child of the ’80s.” Tonight, tomorrow and Saturday at 7.

But wait! You might also want to catch Infinitus in Lebanon

. This is a seriously talented beatboxing string trio from Vancouver. Steeped in classical but verging into jazz and hiphop, there's pretty much nothing they can't do. Tonight's the culmination of a four-day residency, and among other things they'll be performing a “remix” of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto and collaborating with Upper Valley Music Center students. At the First Congregational Church at 7. Oh, and

.

And you definitely need to know about one more: Climbing PoeTree is at the Engine Room in WRJ.

The Brooklyn-based spoken-word (and dance and music and multimedia) duo of Alixa Garcia and Naima Penniman have traveled the world with their vision of art speaking on behalf of change. They rocked a sold-out Engine Room last year. Sponsored by the Center for Transformational Practice. Doors open at 7, show at 8, food and drink available at the bar from start to finish. Here they are

at TEDWomen a year ago

.

I think we need to close out with a little Linus:

In examining a work such as

Peter Rabbit

, it is important that the superficial characteristics of its deceptively simple plot should not be allowed to blind the reader to the more substantial fabric of its deeper motivations. In this report I plan to discuss the sociological implications of family pressures

so great

 as to drive an otherwise moral rabbit to perform acts of thievery which he consciously knew were against the law. I also hope to explore the personality of Mr. MacGregor in his conflicting roles as farmer and humanitarian.

See you tomorrow.

Daybreak is written and published by Rob Gurwitt                     Banner by Tom HaushalterAbout Rob                                                                                   About Tom

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