GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Ho hum. Another October day reaching the 70s. Things change tomorrow night, but for the moment, we've still got high pressure in place. After any fog clears this morning it'll be mostly sunny, winds from the south, highs in the mid or even upper 70s. Only around 50 tonight.Comet gallery. Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is still out there, but past its prime naked-eye visibility. Even so, there's a window of darkness between sunset and moonrise that might help if you've got binoculars and look toward the western sky. Maybe you'll catch some Orionids, too. Meanwhile, Upper Valley photographers have hardly been idle on the comet front recently. Thank you to everyone who sent a photo in: There were more than I've got room for.
Here's Taylor Haynes's shot from Hartford Sunday night.
And David Pelletier's earlier photo from WRJ.
And Midge Eliassen's sunset photo over Lake Sunapee.
And here's Ted Levin putting things in perspective. "The comet last passed through Earth's orbit 80,000 years ago," he wrote last Friday in his newsletter. "The Ice Age was winding down. North and South America were peopleless. Jaguars roamed everywhere, from Monterey Bay to North Carolina, in the company of three species of mammoths, American mastodons, three species of giant ground sloths, giant beavers, cave lions, saber-toothed tigers, giant short-faced bears, wild horse and zebras and camels, stag moose and dire wolves...and two teratorns—birds of prey with twelve-foot wingspans."A guide to election resources. We're two weeks away from the Nov. 5 election, and news organizations in both states have compiled plenty of material to help you find your way through the logistics, the issues, and the candidates. At the burgundy link, you'll find descriptions of what's available right now for the Upper Valley and statewide in both states. I'll update it again next week, but hey, if you want a sense of the candidates, it's not too early.The biggest challenge for Hanover town government right now may be staffing. At least, that's what town manager Rob Houseman tells The Dartmouth's Iris WeaverBell in a Q&A about his work, now that he's been promoted from interim to full-time town manager. "We have vacancies in police, public works, parks and recreation—all of which impact our level of service," he says. "I’ll use the example of public works: I am five equipment operators short, which may not seem like a big deal until the snow piles, because they clear the roads." They talk over training, the housing shortage, and Houseman's career.SPONSORED: “We shake our brooms and we dance around a cauldron and we cackle. It’s a great stress releaser!” After a series of crazy events threw her life into turmoil, Sue Fitzgerald found relief in ‘A Company of Witches.’ Even when pain prevented her from performing, she found ways to overcome it... “I’m just tickled to be able to dance again!” Sponsored by Cioffredi & Associates Physical Therapy.Two VT state troopers collide in Bradford. Remember yesterday's story about the Sunday arrest of David Gilmore for his thefts of a pickup, a trailer, and more? Well, Trooper Riley Fenoff, the arresting officer, was responding to a reported sighting of the stolen Silverado when a truck matching its description sped by along Route 5 in Bradford in the opposite direction. In the words of yesterday's VSP press release, "Trooper Fenoff started to conduct a U-turn at which point Trooper [Luke] Rodzel collided with Trooper Fenoff’s cruiser." Neither officer was hurt.More on those Bradford selectboard resignations. You may remember that two members, Ryan Lockwood and Nikki Stevens, stepped down earlier this month. They cited "a reluctance to change and an atmosphere they described as disrespectful," writes Emma Roth-Wells in the Valley News. In particular, Stevens, who uses they/them pronouns, points to an overall unwelcoming atmosphere and, in a complaint to the state human rights commission, complained of "persistent sexism, hostility, and mistreatment." Remaining board members have pushed back on both charges.SPONSORED: Across Oceans: Indigenous Solidarity Throughout Pasifika and Beyond. Hood Museum intern Kaitlyn Anderson ’24 brings together works whose origins range from Australia to Hawaiʻi to the west coast of the United States and Canada to explore possibilities for solidarity and empowerment rooted in community, continuity, and self-determination. Gallery Talk: Friday, November 1, 4:00–4:45 pm. Plan your visit today! Sponsored by the Hood.In Hanover, Felix Davis's startup effort to create portable microclinics takes root. After Mary Dagadu, the woman who raised him, died of breast cancer in Ghana because access to medical care was so challenging she went undiagnosed for too long, Davis left med school there to come to Dartmouth. He's studying computer science and economics and has launched a nonprofit to create modular clinics equipped with portable medical devices and the ability to do remote diagnosis and treatment. Dartmouth News' Bill Platt profiles Davis and what's been needed to get the nonprofit, Mary Global Health, running.In Enfield, hopes for a downtown coffee shop. The town's planning board tomorrow will take up a request from Thomas Morrill, pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Lebanon, to open coffee shop whose goal is to “craft a family focused community using coffee as the catalyst" as well as to feature work from local craftsmen, reports Liz Sauchelli in the VN. If approved, it would go into space previously used by a consignment shop. “It’s been sort of a dream of a lot of people in Enfield to have a coffee shop on Main Street,” planning director Rob Taylor tells Sauchelli. A new Main St. brewery is due to open in the spring.Well, all you runners and walkers: You raised $825K (and counting) for CHaD. In all, more than 3,100 participants, sponsors, and donors hit the Dartmouth Green on Sunday for the 19th annual CHaD HERO half marathon, 5K run and walk, and fun run. Link goes to WMUR's coverage with some pics. The DH press release says that since its inception, the CHaD HERO has raised over $10 million for the children's hospital. Fundraising totals for top teams and individuals are at this link.Okay, just how does Vermont fund its schools? You can be forgiven for being confused, because not only is it complicated, but the state's school-funding vocabulary—yield bill? CLA? long term weighted average daily membership?