GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
The head spins. Okay, so yesterday it was cloudy as a warm front moved into the region, bringing us moderate overnight temps and today's highs in the upper 50s. That's lifting northward today, though, and a cold front is moving in from the west... bringing us mostly cloudy skies and a chance of rain this afternoon rising to a certainty by evening (with a slight chance of snow mixed in for good measure toward daybreak tomorrow). Winds from the south today.And while we're talking about the skies... As you may know, the longest partial lunar eclipse of the century—in fact, in several centuries—is taking place in the early morning hours tonight/tomorrow. Given tonight's weather, it's fair to say that the view is likely to be less than optimal when it begins around 2:20 am. But the forecast shows that clouds may be parting right around the time of greatest eclipse (4:03 am), so hey, if you're up...The views around us... No particular theme, just some striking shots of everyday views we should never take for granted.
Looking north the other afternoon from the Lyman Bridge between WRJ and West Leb, from Patricia Corrigan;
The early morning light on Killington, from Bridgewater, just as the sun snuck through the clouds, from Bob Wagner;
And the view toward Mt. Ascutney from the Cornish side of the Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge, from Kris Garnjost.
One dead, one in hospital after "altercation" in Weathersfield. VT State Police report that after responding to a call in the town yesterday afternoon, they found one man "deceased at the scene" and another with serious injuries; he was taken to DHMC. They have not released names, and write in a press release last night, "There is no search for a suspect and no indication of a danger to the public." The investigation is in its early stages, and is getting help from police departments in Chester, Springfield and Weathersfield.Boards in Norwich, Thetford, Strafford, and Sharon all oppose new redistricting plan. As you'll remember, VT's Legislative Apportionment Board wants to split the current House district joining the four towns into two—and divide Norwich between the two districts. On his Norwich Observer blog, Chris Katucki writes that the boards of civil authority in all four towns have come out against the idea. The consensus was summed up by Norwich's Linda Gray at a joint meeting of board reps Nov. 8: that the current plan is preferable "because it is relatively compact and there is affinity among the four towns."SPONSORED: Enriching home-share opportunity for a part-time care provider. A young man with Down syndrome is seeking a reliable, compassionate, and companionable part-time care provider from Saturday through Tuesday in Wilder, Vermont. This young man works throughout the week; weekday shifts will start in the morning and resume in the afternoon through the evening. (Approximately 25 hours a week.) The ideal candidate is excited to foster a friendship and provide supervision while working collaboratively with a skilled support team.“There’s no one, in his mind, that’s going to stop him from being a part of the hockey season." That's Hanover's Alex Dodds talking about his dad, Dick Dodds. The elder Dodds, legendary in these parts for his four decades coaching the Hanover High boys hockey team and for his years of managing Campion Rink, had a heart attack while teaching a class for adults at Campion on Nov. 4, reports the VN's Seth Tow. He's been in cardiac rehab since, and both his wife and son are "optimistic he’ll be able to coach hockey this winter in some way," even if he can't be on the ice, Tow writes.Behind the scenes at Mamma Mia! NCCT (if you haven't been here long, that's North Country Community Theater, a much-loved community theater troupe in these parts) is back onstage after last year's forced hiatus, mounting the ABBA musical at the Town Hall Theater in Woodstock. Lebanon photographer Travis Paige (who's got a daughter in the production) hung around for dress rehearsals and took pics of the action. "I am still humming the songs," he writes on his blog. "Again rejected all night by my dead husband / He's so indifferent." That's a fragment of a poem by Ruth Stone, one-time VT Poet Laureate, that her granddaughter found on an old Post-It note in her house, with a cousin's phone number beneath. In Seven Days, Travis Weedon explores Norwich filmmaker Nora Jacobson's new film about Stone, Ruth Stone's Vast Library of the Female Mind. It gets its first local viewing at the Briggs on Saturday. Stone's husband, who died by suicide, is a steady presence in her work. "To me," Jacobson tells Weedon, "her life embodies the alchemical process of turning tragedy into art." "You can’t hide anything. It is a credible, legitimate way to create positive change in the world." Phil Coupe is managing partner of ReVision Energy, one of 10 NH firms that have become Certified B Corporations. On his Granite Geek blog, David Brooks offers a handy tutorial on just what's involved—a lot of paperwork, for starters—and what it actually means in terms of responsibility to shareholders and the community. He talks to Tuck's Curtis Welling, who tells him that while the status helps with branding, “there’s not a lot of evidence yet” that it boosts sales, market share, "or other standard business metrics."NH's first Child Advocate to step down after one term. Moira O'Neill announced the move yesterday, reports NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt. Her office was created in 2018 to ensure children were being adequately served by the state's children's division; its oversight was expanded last year to all state agencies that serve children. It has reviewed the use of restraints in youth facilities and pushed to expand the definition of emotional abuse of kids. "I think it’s healthy for the organization to be able to stand on its own feet," O'Neill says.In wake of PUC rejection of energy efficiency renewal, utilities halt new efforts. Both Eversource and Liberty Utilities yesterday told contractors to stop taking new applications for parts of the NHSaves program and to halt energy audits unless the work has already begun, reports Amanda Gokee in NH Bulletin. "Friday night’s announcement from the PUC leaves 2022 clients in the proverbial lurch,” Liberty Utilities' Frank Hanlon wrote in an email to contractors. An Eversource supervisor wrote that the company may appeal parts of the PUC's decision.It's possible that schools are contributing to community transmission, NH's state epidemiologist says. In a meeting with school and child care professionals yesterday, Dr. Benjamin Chan noted there are 110 active Covid clusters in K-12 schools, reports InDepthNH's Paula Tracy. With schools relaxing the strict mitigation measures that made them safer than their surrounding communities at the start of the school year, Chan said, "I am concerned...that this may be starting to reverse and that we are seeing some evidence of schools contributing to community transmission."In bid to overcome confusion and simplify process, VT officially extends booster eligibility. The state's written guidelines had restricted eligibility—though as VTDigger's Riley Robinson writes, not all sites adhered to those guidelines and even Gov. Phil Scott admitted earlier this month, "I would say if you want one, you could get one.” Now, though, any adult more than two months out from a J&J vaccine or six months from their second Pfizer or Moderna shot is officially eligible. “We want to be clear," Scott says in a press release. "Everyone over age 18 should get a booster as soon as possible.”Report finds pronounced racial disparities in VT charging, incarceration results, especially in drug cases. The analysis, prepared by the national Council of State Governments, found that Black people in the state are over six times more likely to be incarcerated than white people for all crimes, reports VTDigger's Erin Petenko, are 14 times more likely to become defendants in drug cases, and are less likely to receive non-prison options such as probation or suspended sentences. Researchers found the disparities hold regardless of whether or not the person being charged is a Vermont resident.
