Daybreak Thursday 1/23/20

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Mostly sunny, warmer. Still a cold start to the day, but into the high 30s by early afternoon. Some clouds will start rolling in, but nothing to fret about. And as reader Tom Roberts points out for a little bit of inspiration: With the winter solstice now a month and a day behind us, we've got 10 months ahead of days that will have more light than yesterday did. And as you'll remember, yesterday felt pretty darn nice.  Feds say Elaine Brown shouldn't be released. Brown, now 78, is up for re-sentencing on Jan. 31 after one charge stemming from the 2007 armed standoff in Plainfield she and her husband waged against federal agents was vacated last year after a US Supreme Court decision. Last week, Elaine Brown's lawyer said she regretted the whole thing, and plans to divorce. Federal prosecutors retort that Brown and her co-conspirators “armed themselves to the teeth and engaged in violent threats against the marshals.”19 Days snagged almost $382K for the Haven in December. Dan Fraser of Dan & Whit's, who organizes the annual fundraiser, writes in with the news that the community-based effort collected 20,660 pounds of food, $231,915.00 in donations, plus $150,000 in matching funds from the Byrne Foundation, for a 2019 total of $381,915.00 from individuals and the roughly 60-70 Upper Valley businesses and restaurants that participated. Over the seven years the 19 Days has been running, it's raised $1.6 million. You go, Upper Valley!Woodstock has a new municipal manager. William H. Kerbin Jr., the manager of Onancock, VA, will take over on March 25. Kerbin replaces interim manager Frank Heald, who took over in August after the death from leukemia of Phil Swanson, who'd presided over Woodstock for 34 years. (VN)Woodstock also has a new t-shirt business. Vermont may have a lot of great things going for it, local entrepreneur Mark Scully tells writer Virginia Dean in Mountain Times, but it lacks "a great t-shirt company – one that offers premium t-shirts adorned with original designs created by Vermont artists." So Scully, a refugee from Boston-area corporate life, has pulled together a group of artists from around the state and launched Vermont Eclectic Company, producing t-shirts with whimsical, VT-focused designs.Enfield food scene continues to grow. Doug Langevin, the chef/owner of The Bistro Nouveau in Eastman, is working on a new spot called Kitchen 56, which will open in April at 56 Main Street, just down from Shaker Bridge Theater. The menu, he writes on FB, "will have a mix of comfort foods as well as Chef Doug's spin on a few American classics."Meanwhile, Jewel of India needs to find new digs by June. Dartblog's Ishaan Jajodia has a few additional details. The building is due to be renovated, so the restaurant  — which has been there since 1992 — has to be out once its lease ends in June. An interesting few days of presidential campaigning ahead. 

Meanwhile, with the US Senate tied up on other business, surrogates are headed this way: 

