GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY
Quick note: Sorry for CoffeeBreak's late delivery yesterday. Shortly before I tried sending it, Mailchimp—the service I use—developed a system-wide issue that took a while to clear up. And even then, I've been getting reports from Gmail users that it wound up in spam. If you didn't get it, just hit the burgundy link to see it. Maybe the internet gremlins will spare us today?Maybe some sun, colder. High pressure's here, at least during the day, but so is air from the north—we'll get into the mid or upper 20s today, with clouds giving way to at least a bit of sun as the day goes on. The airflow shifts overnight to come from the southwest, but colder temps will hang tough east of the Greens; we'll be back down into the lower teens overnight.What a little elevation can do. Remember Sunday? Nothing but clouds? Up at Jay Peak, though, Bob Holley skinned to the summit. Which was above the clouds, calm, and very peaceful."We're really a chatty lot here." And what with Strafford and S. Strafford lacking a café or other spot for people like Roz Finn to meet up, Coburns' General Store plays a crucial role in town—though not only for conversation, as Frances Mize writes in the Valley News. You may remember the Herald story ten days ago about efforts to form a community trust to take over the store from the Coburn family if no other buyers emerge; Mize details their plans, and talks to Sue and Melvin Coburn and to daughter Chrissy Jamieson. “Every day I feel guilty,” Jamieson—who has no plans to take over—says. “There are days when I wish I could stay, and days when we can’t sell this place soon enough.”US marshals caught Kaitlin Armstrong in Costa Rica by advertising for a yoga instructor. In a long report on the 2022 slaying of Vermonter, Dartmouth grad, and rising gravel racer Mo Wilson, CBS News' Jonathan Vigliotti on 48 Hours also digs deep into the hunt for Armstrong, who was convicted of the murder in November. She'd fled the country and was believed to be in Costa Rica, where two US marshals spent a week trying to track her down. They eventually wound up in Santa Teresa—where, one tells Vigliotti, "a lot of the women...look just like Kaitlin." They turned to the ad. Which worked.NH AG's office indicts waste facility in Orange for falsifying reports. In all, Hammond Grinding and Recycling faces six felony charges for failing to report "that they exceeded their permit capacity for unprocessed construction and demolition debris" and for submitting false reports to the state on waste quantities they received. The company, writes Frances Mize in the Valley News, separates recyclable material out from construction and demolition debris, then grinds the remainder for use as cover at landfills. A company spokesman wouldn't comment yesterday. Here's the AG's press release.Naptime! I'm talking about the snoozing barred owl in this week's "This Week in the Woods", though come to think of it ... *stretch* *yawn*... As Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast writes about these last few days of January and first of February, "Barred owls and other owls have fewer prey options now than at other times of year, greater energy demands staying warm," and often a harder time getting at prey. "Winter’s challenging conditions are also why you are more likely to see barred owls out in the daytime now, as they supplement night hunting with daytime hunting."Woodpeckers and nuthatches: distant early warning system for the emerald ash borer? One study, writes Mary Holland on her Naturally Curious blog, found that woodpeckers ate 85% of EAB larvae in infested trees—and as a result, a US Forest Service researcher is looking into whether the birds' removal of ash trees' outer bark to get at the grubs—which leaves lighter-colored patches—can help identify infested trees early. "Early detection," Holland writes, "can result in early treatment, both natural and chemical, which bodes well for the survival of the tree."Woman rescued from trash compactor in Manchester. It has echoes of the case of Jessica Morehouse, who was found dead in a pile of cardboard a year ago at the Hartford Casella recycling center after spending the night in a dumpster whose contents were picked up and compacted. This time, the ending is better: A truck driver yesterday noticed the woman inside the compactor portion of his truck after emptying a dumpster at a Manchester apartment complex. Firefighters went in through the roof to rescue her, though she was badly injured. She was not homeless, according to the city's fire chief; WMUR reports she told investigators she fell in while dumping her trash.VT radio chain sued by Global Music Rights. GMR—which, like BMI and ASCAP, represents artists—has filed a multi-million-dollar suit against Vermont Broadcast Associates "for allegedly playing popular songs on air without obtaining a license to do so," reports VTDigger's Habib Sabet. The suit alleges stations run by the group, including Moo 92 and Magic 97.7, played songs like Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" and others without paying licensing fees. "I have the belief that this will be settled amicably," says VBA's owner.
