Daybreak Thursday 5/6/21

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Looks like some sun... We get a break today and tomorrow before the next system moves in, and though it may take a bit for this morning's clouds to clear out, this morning's winds from the northwest will help, and eventually there'll be more sun than clouds. Mid-50s today, down into the mid-30s tonight. The full moon, the Colette Trail, all sorts of birds, spring wildflowers, and foxes... lots of foxes. Over the last week and a half, Etna photographer Jim Block has been out wandering from New London up to Haverhill, camera in tow. You may remember Marc Beerman's photos of that fox family; Jim got to see them, too, though the family's since moved its den.A correction and a clarification. 

Dartmouth to allow commencement guests. In an email to the college community yesterday, President Phil Hanlon wrote that graduates will be able to invite two guests to a single ceremony (kids 5 and younger will be allowed without counting toward the total). Grad and professional school graduates can also have two guests at their individual schools' ceremonies, but not at the June 13 commencement. The email "strongly recommended" that guests be vaccinated, and those from outside New England who are not will be required to quarantine for 10 days, The Dartmouth reports.Once again into the breach: LOH hopes to renovate Leb City Hall lobby. The work, "loosely scheduled" for summer, 2022, writes the VN's Tim Camerato, would have the Lebanon Opera House box office take over the just renovated home of the city's cyber services office. The old box office, to the left as you walk in the door, would become a concessions area; the city and opera house are considering splitting the revenue from concessions sales. “I don’t want to give up real estate but in this sense, it does make sense,” City Manager Shaun Mulholland told the city council. “It takes money to make money.”SPONSORED: In a health emergency, you need to be seen as quickly as possible by highly trained medical professionals. At Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital, our Emergency Medicine team quickly delivers personalized and professional care. The same emergency physicians who provide care at APD also provide care at DHMC. We treat patients of all ages, from infants to elderly. We don’t want you to experience an emergency, but we are always here for you when you do. Sponsored by APD.Misbehaving canine notes from all over. In what may be the listserv post of the week, here's what ran earlier this week: "For Sale a new Kyvol Cybovac robot vacuum cleaner with water tank and mopping cloth. I used it 3 times and unfortunately [my] dogs think it is an invader and bark incessantly and want to eat it. It is in brand new condition, comes with all manuals and accessories." Sorry, no link. (Thanks, AF!)D-H ranks in top ten US hospitals for avoiding low-value tests and procedures, VT top state. The Lown Institute, named for legendary physician Bernard Lown, who died in February, has come up with an index ranking US hospitals on the extent to which they subject patients to tests or procedures that studies have shown either to be ineffective or unnecessary in certain situations. Its rankings of 3,100 hospitals, which came out a few days ago, put D-H 8th in the country for avoiding them and Fletcher Allen 15th. VT and ME rank first and second for hospitals avoiding overuse, with NH 6th. (Thanks, NS!)Why proposed changes to Wilder Dam flows will help aquatic wildlife. In a commentary on VTDigger, river steward Kathy Urffer of Brattleboro describes how rising and falling water levels at the Wilder, Vernon, and Bellows Falls dams and two facilities in MA affect dragonflies, tiger beetles, sturgeon, shad, and other species. As part of its relicensing, Great River Hydro worked with the CT River Conservancy to propose keeping water levels more consistent at its three VT/NH dams. FirstLight, which owns the two MA facilities, still plans to use "peaking," Urffer writes, though it would slow the rate of water rise.A demographic dead end? UNH's Ken Johnson, one of the country's premier demographers, notes that for the second year in a row in 2020, deaths exceeded births in VT, NH, and ME. And in New England as a whole, 15,600 more people died than were born, the first time that's happened region-wide. To be sure, the decline in babies in 2020 was national, with 4 percent fewer born than in 2019. The national decline was undoubtedly influenced by the pandemic, but Johnson notes that northern New England's older age is also a factor. More on David Brooks's Granite Geek blog. “Aim low and let yourself be awkward.” That piece of sound advice for entering post-lockdown life comes from Megan Turchetti, a clinical psychologist on the NH seacoast. NH Bulletin's Annmarie Timmins talked with a variety of providers about what they're seeing as we head