GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sun again. High pressure's now comfortably settled in overhead, bringing us mostly or completely sunny skies all day with temps getting into the lower or mid 30s again. Winds today from the north. Getting cloudier tonight, but still tranquil, lows in the upper teens.What is it about red buildings in a winter landscape? They're arresting, as with this one in Thetford, from Robin Osborne.Federal official says Dartmouth men's basketball players are employees, can unionize. That ruling came yesterday from Laura Sacks, who runs the National Labor Relations Board’s Boston office. She argued that because Dartmouth can "control the work” of the team, whose members play “in exchange for compensation” like equipment and basketball shoes, players are employees under federal law. In a statement last night, reports Jim Kenyon in the Valley News, the college's Diana Lawrence said "students are scholars first and athletes second" and that the college will seek a review of the decision. The NYT puts the decision into national context here (gift link).Behind Dartmouth's decision to reinstate the SAT and ACT. The college also made headlines yesterday by announcing it would bring them back—after dropping the tests during the pandemic. In the NYT (gift link), David Leonhardt details what went into the decision, starting with four faculty members asked by President Sian Beilock to look into the question. They found not just that the tests were a better predictor than grades, essays, or recommendations of how a prospect would do, but that lower-income applicants were hurting their chances by not submitting test scores. “The research suggests this tool is helpful in finding students we might otherwise miss,” Beilock tells him.SPONSORED: Winter's here, and you can make a true difference! At Hearts You Hold, the Upper Valley-based nonprofit that supports immigrants, migrants, and refugees by taking the time to ask them what they need, we've been flooded with requests for winter clothing and gear. At the burgundy link above or here, you'll find our redesigned, easy-to-use website and requests from farmworkers in Orange and Grafton counties—as well as elsewhere—who need jackets, boots, shoes, and other items to keep them warm while they keep farms running through winter. Sponsored by Hearts You Hold."Interim" no more: Norwich makes police chief permanent. On Monday, reports the VN's John Lippman, Matthew Romei—the former chief of VT's Capitol Police who took on the interim job last August—was made the town's permanent chief, charged with renewing a department that has been operating with just two sworn officers since patrol officer Anna Ingraham left in November for the Royalton PD. “He has the track record and is a very thoughtful and professional individual, the kind of leader I want to begin rebuilding and create stability in the department," town manager Brennan Duffy tells Lippman.Remember last week's photo of a barred owl? This one's got it beat. Last week's was perched on a reflective marker off I-89. Now, Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast runs one atop a snow shovel—"an excellent low perch from which to hunt yard squirrels." Also out there this week in the woods: debris fields of ice along streams and rivers like the Ompompanoosuc, which form as surface ice breaks up during a thaw and then refreezes. "It’s hard to believe that fish can survive repeated exposure to this icy churn," Elise writes, "but most do. Woody debris, boulders, and other objects in the water offer shelter."Hopes for chestnut comeback dashed by difference between 58 and 54. For well over a decade, the Monitor's David Brooks has been tracking efforts—including research in NH and VT—to create a GMO chestnut that could withstand blight. Last fall, researchers were confident they were getting close—until one discovered that the crucial imported gene had attached itself to a different position than thought on the chestnut chromosome (54 vs. 58), causing stunted growth. Now the American Chestnut Federation has pulled support for the GMO release. Brooks explains the setback, and what's next.Unable to alert colleagues to NH Hospital shooting, its chief medical officer had to run through the halls yelling, "Active shooter!" That was one of the details in state House testimony yesterday about a failed alert system the day a former patient at the state's mental hospital killed a security guard and was, in turn, shot and killed by a state trooper. The testimony by Dr. Jeffrey Fetter, writes Annmarie Timmins in NH Bulletin, echoed that of associate medical director Samantha Swetter—"the first public accounts of the moments immediately after" the shooter opened fire. They were backing a bill to add certain mental health records to gun background checks.IRS pilot program to help taxpayers file electronically coming to NH. It won't debut until March in the 12 states trying it out, reports NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt, and it's got limits: The Direct File program can accept a W2, "a 1099-G for those receiving unemployment benefits, Form SSA-1099 for those getting Social Security payments, and up to $1,500 in interest income or U.S. bond obligations." But it can't take 1099s or health insurance bought through an exchange. And filers can't make more than $250K if filing jointly, or more than $200K if filing singly. DeWitt gives the details.Marilyn Manson does his community service time. You'd forgotten all about this, hadn't you? How the rocker pled no contest to a misdemeanor charge of simple assault against a videographer after he blew his nose on the victim at the Bank of NH Pavilion in Gilford back in 2019? He was sentenced last fall to 20 hours of community service and a fine, and now, reports the AP's Kathy McCormack, has completed those hours, working at an organization in Glendale, CA that provides meeting space for Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon. He also needs to notify police of any NH performances for two years.Short-term rental bookings suggest people really are headed to VT for the eclipse. Scraping data from Airbnb, Booking.com and VRBO, reports Vermont Public's Elodie Reed, a company called PriceLabs has found that nearly 80 percent of listings in Franklin, Orleans, and Chittenden counties are booked for the night of April 7—just ahead of the April 8 event—while Washington County is at 70 percent. Overall, nearly 43 percent of the state's listings are booked, compared to 9.6 percent last year. The head of the state's short-term rental alliance says she expects even more listings to come online as the date nears.“One thousand years is a long time, and there are so many reasons why this might not work.” That's one way of putting it. But if it does, people far, far in the future will be able to see far, far into the past (to 2023) and track the landscape near Tucson. For Smithsonian, Julia Binswanger writes about the Millennium Camera installed by Jonathon Keats, an experimental philosopher at U of Arizona. He hopes it will last through the centuries to capture a very long exposure, revealing to humans 1,000 years from now how the land evolved—and get people now thinking about how we affect the environment.There's doing the limbo. And then there's doing a limbo on two wheels.The Tuesday Vordle. With a word (think broadly) from yesterday's Daybreak.
