GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
This is more like it. We've got high pressure and a warm front settled in, bringing us sunny skies and temps getting into the lower 60s in the afternoon. There'll be some clouds coming in during the late afternoon and hanging around overnight, keeping the low in the 40s. Winds today from the southwest."A solitary warrior in a cold world." On Tuesday, writer and naturalist Ted Levin spied a goshawk flying over the marsh near his place in Thetford. It put him in mind of a different one, some years back, that chased his barred rock hen into the garage. Ted was stomping down trash in the garbage pail inside, and the goshawk, a foot away, whipped around him. He "felt the air she had displaced. Heard her wingbeats. Looked into alien eyes, all in a matter of seconds." That moment has never left him. Mascoma middle, high schools go to remote learning today and tomorrow. The move came yesterday after officials learned that "an individual in the district" tested positive. They went on to say on FB that "the affected individual was last in either school on Monday, Nov. 2, and is believed to have had close contact with 17 individuals." The Valley News also reports that the Gifford hospital system—the health center in Randolph and clinics in Bethel, Chelsea, Sharon and WRJ—is restricting access to patients only, other than a single support person at its birthing center and same-day surgery.Republicans appear set to control legislature, Exec Council in NH. Though the state went Democratic for federal offices, it's looking like the GOP will control the Senate, Executive Council, and probably the House, in addition to holding onto the governorship. Analysts spent yesterday puzzling about what happened, NHPR's Josh Rogers tells colleague Emily Quirk: maybe legislative districts drawn a decade ago to suit Republicans, maybe the GOP's emphasis on face-to-face canvassing, maybe Dems skipping down-ballot races. One thing's for sure: Life will get easier for Chris Sununu.On the other hand, NH also elected its first Black sheriff. Mark Brave, a Democrat and a lieutenant in the Strafford County Sheriff's Department, defeated a fellow lieutenant to take the post. He ran "on a campaign of more community involvement, including regular public meetings," reports NHPR's Todd Bookman. "He also criticized the 'old guard' approach to policing, which he said included limiting public access to information."Phil Scott carried all but three towns and Burlington. He even won arch-Democratic Norwich, which gave Joe Biden 90 percent of its vote. Scott took 51 percent there. All this is in VTDigger's interactive town-by-town map of unofficial totals and percentages for governor, lieutenant governor, and president. Dems' VT House ranks fall below veto-proof majority. In all, the Democratic-Progressive coalition now holds 99 seats, one short of the 100 needed to overcome a veto by Gov. Phil Scott. The marquee loss came in Grand Isle, where Speaker Mitzi Johnson lost by 18 votes; she's filed for a recount. VTDigger also includes district-by-district results for all legislative races.And what's it all mean? Seven Days' Paul Heintz sees seven takeaways from the Vermont results. There's Scott's absolute dominance of the vote, of course. Molly Gray became "one of the brightest stars" of the VT Democratic Party. Legislative leaders, on the other hand—Mitzi Johnson, Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe, who lost to Gray in the primary—didn't fare so well. And mail-in ballots proved astoundingly popular: Turnout was up at least 116 percent over 2016. Heintz also speculates about the congressional delegation, and sees mixed signs for the state's Progressives."The current system is putting front desk clerks in the position of being gatekeepers for Vermont." Seven Days' Derek Brouwer takes a long, hard look at VT's travel restrictions and their reverberations through the economy. State health commissioner Mark Levine admits the 400/million case level cutoff for visitor's quarantine is hard to defend scientifically, "except for the fact that it has served us extremely well, and that should be enough." Brouwer touches on Upper Valley dilemmas, like tourist crowds in Woodstock and Hanover Town Manager Julia Griffin's sudden thought while in line at the Norwich Farmers Market: local produce is nice, but is it okay to cross the bridge for it?National Guard to help UVM hospitals with cyber-attack. The hospital network has been struggling since last week's attack to restore its systems. Yesterday, Scott announced that he's called in the VT Guard's Combined Cyber Response Team to help ensure that thousands of computers in the network of six hospitals are free of malware and viruses. The hospitals said yesterday that though they're making progress on fixing scheduling and other capabilities, "we still do not know when all systems will be restored.”Sign? Pure luck? Whatever, this doesn't happen often. The NH State Police snagged a photo of two bald eagles in identical poses perched one above the other outside its headquarters in Concord yesterday.The case of Mostly Harmless. That was the trail name of a man who headed out into the woods in 2017 with no phone, no credit card, and a wish to get away from things. He spent the summer hiking south down the AT, then on into Florida—where, in July 2018, two hikers found his body in a tent. "He was kind, charming, educated. He knew how to code. And yet he had died alone in a yellow tent," writes Nicholas Thompson in Wired. Despite the best efforts of an obsessed group of internet sleuths, including people who'd encountered and taken a liking to him, he remains unidentified and his story a mystery.