at different paces toward reopening. There are still plenty of people struggling with depression, they report, or with "languishing," or just with the stress of uncertainty. "Everything's a question," says one. “What’s the right thing to do? It hasn’t stopped and now that more and more restrictions are being lifted, it’s ‘you decide.’"Pete & Gerry's sells to LA private equity firm. The sale of the family-run New Hampshire egg business was announced Tuesday by Butterfly, which invests in food and beverage businesses. Jesse Laflamme, who has helped spearhead Pete & Gerry's for the last two decades, will stay on as a director; COO Erik Drake will take over as CEO. “We’re now a large organic brand and a nationwide brand,” Laflamme tells the Union Leader's Jonathan Phelps. “We have the scale that really lends itself to even bigger thinking than we might be able to take on as a family operation.”What happens when state-funded religious schools discriminate against students? Former VT ed secretary Rebecca Holcombe brought that question up in a tweet last week as she took aim at the handbook of Grace Christian School in Bennington, which compares homosexuality to incest; the school gets taxpayer money for its child care program. The case, writes Lola Duffort in VTDigger, underscores a question recent court rulings raise for the state and school districts: "Whether, and how, public entities can put guardrails around the money they send to religious entities." Holcombe and law prof Derek Black explored the question nationally in a USA Today commentary in April.VT becomes 14th state to prohibit "panic defense." Gov. Phil Scott yesterday signed a measure into law a measure that bars a defendant at trial or during sentencing from justifying violent action by citing a victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Though that legal strategy has not been used in Vermont, reports VTDigger's Kit Norton, it has been used to defend assaults on LGBTQ+ people elsewhere. "Your identity should never be an excuse for someone to cause you harm,” Scott said in a recorded message.“Down south, food is it, and if your food is nasty, you will get talked about. That’s a thing, you know." Which is why, Erica McClain says, she holds the donuts she makes and distributes for Hangry the Donut Bar to a high standard. She and her husband, Ed, launched the business in the teeth of the pandemic, and pretty much by word of mouth, the St. Albans-based business has grown by leaps and bounds. VPR's Henry Epp and Brittany Patterson profile the McClains for the first in a series of stories on business owners who've leapt into something new or pivoted dramatically during the pandemic."Why is it not more normal, not just on film, but in the world in general, to see this level of integration in our day to day lives?" That was Will Halby, of Lincoln VT's Zeno Mountain Farm, talking to Variety about Best Summer Ever, the teen musical shot in Vermont that's drawing buzz not only for its story and music, but for the way it weaves people with disability into the picture (and behind the scenes) without drawing attention to it. Seven Days' Margot Harrison both reviews and profiles the film. The short version: "It's impossible not to like a movie with such a big helping of joy and so little cynicism."We can do this, Upper Valley! It started with Speedy Auto Glass, in Listowel, Ontario. "Hey DQ, wanna have a sign war?" owner Trevor Cork put on the sign out front. Remarkably, the Dairy Queen next door responded. "You bet your glass we do" their sign read. "Fire up the grill we're about the toast your buns" went up on Speedy's... And they were off. Other businesses chimed in. So did the fire department. And a law firm. And a child care center. And there's no sign of a truce. "We have great fans with a million ideas still," the local DQ owner tells the CBC's Allison Devereaux."You know, these are some of the oldest mountains in the world.... Makes you think a bit, doesn't it?... What? Makes you think of sausages?" It's been a long lockdown, and it's time to get out, so Olive and Mabel—and, of course, sportscaster Andrew Cotter—hit the trail for a longer walk than usual. The scenery's pretty spectacular, too.

So what's it look like out there?

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

You probably knew this already, but I didn't: Last summer, Universal Music Enterprises started streaming classic performances from the Ed Sullivan Show's 23-year run on YouTube. There's a

lot

 to choose from (Jackson 5, Beach Boys, the Supremes, The Band...). Here's just a sample:

—which had been purely a folk song, first recorded by Alan Lomax in Middlesboro, KY in 1937 as "Rising Sun Blues," until The Animals turned it into what one BBC writer called "arguably the first folk rock tune." 

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.

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