A PLEASURE TO SEE YOU, UPPER VALLEY!
Who doesn't like a good airmass moderation? That, apparently, is what's going on high above us, and while what's left of this weekend's High Plains blizzard passes to our south, we get a sunny day, highs up around 50, with virtually no wind. Clouds coming in tonight, down to the mid-30s.Delivery problems? I heard from both Gmail and dartmouth.edu users yesterday that Daybreak didn't show up. Email providers tinker with algorithms and there's not much to do about it on this end, but you can help. If you've got a Dartmouth address, go here and follow the directions to add Daybreak to your "safe sender" list. For Gmail, here are instructions for adding Daybreak to your contacts (scroll to "Method 2"). That works most of the time, but to be certain, you can also tell Gmail you want Daybreak in your inbox every dang time.The other end of the day... Two sunset photos today, as the distance between daybreak and nightfall grows:
Here's sunset on Mascoma Lake, from the rail trail, by Marilyn Breselor;
And the pink-and-orange-lit clouds of a waning day over Mt. Cube, from Paul Goundrey.
First Fridays gear up to return to WRJ—with outdoor films and dining. The first one will be May 7, and thanks to an $18,000 grant it will bring new life to the streets—or at least a parking lot. The money, which went to White River Indie Films and other organizations, will help turn the lot behind the Coolidge, on Currier Street, into an al fresco spot to eat, visit, and watch films and projection art. The white-sided buildings that border it will serve as screens—as will an actual screen for high-res feature films after dark. There will also be smaller projections and sound installations scattered around downtown WRJ.Thetford finally sells parcel. The 8-acre Post Mills hayfield that the town bought for workforce housing, then placed on the market after opposition to its plans, will go to the land's neighbors if the town's attorney approves. The selectboard approved the sale Monday evening, reports the Valley News's Liz Sauchelli. The buyers are a couple who own a home nearby on Lake Fairlee, who plan "to provide financing for another neighbor, Brian Ricker, to maintain it as a hayfield," Sauchelli writes, at least for now.SPONSORED: Join the Upper Valley Music Center for its Faculty Showcase Concert! UVMC teachers share their performing talents in this annual event, with a program ranging from Bach to traditional folk tunes to Joni Mitchell, along with original compositions and a special virtual ensemble piece bringing together 20+ voices and instruments. It will be broadcast Saturday, March 20 at 4 pm on YouTube and Facebook Live and at uvmusic.org. Sponsored by Upper Valley Music Center.New London Hospital scrubs Hospital Days again. This would be the 97th year for the annual event, which includes a midway, parade, and triathlon. “We are heartbroken to make this decision a second year in a row,” CEO Tom Manion said in a press release yesterday. “For 97 years, Hospital Days has been the foundation on which we build our community engagement. However, in good conscience, we cannot move forward with the traditional flagship activities...that draw large crowds. It would be a public health risk to do so.”Legislators opt not to put Windsor prison site up for sale. The Southeast Correctional Facility has been shuttered since 2017, and though the state at one point had considered putting state offices there, the pandemic's remote-work revolution has rejiggered calculations, and in this year's budget Gov. Phil Scott proposed selling it. Yesterday, however, the House corrections committee opted to keep it in state hands, reports the VN's Tim Camerato. That sits fine with Windsor Town Manager Tom Marsh. “What we really can’t have is the state walk away from the property and for it to just sit there and deteriorate,” he says.NH is now one of two exit-sign holdouts. Though VT does try to have it both ways. As you no doubt remember, the feds for years have wanted the states to number their highway exits according to distance from the state border (or start of the road), rather than sequentially. Now, David Brooks writes in the Monitor, MA has made the switchover. ME did it in 2014. VT has gone to putting mileage numbers in smaller type below the sequential exit number. So only NH and DE remain hidebound. Here's betting that doesn't change soon. Six NH residents arrested for bitcoin money-exchange scheme. The US Attorney's indictment charges them with operating a business in violation of money-laundering laws that "enabled customers to exchange over ten million dollars in fiat currency [ie, dollars] for virtual currency, charging a fee for their service." Three of the six are from Keene, where they are libertarian activists and have all run for office, reports the Keene Sentinel's Caleb Symons. The feds allege some of the defendants opened false religious bank accounts, misleading banks into believing they were receiving charitable contributions.NH's Black, Latino residents receive vaccine at about half the rate of whites. That's according to new state data requested by NHPR, reports Casey McDermott. In all, about 16 percent of the state's white population has received a first dose, compared with 7 percent of the Black and Latino populations. In part, health department spokesman Jake Leon tells McDermott, this may have to do with age differences: On the whole, the white population is older. "But there are likely many other factors that we don’t yet have data on, such as vaccine hesitancy and access,” he says.Plans for vaccinating Vermonters 16 and over coming Friday. At his twice-weekly press conference yesterday, Phil Scott said that the state is due to get a significant boost in its federal vaccine allocation starting at the end of the month, which in turn could allow it to speed up its vaccination schedule. "If supply comes in as promised, we hope anyone who wants a vaccine will have the opportunity to be fully vaccinated by the summer,” Scott said, adding that the plan is to make every Vermonter over 16 years eligible by the end of April. Detailed timeline Friday."We are on the chopping block." That's UVM geologist Paul Bierman in an email responding to yesterday's item about the groundbreaking research UVM geologists just published about the Greenland ice sheet. "So ironic when four of us (half the department) are on what now seems to be one of UVM”s biggest science stories in a long time," he writes. Geology is one of the departments (and many programs) that UVM has said it plans to dismantle. The study showing that the ice sheet has melted in the past—and might again, speeding sea-level rise—is getting big coverage, including this in the Washington Post.UVM prof faces calls for resignation after video challenging university's "anti-racism" initiatives. In the March 8 video, Aaron Kindsvatter, who teaches counseling, says he “first heard of whiteness” when a colleague “offered to help [him] with it, like it was some kind of disease,” reports Seven Days' Chelsea Edgar. A petition organized by Sisters of Color, a student group on campus, contends that "acknowledging the role of whiteness in systemic racism has been supported by every department on campus...Speaking out against this work is harmful when you cannot hold yourself accountable."VT Senate moves to make mail-in ballots permanent. The chamber gave preliminary approval yesterday to a measure requiring that town clerks mail ballots to all active, registered voters ahead of general elections. Today it is expected to debate a proposal to expand the requirement to all elections, essentially codifying the way towns handled the 2020 elections and town meeting balloting. Once it's approved again, the bill will move on to the House. Gov. Phil Scott indicated yesterday that he supports it. "I feel like I’ve been flagellated with bars of soap in tube socks." And that was after just a day of Outside writer Kim Cross's project to do 100 wheelies a day on her mountain bike...for a month. Her goal: to be able to wheelie "until I choose to put the wheel down." Along the way she deals with her skeptical 12-year-old son, delves into the history of wheelie-ing, and gets advice from experts, including a Cirque du Soleil trick cyclist. The quest—her breakthrough comes with Wheelie No. 681—is a lesson not just in endurance, but in how the brain and the body train each other and in the vital importance of fun.
So...
Dartmouth's at 7 active cases among students (down 2) and 1 among faculty/staff (down 1). There are 21 students and 5 faculty/staff in quarantine because of travel or exposure, while 9 students and 7 faculty/staff are in isolation awaiting results or because they tested positive.
NH reported 286 new cases yesterday, for a cumulative total of 79,070. There were 3 new deaths, which now total at 1,202. Meanwhile, 66 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (down 2). The current active caseload stands at 2,074 (up 10). The state reports 108 active cases in Grafton County (down 10), 27 in Sullivan (down 6), and 216 in Merrimack (up 5). In town-by-town numbers, the state says New London has 51 active cases (down 1), Hanover has 21 (down 5), Sunapee has 6 (no change), Canaan has 6 (no change), and Claremont has 5 (down 2). Haverhill, Orford, Lyme, Lebanon, Enfield, Plainfield, Springfield, Unity, Enfield, Plainfield, Springfield, Croydon, Wilmot, Newbury, Newport, and Charlestown have 1-4 each.
VT reported 53 new cases yesterday (its lowest number since last November), bringing it to a total case count of 17,047. It reported 1 new death, for a total of 215. Meanwhile, 24 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (down 5). Windsor County gained no cases and remains at 1,104 for the pandemic, with 53 over the past 14 days. Orange County added 1 new case to bring it to 531 cumulatively, with 17 cases in the past 14 days.
News that connects you. If you like Daybreak and want to help it keep going, here's how:
At 10 am today—and then again at 6 pm—WRJ's Special Needs Support Center is holding public meetings about expanding its work with police dispatchers and emergency responders to help them identify and respond to residents with special needs. In particular, they're looking for BIPOC input on ways the program can account for "the intersection of race and disability as it relates to safe interactions with law enforcement." Via Zoom.
Today at noon, the Montshire is hosting a session on "Understanding Community Health." They'll be focusing in particular on community health needs assessments and how they're used to affect public health in the Upper Valley. Speakers include Granite United Way's Elizabeth Craib, the Public Health Council of the Upper Valley's Alice Ely, and Greg Norman, DHMC's director of community health improvement. Free, but you'll need to register.
This evening at 6:30, the Burlington Irish Heritage Festival closes out its 2021 celebration with a grand finale that includes music from the Zeichner Trio, music from fiddler Sarah Blair, a "kitchen ceili dance lesson" on jigs, and poetry. Free via Zoom, but you know the drill.
If you're interested in the group raising money to try to keep the Norwich Farm Creamery going and to create a dairy and education center at the farm, the Norwich Farm Foundation has a Zoom webinar this evening at 7 to talk about what they're up to.
Also at 7, Montpelier's Lost Nation Theater is hosting a staged reading of a new play by Jeanne Beckwith, Sam & Jim in Hell. The theater writes that the idea for the play came to Beckwith as she walked along the River Liffey in Dublin about a year and a half ago, noticed the Samuel Beckett Bridge, "and wondered what Beckett might think about a bridge named in his honor. She thought about how Beckett—and his compatriot James Joyce—had both become Irish icons in spite of feeling estranged from the Ireland of their time. And then she thought, 'That must be hell for them!'" Free, but you'll need to sign up for the link, and the theater wouldn't turn away a donation.
Finally, also at 7, the Vermont Studio Center hosts Kentucky-based story-writer, poet, and essayist Crystal Wilkinson, whose work focuses on Black women in Appalachia. She also co-owns Wild Fig Books and Coffee in Lexington, KY. Free, register etc.
You probably know Amy Ray best as half of the Indigo Girls, but she’s also had a long solo career, runs a record label in Decatur, Georgia, and hangs out with a small coterie of very attentive dogs. Who pretty much steal the show in her new video for "Muscadine."See you tomorrow.
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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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