GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Mostly sunny, warm. Any fog early this morning will clear. out quickly, and down here the day looks a lot like yesterday: highs getting into the low 80s, plenty of sun, though maybe a little more humidity and some afternoon breezes from the south. Up above, there's a low-pressure trough heading our way, and with it a chance of rain and thunder overnight, though the main event won't be until tomorrow. Temps tonight in the mid-60s.In case you missed fireworks on Saturday... So did Mary Connolly. But she got her consolation on Sunday night, from the comfort of her front porch in Wilder: a fine display of heat lightning. Click on the video for full effect. The world looks okay to me. Whadda you think? Quechee photographer Lisa Lacasse counted no fewer than 13 ducklings hiding out under this ma mallard, though they're not all visible. How does she stay so serene-looking?
The new numbers...
NH added 21 new positive test results yesterday, which you'd think would bring its total to 5,918 but it's reporting only 5,914. There are 4,706 (80%) recovered cases and 382 deaths (up 1), yielding a total current caseload of 826 (down 6). Grafton County remains at 88 cumulatively, Sullivan at 35. Merrimack County gained 1 and stands at 419. Claremont remains at 5 active cases; Canaan, Lebanon, Plainfield, Grantham, Charlestown, Claremont, Sunapee, and Newbury have between 1 and 4 each.
VT reported 2 new cases yesterday, bringing its official statewide total at 1,251. One person is hospitalized and 1,022 (up 15) have recovered. Deaths remain at 56, while Windsor and Orange counties remain at 59 and 10 cumulative cases, respectively. The state added 329 tests and has now done 70,353 overall.
They're calling it a "retirement incentive option," the
VN
reports, and about 550 people, or 18 percent of the college's employees, both faculty and staff, are eligible. It would provide six months of pay to employees who have worked at the college for at least 10 consecutive years and whose years of employment and age, when combined, total at least 75.
The White River Valley district and Dresden both have task forces gauging parents' thoughts on in-person learning, transportation options, and the like. Lebanon has a group of administrators and staff trying to work out the logistics of six-feet-of-separation in school buildings that might not be able to accommodate it for every student—hence City Manager Shaun Mulholland's offer. “We could literally take rows of chairs, unscrew those and move them," he tells the
VN
's Tim Camerato.
So just who did get all that PPP money? Thanks to a lawsuit by The Washington Post and 11 other news organizations, the Small Business Administration yesterday released data on the specific businesses and organizations that received federal Paycheck Protection Program loans—by name for those getting over $150,000.
In NH, the AP reports, hospitals and ski areas—including Waterville Valley Resort, whose principal owner is the Sununu family—were among the largest beneficiaries. Six organizations related to health care—Androscoggin Valley Hospital, Concord Regional Visiting Nurse Association, Huggins Hospital, the Mental Health Center of Greater Nashua, Riverbend Community Mental Health and Speare Memorial Hospital—got between $5 million and $10 million. All told, 23,829 businesses received more than $2.5 billion.
Meanwhile, Seven Days' Andrea Suozzo takes a detailed look at VT's data, finding that seven businesses and organizations were in the $5-10 million range: Bennington College, Copley Hospital, GW Plastics, iTech US, PC Construction, Momentum Manufacturing and the Vermont Energy Investment Corp. In addition, Trapp Family Lodge and Smugglers' Notch received between $2 million and $5 million, and the Skinny Pancake received $1 million to $2 million. Full list of businesses receiving over $150K at the link.