—doesn't seem meant for mere mortals. Now, though, Vermont Public and education reporter Lola Duffort have gone up with an animated video explainer—and accompanying glossary—that breaks the whole process down, from what local school boards do to the role legislators play to things like taxes and student weighting. It's still complex—but at least now you know why.Finance site ranks VT, NH as safest states in the US. And ME and MA come in numbers 3 and 4 on Wallet Hub's new report, which blends ratings on personal and neighborhood safety (where NH actually comes in first); something they call "financial safety"—stats like non-business bankruptcies and underwater mortgages; and road and workplace safety. VT, for instance, has the lowest percentage of people who have used a phone while driving. NH, meanwhile, has very low rates of both violent and nonviolent crime, safe neighborhoods, and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.A hurricane's journey from birth to death. To explain the lifecycle of a hurricane, the BBC has put together a travelog, with an amazing cockpit’s-eye view of the eye of the storm and cool morphing maps. Hurricanes often begin as thunderstorms above the Ethiopian highlands then move across the Atlantic, where the right conditions, including warm surface waters, intensify them and start the spin. We tag along with meteorologists in “hurricane hunter” planes, who fly through the chaos and into the calm eye to collect crucial data that helps them predict when and where the hurricane will cause the most damage.
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We may be the middle of nowhere to everyone else in VT and NH, but
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know what's good! Strong Rabbit's Morgan Brophy has come up with the perfect design for "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Plus you'll find the Daybreak jigsaw puzzle, as well as sweatshirts, tees, a fleece hoodie, and, as always, the fits-every-hand-perfectly Daybreak mug. Check it all out at the link!
Greg Reichberg, a military ethicist at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, will talk about the issues raised by placing warfare under the control of machines. 4:30 pm, Rocky 001.
Elbridge Colby, longtime strategic defense official, assistant defense secretary during the Trump administration, and co-founder of The Marathon Initiative—a DC think tank focused on strategies for navigating great power conflicts—will talk over US policy toward China with Dartmouth government prof William Wohlforth. 5 pm in Filene Auditorium and online.
The poetry and flash fiction duo will read and talk about their micro stories, collected in Pokrass's
First Law of Holes
and Friedman's
Broken Signals
. 6 pm.
In an illustrated talk, Hubka traces the evolution of New England farm dwellings as farmers here faced growing competition from farmers in other regions with better soil and growing conditions. 6:30 pm in-person in the Mayer Room and online.
The folk-cabaret singer, songwriter, 2019 Grammy nominee, and scholar also known as Psoy Korolenko gives the third edition of his annual concert at Dartmouth. "This multilingual program includes songs and translations mostly themed around autumn and the concept of wandering." In Collis 007 at 7 pm.
Tapper, who lives in Bolton, VT, is a forester and a writer. His debut book "walks us through the fragile and resilient community that is a forest," the publicity runs, arguing that tending an ecosystem is hard and complicated work. He'll be talking with Dartmouth forest ecologist Joseph Tumber-Dávila at 7 pm.
The Tuesday Poem.
If you don't know the kind of person I amand I don't know the kind of person you area pattern that others made may prevail in the worldand following the wrong god home we may miss our star.For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,a shrug that lets the fragile sequence breaksending with shouts the horrible errors of childhoodstorming out to play through the broken dike.And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,I call it cruel and maybe the root of all crueltyto know what occurs but not recognize the fact.And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,a remote important region in all who talk:though we could fool each other, we should consider—lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.For it is important that awake people be awake,or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.—
"A Ritual to Read to Each Other"
by
See you tomorrow.
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.
The Enthusiasms Archives. A list of book recommendations by Daybreak's rotating crew of local booksellers, writers, and librarians who think you should read. this. book. now!
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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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
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