Daybreak Tuesday 1/11/22

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

Bundle up! Seriously. Arctic air arrived above us last night, leading to the frigid overnight temps we just saw—and not much warming today. The high will barely get above zero today, and with moderately stiff winds from the northwest, wind chills could be as low as -20 or -30. "Frostbite can develop on exposed skin under these conditions within as little as 10 minutes," the weather folks say. Back into the minuses in the early part of the night, but then temps start to moderate a bit overnight as air starts moving in from the south.Covid forces school closures. Elementary schools in Thetford, Bradford, and Newbury, along with Oxbow High and River Bend Tech will be closed today and tomorrow, reports Liz Sauchelli in the Valley News. Orange East Supt. Emilie B. Knisley wrote in an email to parents that with 103 staff absent across the schools, "we can't safely operate our schools." A staff shortage is also closing Grantham Village School today, and with rising cases at White River Valley Middle School in Bethel, that school, too, will be closed for the day.Dartmouth among major universities sued for "colluding" to limit financial aid. The suit, filed in Illinois Sunday night, alleges that several of the schools—including Dartmouth, Columbia, and Notre Dame—consider applicants' financial need in admissions decisions despite "needs-blind policies," thus making them ineligible under federal antitrust law to use a joint financial aid methodology. In particular, the plaintiffs write, "at least nine Defendants for many years [including Dartmouth] have favored wealthy applicants in the admissions process... thereby disfavoring students who need financial aid.”Dartmouth's student dining workers intend to unionize. In an open letter to the administration last week, the Union Leader's Meghan Pierce reports, a student collective said that a supermajority of student workers have signed cards expressing their intent. “Throughout the pandemic, we have seen what a lack of student and worker representation in the decision-making process of our College has led to," they wrote: "a deterioration of the well-being of our College.” College spokesperson Diana Lawrence responded, “We have received the letter from the collective and look forward to talking with them.”“I know lots of kids out there that are feeling alone and crowded in this pandemic, like both at the same time.” That’s the wise perspective of 11-year-old Avah Lamie of Hartford. VPR’s Anna Van Dine spoke to Avah about the pandemic’s toll on children’s mental health, manifesting in an uptick in aggressive behavior at schools around VT, including Dothan Brook, where Avah goes. The shifting nature of Covid restrictions and forced isolation, says one school counselor, have bred “this kind of generalized anxiety, this floating fear for some children. What does this mean? What’s going to happen?”Howe, other area libraries score federal grants. The $34,624 going to the Howe, which is among the larger grants to libraries in NH, comes from the American Rescue Plan, and will fund a collaboration with Northern Stage and CATV centered on the library's "Everyone is Reading" pick. Meanwhile, the Abbott Library in Sunapee landed almost $15,000 for a variety of purchases, and Newport's Richards Free Library will get $23,000 to create a circulating board game and video game collection in partnership with the Abbott and New London's Tracy Memorial Library.Springfield VT pastor tries to buck diocese on masking, vaccinations. “I balk at any incursion into my rights as a human being and certainly a U.S. citizen,” the Rev. Peter Williams says in a recent YouTube video. He opposes Bishop Christopher Coyne's directive that Catholic clergy in the state be vaccinated, or at least wear a mask and get tested regularly. Williams' family has sided with the bishop, reports VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor. “The present pastoral situation in Springfield is a sad and difficult situation that Bishop Coyne is addressing with care for all concerned,” the diocese said yesterday.SPONSORED: Is your student passionate about climate change?  This February 4th-6th, The Governor’s Institutes of Vermont invites 9th-12th grade students to spend a virtual weekend learning climate change science, getting organized, and taking action. Let’s make a difference together! Applications close soon. Tuition is pay-what-you-can, and students from cross-border schools like Hanover and Rivendell are welcome to apply! Sponsored by The Governor’s Institutes of Vermont."Wherever musicians can find a venue...Chad Finer is there." As Li Shen writes in Sidenote, if you've been to an Upper Valley musical event featuring local musicians in the last five years, odds are you've noticed him. How the former Peace Corps volunteer and retired emergency-room doc got there, though, is a story—by way of old recordings by the ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax and a leftover darkroom in Sierra Leone. With local musicians lacking venues, Finer's taken to recording them upstairs at Dan & Whit's in Norwich. His archives from over the years—over 1,000 recordings—are on YouTube.Take a deep breath and promise yourself you'll return. That, at least, is the advice Susan Apel offers in Artful for how to navigate the richness of the new "This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World" exhibition at the Hood—160 works of art that connect to earth and place. "Such an antidote to the pandemic isolation and cabin fever, this beautiful compendium of art and artifacts!" Susan writes. Including boots commissioned by the Hood