GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Well, imagine that: It's snowing. This is moisture that's found its way here from the central states, and while it's expected to remain snow through the morning, there could be rain mixed in this afternoon — if anything's coming down at all. All told somewhere between 2 and 5 inches. High this afternoon in the mid-30s, after which temps plunge as an arctic front arrives, bringing winds and mid-low single digits by tomorrow morning. And yet: Woodstock Snow Sculpture Festival cancelled for lack of snow. For the second year in a row, no less. “We were really excited about it, but there isn’t enough snow on the green and we don’t have the resources to truck it in and have it set up in time for this weekend,” Marie Cross, marketing and communications director at ArtisTree, tells the VN. Bridgewater looks to boost speeding-ticket revenue. If you drive Route 4, you know it's a notorious speed trap. But this is interesting: The town contracts with the Windsor Sheriff's Department, and last fiscal year fell $28,000 short of what it had expected to collect. The reasons, writes Virginia Dean in the Mountain Times, range from a new traffic ticket payment system that backed up collection to drivers being more alert to the risks as they pass through town.Forums coming on Route 120 corridor. The Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Planning Commission plans to hold two of them later this month focused on transportation. Because the amount of development being eyed is pretty striking: a 300-unit grad-student apartment complex, pitches for 250 units for hospital employees and 202 multi-family units down the road, 153 units already under construction at Altaria Lebanon Park, zoning changes that allow for multi-family housing where the Jesse's parking lot is now... First forum is Feb. 24 at temporary city hall in Leb, then Feb. 26 at the Howe. (VN)"The Fettuccine Alfredo you all Americans love is not Italian! We don’t even know who this guy named Alfredo is." That's part of an intriguing little thread that popped up on the Upper Valley VT/NH FB group last night asking Upper Valleyites from other countries to check in. So far: South Africa, Italy, Germany, Ireland, Chile — "2/3 of our slang is based on animals, like estar pato (to be duck: to have no money)" — Belgium, Colombia...Graphic of the day: The smallest tallest building in the country is Vermont's. It's way down there at the bottom of this chart of the tallest building in each state: Decker Towers, an 11-story apartment building in Burlington. Though if CityPlace Burlington ever gets built, it'll be taller... but probably still last. NH's tallest is City Hall Plaza in Manchester, all the way up at 7th from the bottom. "Paper ballots are wonderful. That’s where everybody in America needs to get back to.” That's a guy named Harri Hursti, who should know. He's a computer hacker who's got a particular hack named for him: in 2005, he and a team altered the results on a Diebold voting machine without any sign they'd done so. He's also a consultant to NH Secy of State Bill Gardner, and was around for Tuesday's primary. He liked what he didn't see — there were no lines, which are often a sign of trouble — and the state's low-tech approach.Comics aim to help Latino migrants in Vermont. Public Radio International's The World is up with a story about an Addison County effort to use cartoon-based stories to help migrants deal with isolation, depression, separation from home, Vermont winters, and other mental-health hurdles they face. “People think that crossing the border is the hardest part, but the worst part is finding a way to survive after you arrive,” says one of the contributors. The project was launched by a nurse at Middlebury's Open Door Clinic, and teams participants with artists to tell their stories.VT finds PFAS in 95 percent of waste samples. In a report last week, the state's Department of Environmental Conservation found the toxic chemicals pretty much everywhere they looked in both landfills and transfer stations. It also found high concentrations in discharge from two wastewater treatment plants that treat landfill leachate. "While Vermont maintains the chemicals largely appear to be contained, leachate contamination remains a concern," writes the waste and recycling site Waste Dive.VT farmers worry about pot bill as it moves through House. Ordinarily, Daybreak doesn't cover legislation until it actually passes, but this is revealing: Farmers (and others) are hoping the legislature legalizes retail marijuana this year, but last week a House committee added language that would give towns the power to regulate and limit marijuana growing (most ag operations are exempt from local zoning). The idea is to protect towns from Big Pot, but small farmers looking to shift their operations, says Seven Days, suddenly face uncertainty."The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question. It’s to post the wrong answer." That's Cunningham's Law, named for the programmer who noted that people like to fight online more than they like to help. It's one of eight useful "laws" compiled by former Motley Fool and WSJ columnist Morgan Housel. Among others, there's Parkinson's Law — the amount of attention a problem gets is the inverse of its importance — and Checkov's: Remove everything from writing that doesn't need to be there.
News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:
Imagine you set out on a 26.2-,mile marathon that will cover all of Earth's history. Your first five feet — basically, your first stride or two — will take you back two ice ages and 150,000 years before the history of human civilization. We're an eye blink, in other words. Which is why Brannen, a science journalist who writes for
The Atlantic
, the
NYT
,
Wired,
and elsewhere, calls the whole notion of an "Anthropocene" era a joke. 5 pm in Haldeman 41 at Dartmouth.
Loving music is fine, Cheng, a musicologist at Dartmouth, argues, except we take it too far: We use its beauty to excuse a performer's behavior (think former Met Opera director James Levine) or we hate the music so we hate the people who like it, or music humanizes people who shouldn't have needed music to be seen in full. "Love music and love people,” he writes. “If ever in doubt — or if forced to choose — choose people.” 4:30 pm, Baker-Berry East Reading Room.
Slim and Queen, on a first date, are stopped for a traffic violation, the situation escalates, Slim shoots the police officer in self-defense, and suddenly this mismatched pair of a retail worker and a criminal defense lawyer are forced to go on the run. "What lingers," A.O. Scott wrote in the
NYT
, "are strains of anger, ardor, sorrow and sweetness, and the quiet astonishment of witnessing the birth of a legend." 7:30 at the Loew.
Have a fine day out there. See you tomorrow.
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!