Are liquor laws diminishing VT spirits? Craft distilling is growing in VT, but the state’s long-standing laws limiting distribution of high-ABV beverages may be hampering it. Seven Days’ Jordan Barry writes that some, like WhistlePig, are finding loopholes to getting their product in front of consumers: their canned rye cocktail is low enough in alcohol to be sold in supermarkets. But many in the industry, and some legislators, are pushing to loosen the restrictions on distillers, citing the tourism and sales tax benefits. Besides, says one distiller, Covid has taken a toll on tasting room receipts. “Our distillers are struggling.”There's snow out there! Some mountains have reported up to a foot, writes April Barton in the Burlington Free Press. So she's rounded up photos from social media with the proof: the snowed-in PBS transmitter on the summit of Mt. Mansfield, snowmaking at Stratton and Bromley, new snow at Jay...The internet’s latest victim: Fabergé eggs. If sites like Yelp turned everyone into a reviewer, by some twisted logic eventually everything becomes reviewable. The pandemic spawned the hashtag #ratemyroom, appended to tweets grading celebrities’ Zoom backdrops. Now someone on Twitter has gathered eye-candy photos of the 46 surviving Fabergé eggs produced for Russian Tsar Nicholas II, ranking them from worst to first. Because why not? And you know what? They’re pretty funny, if you can excuse the profanity. The eggs may be priceless, but on social media they’re punchlines.Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:
At 6:30 pm, NOFA-VT continues its Agricultural Literacy Week with the second of two presentations, this one focused on the Abenaki Land Link project. It launched last year, providing Indigenous seeds to over a dozen gardeners, homesteaders, and farmers around VT, who in turn grew squash, corn, and beans for Abenaki citizens. This year, almost 40 growers are involved. The panel includes Chief Don Stevens of the Nulhegan Abenaki, Vermont Bean Crafters founder Joe Bossen, South Hero Land Trust program director Guy Maguire, and JoAnne Dennee, the land/food educator at S. Burlington's Common Roots farm.
At 7 this evening, the Norwich Bookstore hosts an intriguing conversation about mountains, their meaning to the human imagination, and what it takes to get to the top. The occasion is the new book Imaginary Peaks: The Riesenstein Hoax and Other Mountain Dreams by Katie Ives. She's the revered (Outside mag's word) editor of Alpinist magazine, and she uses a well-known 1962 hoax played by alpinist and author Harvey Manning and his friends, in which they invented a mountain range and then sold its reality to Summit magazine, as the centerpiece of a book about mountains and their hold on the spirit. She'll be talking with Sean Prentiss, author of Finding Abbey: The Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave.
And anytime, you can check out what CATV is featuring this week: The Suffragist Reenactment Society, the three-woman play built around the fight for women's suffrage that mixes history and audience immersion (playing trivia, singing historical protest songs) that played at the Briggs last month (though this streaming version is the Montpelier one); last week's NH Exec Council meeting at which the council reversed course and opted to sign off on federal contracts to boost the state's vaccination effort; and Maynard Goldman's OSHER course on "Great Trials of the 20th Century," this one focused on the only US Supreme Court criminal trial in history.
Born in Syria of Armenian parents, with a childhood in Saudi Arabia and then a move (green card lottery) to Boston and then Houston, now in LA,
Azniv Korkejian—who records as Bedouine, reflecting her wanderings—draws from '60s folk influences to craft intimate, unadorned, carefully constructed songs. Her new album includes one, "The Solitude," that took its inspiration from a line in Joni Mitchell's "My Old Man." "I
kept returning to the lyric, 'The bed's too big, the frying pan's too wide,'" Korkejian said recently. "I was so taken by that; conveying a feeling by describing a change in proportions."
See you tomorrow.
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
Want to catch up on Daybreak music?
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: 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!