from artist Jamie Okuma that took a detour on their way to Hanover to adorn Interior Secretary Deb Haaland's feet for an InStyle photo shoot.You may never see a bobcat, but you can look for their traces. "These felines are elusive and shy—setting eyes on a Bobcat is a notable event," writes Mary Holland in Naturally Curious. "One must, for the most part, settle for signs of their presence and the chances of this are much greater in winter. There are tracks, of course, as well as cache sites, sites where they've preyed on rabbits or hares—and spots where a bobcat has sat for a long time to scan the surroundings for prey, which produces well-defined prints.Will third time be a charm or strike three for NH family planning contracts? The Exec Council has denied the money twice already to Planned Parenthood and two other reproductive health providers. But intriguingly, writes Annmarie Timmins in NH Bulletin, the issue's back on the agenda tomorrow—perhaps because the state health department has finished its audit of the providers, flagging mundane administrative issues but finding no evidence the providers were using public funds for abortions.Far from being a restriction, mask policies are "a tool for limiting impacts on our health systems and for keeping schools and businesses open." That's Dartmouth policy fellow Anne Sosin in a Q&A with The Dartmouth. Sosin's been front and center in arguing for more assertive state policies to stem the pandemic—including a testy high-profile exchange with VT Gov. Phil Scott's chief of staff. In the interview, she argues for distribution of free, high-quality masks to the public and policies, including testing and ventilation, that would support schools' efforts to remain open.Overwhelmed by cases, VT throws in towel on school contact tracing, shifts responsibility for testing from schools to families. The move was signaled in an email to school administrators Friday from ed secretary Dan French, Seven Days' Alison Novak reported Friday night. French asked schools to stop contact tracing after a positive test in school; instead, if a student tests positive, the school will inform families of all students in that class and students who have had two vaccine doses will not need to quarantine. Unvaccinated students will be offered five rapid-test kits to use before coming to school.VT's Covid reporting system on the blink. Some Vermonters who got PCR tests late last week are still waiting to get the results, reports VTDigger's Erin Petenko, due to problems with the electronic reporting system. The issues have also affected the state's Covid case dashboard, which as of this morning hadn't been updated since Sunday's preliminary numbers. It's kinda late, but if you got tested last week and still don't have results, you can email [email protected] with your name, date of birth, email address used to register for the test, test date, and test location.In effort to improve water quality, VT will pay farmers to reduce phosphorous runoff. The new program will compensate farmers $100 per pound that they keep from flowing into streams, rivers, and lakes, report VPR's Elodie Reed and Abagael Giles. Farms will be eligible for up to $50,000 in payments in 2022. The program is a "test balloon," Reed and Giles report, for a more comprehensive effort to pay farmers for "ecosystem services" such as carbon and stormwater storage and creating healthier soil."Oh, yeah, this is just the store brand. That's not even maple syrup, I don't think." As NBC promotes the upcoming Winter Olympics, they asked Alpine skier Ryan Cochran-Siegle, who's from Starksboro, VT, to do a taste test. Cochran-Siegle helps out on the sugarbush his cousin maintains on their grandparents' land in Richmond. Cochran-Siegle also talks about the risks of going downhill really fast on skies—"I don't have tattoos, but I have a lot of scars," he says—and why he does it.This face-planting polar bear is the hero we need right now. It doesn’t matter how many times the poor thing attempts to cross the ice or how many takes he ruins in this attempt to shoot a car-dealership commercial—the polar bear gets back up. And biffs it again. Perfect—if inadvertent—physical comedy as it is, may this blooper reel restore a pastime that feels scarce in these uncertain times: the harmless laugh at another’s expense. Some of us really needed it. So, to the polar bear: Thanks for taking one for the team.

And the numbers...

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And you see, both of us were right, though nothing

Has somehow come to nothing; the avatars

Of our conforming to the rules and living

Around the home have made—well, in a sense, “good citizens” of us,   

Brushing the teeth and all that, and learning to accept

The charity of the hard moments as they are doled out,

For this is action, this not being sure, this careless

Preparing, sowing the seeds crooked in the furrow,

Making ready to forget, and always coming back

To the mooring of starting out, that day so long ago.

— From

"Soonest Mended," by John Ashbery

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The Hiking Close to Home Archives. A list of hikes around the Upper Valley, some easy, some more difficult, compiled by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. It grows every week.

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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt         Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter    Poetry editor: Michael Lipson  About Rob                                                    About Tom                                 About Michael

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