Well, let's see...
NH reported 120 positive test results yesterday, bringing its official total to 11,563. There was 1 new death; that total stands at 484. The state's current caseload is at 1,454 (up 4). Grafton County is on the state's list of "red" counties showing "substantial" community transmission. It now has 79 active cases (up 6). Sullivan County is one of only 3 in the state with "moderate" transmission: It has 24 active cases (down 1). Merrimack, also in the red, is at 184 (down 5). Lebanon now has 12 active cases (up 2); Newport gained 1 and now has 9. Sunapee dropped 1 to stand at 5. There are 1-4 cases each in Lyme, Hanover, Plainfield, Claremont, Charlestown, Unity, Goshen, New London, and Newbury. Grantham and Wilmot are off the list.
VT reported 27 new cases yesterday, bringing its official total to 2,267, with 339 of those still active (down 7). Deaths remain at 58 and 4 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized. Windsor County remains at 128 for the pandemic, with 13 of those in the past 14 days. Orange County is still at 40 cumulatively, 9 of them reported in the past 14 days.
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The "Christmas Market with a Difference," the annual crafts sale benefiting nonprofits around the world put on by the United Church of Christ at Dartmouth, opens online today. There's a long gallery of organizations, with links to shop by organization. Runs through Nov. 30.
"What Now?" Yep, that question is on a lot of people's minds, and it happens to be the title of a "Rocky Watch" panel analyzing the presidential election at 5 pm, led by Dartmouth political scientist Mia Costa. The panelists will check in from around the country: Carlos Algara, a political scientist at the U of Texas; government prof Jamil Scott from Georgetown; and Amber Spry, professor in the departments of politics and of African-American studies at Brandeis.
This evening at 7, Yale prof and Norwich resident Nicholas Christakis will be hosted by the Norwich Bookstore talking about his book on the pandemic, Apollo's Arrow. He's been getting national and international notice for what the Times Literary Supplement the other day called "an instant history of an event that is by no means over. This is a hard thing to pull off," the review went on, "but Christakis does it with aplomb." He explains the virus and the disease and how differing national responses have led to different trajectories; puts this pandemic in the context of others; and most eye-catching of all, takes a measured look at what the future holds.
Also at 7 pm, the Howe Library is hosting four Dartmouth professors for a discussion of Zadie Smith's Intimations, her newly published book of essays about the pandemic, life both at home and on the streets during lockdown, and race in America. The book is part of the Howe's "Everyone Is Reading" community-reading program, though it's a safe bet you won't have to have read it to find what the panel—moderator Eng-Beng Lim, who directs the college's Consortium of Studies in Race, Migration, and Sexuality; art historian Mary Coffey; anthropologist Sienna Craig; and English prof Alysia Garrison—have to say.
Or maybe you need to get out of your head a little bit. At 6 pm, Hanover Adventure Tours—the outfit out Route 5 in Norwich—is offering the first of its online "Adventure Talk Series," this one focused on e-bikes. They'll be talking about ideas for places to ride them in the region, how they work, and why you keep seeing more and more of them around.
Finally, starting today, the Hop's "Film on Demand" series has two new offerings for the week. Martin Eden is an Italian adaptation of Jack London's semi-autobiographical novel, with the action taking place in Italy rather than Oakland. "[I]t's both a richly textured bildungsroman and a rambling cultural, political and historical panorama," says the LA Times. Meanwhile, definitely not set in Italy, Miss Juneteenth follows Turquoise Jones, a former winner of Ft. Worth's Miss Juneteenth beauty pageant (winner gets a scholarship to a historically Black college) as she tries to get her reluctant 15-year-old daughter to follow the same route. "Instead of just depicting the myriad ways black women carry their communities," the NYT wrote this summer, "the movie goes further to explore how these women and black girls support each other in a world that often fails them."
Abigail and Shaun Bengson are composers, singers, and performers with the Actors Theatre of Louisville. They tell stories through song. When the pandemic hit, they packed their three-year-old into the car and headed for Dayton, OH, and Shaun's parents' house. "We thought we'd be here for, like, 10 days. Tops!" sings Abigail. "What did we know? We thought we knew a lot. We thought we knew
a lot
."
(Thanks, LM!)
And I hope that if your heart is breaking, it's breaking open... And I hope that you find a hand lotion that actually makes your skin feel better... We're making it up, we're making it up as we go.
See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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