Saturday's planned Trump rally provokes mask debate in Portsmouth. The city only has between one and four active Covid-19 cases, according to the state, and with the rally likely to attract people from all over the region, some city councillors want a mask requirement. The mayor's reluctant—and notes that the rally site, at Pease, isn't under the city's control. Meanwhile, Gov. Chris Sununu says he'll be a wearing a mask if he greets the president at the airport, and adds, "It is imperative that folks attending the rally wear masks.”NH's low rate of coronavirus infection in first wave may leave it vulnerable in a second wave. That was state health commissioner Lori Shibinette's message at a press conference yesterday. While great uncertainty remains about how much protection antibodies confer, epidemiologists believe they do offer some advantage, the Monitor's Teddy Rosenbluth writes. So absent a vaccine, while about 20 percent of New Yorkers would go into a second wave with some level of protection, only 4 percent of Granite Staters would. Latest estimates put VT, NH as 3rd, 2nd oldest states in the country. The Census Bureau's 2019 population estimates give Vermont a median age of 43.0 and New Hampshire a median age of 43.1. The national median is 38.4 years. The highest median age in the country belongs to Maine, at 45.0. As economist Art Woolf notes in a VTDigger commentary, VT and ME are also the two whitest states in the country, though intriguingly, Vermont's population decline over the last decade would have been much larger if it hadn't been for growth in its Black, Hispanic, and Asian populations. VT makes the national mags... for its food scrap ban. Both Fast Company (at the maroon link) and Food & Wine take note. "The state doesn’t have the resources or desire," writes Fast Company's Kristin Toussaint, "to enforce the ban at the residential level. Instead, officials are asking for voluntary compliance—and they expect to get it, based on how seriously Vermonters take their environmentalism." For its readers, F&W offers, "It's not a terrible idea to start your own compost pile, regardless of where you live," and suggests becoming an Instagram "compost influencer." Crown-tipped coral, pearly-eye, junior chipmunk, damselfly. Elise Tillinghast's latest Northern Woodlands post looks at what you'll find in the woods this second week of July, including crown-tipped coral and orange mycena (mushrooms), northern pearly-eyes (butterflies), milkweed and the creatures it attracts (including red milkweed beetles), and red elderberry. Oh, and know this year's bumper crop of chipmunks? Well, they have two litters a summer, and they're just about done raising the first. Fair warning. And speaking of milkweed... "It’s hard to think of another wild plant that that has more uses for humans than milkweed," writes Carolyn Haley in the Vermont Almanac. Young leaves and shoots are "poor man's asparagus" in the spring; its white resin was used as a rubber substitute during WWII and can serve as a quick-drying natural bandage. Its floss, Haley writes, is "a better insulator than down." Oh, and also, it's been used to treat warts and moles, and as a laxative by Native communities.Pull out your pad and paper: NASA's got a Lunar Loo challenge. They're trying to figure out how to one-up the International Space Station's toilet, designed to work in microgravity, since astronauts exploring the Moon "will need a smaller, lighter, simpler toilet inside their lunar lander, because every ounce of mass on the lander is carefully allocated." It'll need to weigh less than 33 pounds on Earth, fit in about four cubic feet of space, and be able to clean and reset within five minutes. Top three designs share a $35K prize.
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She's got fans like Lyle Lovett and Celeste Ng. She's written books with titles like Feasting on the Carcasses of My Enemies: A Love Story. And she tweets out lines like, “What kind of feelings taste best raw? I like regrets on the half shell." This evening at 7, Still North Books hosts writers Alexander Chee, Rebecca Makkai, and Connie Schultz talking about the popular and anonymous Twitter personality Duchess Goldblatt on the occasion of her new actual book, Becoming Duchess Goldblatt, and discussing "how we live our lives—and create new ones—through fiction."
Then, at 8, Hopkins Center film guides Sydney Stowe and Johanna Evans will be chatting live with Alex Horwitz, director of Hamilton's America, the 2016 documentary that delved into Alexander Hamilton's life and the founding era through the making of Lin Manuel-Miranda's Hamilton. More recently, he directed Autonomy, with Malcolm Gladwell, on the future of automated vehicles. Plus shorts on Jon Bon Jovi and Prince Harry. Clips to get you ready at the link, plus a golden button that gets you to the live chat on YouTube.
Also at 8, it's Ringo's Big Birthday Show. He's turning 80. I know, right? Ringo, Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, Ben Harper and Dave Grohl, Gary Clark Jr., Sheila E., Sheryl Crow... Funds raised go to Black Lives Matter, The David Lynch Foundation, MusiCares, and WaterAid. (Thanks, KS!)
Finally, yesterday's link to Sonny Kelly's The Talk took you to a description page that had the link to the actual performance, but didn't make it obvious. Sorry about that. If you didn't find it, go here.
The path to Han-Shan’s place is laughable,A path, but no sign of cart or horse.Converging gorges—hard to trace their twistsJumbled cliffs—unbelievably rugged.A thousand grasses bend with dew,A hill of pines hums in the wind.And now I’ve lost the shortcut home,Body asking shadow, how do you keep up?
— Han Shan, 700-780 CE, Gary Snyder trans.See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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