The New Yorker dives into how Jay Peak—and Bill Stenger—got caught up in the EB-5 scandal. If you long ago lost track of what the case was all about, Sheelah Kolhatkar tells the story in classic New Yorker fashion, starting with Stenger—who'd been Jay Peak's general manager since 1984—and his dreams of turning it into a four-season resort and of finding a way to revitalize the northern VT economy. It's a wide-ranging piece that explores the Northeast Kingdom, the EB-5 program that lets foreign investors essentially buy green cards—and inside details on how the bid to remake Jay Peak went wrong.Looking for train adventure? It's right on our doorstep! At least, according to Outside mag's Graham Averill, who lists "The 6 Most Adventurous Train Trips in North America"—with #1 being Amtrak's Vermonter. The route runs from DC to St. Albans—through WRJ, of course—including a stop at Waterbury, with Stowe 10 miles away and "reachable by bus or bike." "Bring your skis in winter or your bike in summer," Averill writes. He also covers routes from Denver to Moab, Toronto to Vancouver, and more.How a 1948 project to parachute beavers into Idaho caught NASA's attention. That set of drops over the Sawtooth Range, writes Danielle Hallock in Atlas Obscura, was an effort to relocate them to remote spots where they couldn't bother people. But old satellite photos show what happened next: the land became "so lush and verdant that the greenery clearly stood out from space"—and, a few years ago, withstood wildfires. “Beavers aren’t trying to make healthy ecosystems. They’re just doing their thing," Hallock writes. Now, their reintroduction is bringing back trees, bushes, water, fish, and wildlife.Just dropping by for a chat. Which takes on a whole new meaning when you're Australian paraglider David Edwards.The Tuesday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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At 5 pm today, Kevin Powell—poet, spoken-word artist, loft-member of MTV's pathbreaking The Real World, longtime writer for Vibe—will be at Dartmouth to talk about "Hip Hop at 50". His spoken-word version of his 2022 poetry collection, Grocery Shopping with my Mother, is up for a Grammy on Sunday. He'll be signing copies of The Kevin Powell Reader after the talk. In Dartmouth 105.
Today at 5:30 pm, Dartmouth's Dickey Center hosts Joel Lamstein, an international public health researcher and lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health, for his talk, "Working Towards Health Equity Around the World, A Practical Approach". In particular, the center writes, he'll be discussing "the impact of building skills and infrastructure in areas of need, in community with the population served." In Haldeman 41 and livestreamed.
At 6 pm, violinist, composer, filmmaker, and klezmer revivalist Yale Strom kicks off the first of two evenings of events with a discussion marking the 60th anniversary of when 1,564 Torah scrolls taken from Czech synagogues by the Nazis arrived in London, after being rescued from neglect and deterioration in Prague. In the decades since, they've been restored and given homes all over the world—including, for one, at the Upper Valley Jewish Community and Dartmouth Hillel. Strom will talk about the scrolls' history and their legacy with the UVJC's David Hoffer and Thomas Cochran. At the Loew Auditorium.
Strom's talk is at the Loew because it will be followed by a screening of his film Carpati: 50 Miles, 50 Years. The 1996 film, narrated by Leonard Nimoy, begins with a story about a Jewish man from the eastern Europe's Carpathian Mountains who's asked why he knows so many languages: "I had my bris in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, my bar mitzvah in Czechoslovakia, my divorce in the Soviet Union and I’ll be buried in the Ukraine, but I’ve never left my hometown,” he replies, illustrating the region's political ups and downs. Zev Godinger, a Holocaust survivor at the center of Strom's film, did leave his hometown, and the film follows his return home 50 years later, offering a portrait of the Carpathians and the mingling of Roma and Jewish cultures there—especially music. Followed by a discussion about the film with Strom. No tickets needed.
And also at 7, online, Phoenix Books hosts the editorial and design team behind The Vermont Almanac, discussing Volume IV, which was recently released. They'll be talking about the book's many subjects, from a trilobyte fossil found in Bennington to snowflakes, floodplain forests, the history of Vermont barns, Christmas tree farms, wildflowers in winter... and how it all comes together.
And the Tuesday poem.
I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey,And Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day.The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres,And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires.The land's sharp features seemed to be The Century's corpse outleant,His crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind his death-lament.The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry,And every spirit upon earth Seemed fervourless as I.At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overheadIn a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited;An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume,Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom.So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic soundWas written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around,That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night airSome blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.
— "The Darkling Thrush", by
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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
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