An interview with our very own local presidential candidate. Bill Murphy, who's been teaching social studies at Hanover High since 1961, (so to a good number of you, he's Mr. Murphy, please) threw his hat in the ring back in November. "It’s not enough to sit. It’s not enough to think about something or other. You need to have some core values that you will stand up for and be identified with,” he said at the time. Now, HHS students have hosted and edited a CATV interview, which airs today and tomorrow, but you can just see it on your own schedule at the link. So just how did the VT-NH line in the Connecticut River get established? If you've lived here any amount of time, you have a vague sense that it's by the Vermont side. In fact, writes Seven Days' Ken Picard, it's at the low-water line on the western side of the river. That's thanks, ultimately, to the Supreme Court's 1933 decision in Vermont v. New Hampshire. Picard enlists retired Dartmouth history prof Jere Daniell and VLS prof Jared Carter to explain.You don't see this very often: NH officials are warning of poor air quality through Saturday. Still air and wood-burning heating devices are to blame. It'll be worst in valleys, and should clear up once winds return.That coyote was rabid, but that's unusual. NH Fish & Game officials confirmed that the coyote choked by the father of a family out for a walk in Exeter after it attacked his son was carrying the disease. But on his Granite Geek blog, the Monitor's David Brooks notes that bats, raccoons, and skunks (in the Midwest) are common carriers, but coyotes are not. Despite this, local officials worry there are more infected coyotes around Exeter.Springfield prison will participate in national prison-reform study. Vermont is one of five states chosen by the DC-based Urban Institute as part of a study designed to help policy makers make correctional facilities more “humane, safe and rehabilitative,” VTDigger reports. The research will take place at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, the state's largest prison. “[This] is a great opportunity for Vermont to work on prison reform efforts, benefiting from a learning community of experts across the country,” says Abigail Crocker, a research assistant/professor of statistics at UVM.VT House, Senate come to terms on minimum wage bill. The measure would raise the wage from its current $10.96 to $12.55 in 2022. That's less than the Senate hoped for last year, when it passed a measure raising the minimum to $15/hour by 2024. But the House didn't go along, and state Sen. Alison Clarkson of Windsor says this more modest step has a better chance this year. "In two years," she says, "hopefully we can impress upon our colleagues the need to move toward a livable wage and not just a false minimum wage,” "I can't think of a more natural gas." That's Vermont Energy Investment Corporation (VEIC) Cow Fart Manager Wynn Breaker. With the last wind energy project being developed in Vermont calling it quits (it was on a dairy farm up in Holland), The Winooski reports on efforts to harness methane from the state's abundant bovine population. "Why don’t we build better refineries here in Vermont, and use the naturally produced methane from our local flatulent cows to create renewable energy?” asks Breaker.If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:

SO, HOW ABOUT THIS EVENING?

Because you could go learn about ice fishing.

NH Fish & Game is teaching two classes on the basics. Tonight's at the Kilton in old W. Leb, where you'll get knot tying, rigging, fish identification, ice safety, and rules & regs. Then, on Saturday, you'll go out on the ice and actually do it. Both classes required, and

ACT NOW

because as of this morning there's only one spot left. Starts at 5:30. 

Or about ash trees.

There are about 150 million of them in Vermont alone, and they account for 5 percent of the state's trees. And, with the arrival of the emerald ash borer, they're toast: There's no known way of stopping its spread. Tonight in Ascutney, Jim Esden, the state's protection forester, will talk about how to identify the destructive little buggers and strategies for dealing with them. If you're a landowner or a town official worried about the implications, this is a good bet. Weathersfield Town Hall, 7 pm.

Meanwhile, Howard Coffin will be in Chelsea talking about "Vermont women and the Civil War."

Coffin, the author and historian of Vermont's role in the war, will look at the central role played by the women who stayed behind (though at least one seems to have enlisted): They took responsibility for 30,000 farms, worked in factories, made goods that soldiers needed, edited anti-slavery publications, served in military hospitals, and took to the hustings to agitate against slavery. Chelsea Town Hall, 7 pm.

And the Kronos Quartet will be at the Hop.

Hard to believe, but the storied SF-based quartet has been around for coming up on half a century, celebrated for its experimentation and groundbreaking approach to what a string quartet can be. Over the years, it's worked closely with the composer Terry Riley, and tonight Riley, the Quartet, and Riley's son, guitarist Gyan Riley, dig into that repertoire. 7:30 pm in Spaulding, and somewhat surprisingly, there are still tickets left.

Or if you feel like being out later and venturing even farther from the mainstream...

Avant-jazz trio SoundNoiseFUNK3 (the name's descriptive) will be at the Jazz Lounge at the Top of the Hop, improvising along with Dartmouth's Coast Jazz Orchestra and the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra. The trio is led by Fay Victor, a "vocal colossus [who] has been performing otherworldly acrobatics with her pipes" (

JazzTimes

) for decades now. Free, starts at 9.

Okay, sure, since you asked. Here's Kronos

See you tomorrow.

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

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