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There's that Daybreak jigsaw puzzle, perfect for long nights by the fire. Plus, of course, fleece vests, hoodies, sweatshirts, even a throw blanket. And hats, mugs, and—once you work up a puzzle-piece sweat—tees. Check it all out at the link!
At 10:15 this morning, Dartmouth's Dialogue Project presents an online talk by political scientist Khalil Shikaki, who runs the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, on "The Rise—and Future—of Hamas". Shikaki, who is also a senior fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis, specializes in the Middle East peace process and Palestinian state-building. The talk is part of the Jewish Studies and Middle East Studies programs' ongoing Middle East Dia
At 1 pm today, the Hanover Garden Club hosts Joyce Connolly, a specialist with the Smithsonian's Garden Collections, Education, and Access branch, for a presentation on early garden photography using glass lantern slides. She'll be talking about the one-of-a-kind hand-tinted glass lantern slides crafted a century ago to document gardens and educate audiences about garden history and design. At the Montshire.
Today at 5:30, Grammy-winning violinist and Hop artist-in-residence Johnny Gandelsman will join Vermont Public's Mikaela Lefrak and Dartmouth alum Kojiro Umezaki for a conversation on "Music and Our American Moment". They'll be talking about "the original inspiration behind" Gandelsman's 24+ installment work This Is America—of which Umezaki's Breathe is a part—and "how creative practice can connect us across isolation, and what we (and the Grammy-winning violinist) hear through the compositions of today's adventurous composers." In the Hanover Inn ballroom: no charge, but ticket required.
At 6 pm, Community Care of Lyme hosts Kate Rohdenburg, a member of WISE's prevention team, for an online conversation on "Teen Dating Violence Prevention". They write, "Teens who experienced abusive relationships in their youth were four times more likely to experience [them] as adults. We establish our dating patterns young! Come talk with WISE about how to model and establish healthy dating skills, recognize warning signs, and support young people in your lives."
This evening at 7, the Norwich Bookstore hosts Jon Cho-Polizzi, translator and German prof at the U of Michigan, talking about his 2023 translation of Ada's Room, a novel by Sharon Dodua Otoo. The event, sponsored by Dartmouth's Leslie Center for the Humanities, German Department, and Comparative Literature Program, will focus on Otoo's first novel, written originally in German though Otoo is British, about four Adas—in 15th-century Ghana, Victorian England, a concentration camp in Germany, and modern-day Berlin, and the spirit they seem to share.
Also at 7, the VT Center for Ecostudies brings its February version of Suds & Science to the Norwich Inn, where Dartmouth engineering prof Daniel Olson will talk about engineering bacteria for biofuels production. "Biofuels made from cellulose are one of the few options available for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the heavy-duty transportation sector, which includes long-haul trucking, ocean shipping, and aviation," VCE writes. "Bacteria that natively consume cellulose are good candidates for producing cellulosic biofuels, but in many cases, their metabolism is poorly understood."
And at 7:30, Johnny Gandelsman and company move to the Church of Christ at Dartmouth College, for Part II of This is America, all of which will be performed during his yearlong Hop residency. The anthology took shape after Gandelsman asked some two dozen artists—including bassist Nick Dunston, fiddler Rhiannon Giddens, and cellist Tomeka Reid (also a Hop resident artist)—to reflect on the events of 2020. The performance is sold out, but you may be able to land a walk-up or obstructed-view ticket by showing up. There's also a waitlist here. And if neither of those work, there's a performance at Next Stage Arts in Putney tomorrow night.
And the Tuesday poem...
Coolness—the sound of the bell as it leaves the bell.
— "Coolness", by
(1716-1784), translated 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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