GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Maybe a tad brisk out there right now, eh? At least it's going to be calm and mostly sunny today, though cooler than normal: highs in the mid-50s. Even so, the weather folks say, "given the strong May sunshine it actually will be a fairly nice day." That's bubbling over with enthusiasm for them. It's likely there'll be patchy frost tonight, so if you just got all enthusiastic about spring and brought some annuals home and set them outside in pots, tonight would be a good night to bring them in. West Leb alumni parade calls it quits, won't bring out the convertibles this year. It's always been one of the more interesting holdovers of the Leb/West Leb merger: For 55 years, residents and alums have celebrated a high school that closed its doors in 1961. But the parade's aging organizers are having trouble finding anyone to take it over. “It was a nice little parade,” says Mayor Tim McNamara, a West Leb resident. “It’s unfortunate that they’ve been running out of graduates for the last few years.” (VN, subscription required)After years of planning, the proposed Sykes Mountain Ave. roundabout seems to be moving forward. The project, slated for the Sykes/Route 5 intersection in WRJ, has been on the state's books for years. Next Tuesday evening, there'll be an information session and site visit with VTrans, the design consultant, project managers, and Hartford public works staff. Get ready for some serious disruption.Holy cow! Graduation weekend is expensive! Yeah, sure, you knew it in a general way. But The Dartmouth's Andrew Culver digs into the actual numbers. $470 a night at the Norwich Inn, three-night minimum; $809 a night at Six South, same deal; Hanover Inn isn't even available -- its wait list opens a year in advance. Fortunately, the college does make dorm rooms available, for $50 per person per night. And of course, people all around the Upper Valley seize their own chance to get a three-day vacation paid for by out-of-towners. Oh, and then there's the seat-saving, which enterprising high school students and undergrads will do for $100 per seat in a mad rush starting at 5 am. The Valley News has not closed. Yesterday, the newspaper's ad sales director, Rich Wallace, felt compelled to take to Facebook to explain that it's still open and still reporting. Apparently, the move of its printing operations to the Concord area (Penacook, to be exact) has some people confused. An indication of the problem: One commenter says, "I was just talking to a man yesterday who was telling me that valley news closed the leb office and everything moved to Claremont and to be ready to only read of things happening in Claremont instead of upper valley."Just catching up: Twice on Sundae opened on Monday. The new ice cream/coffee/pastry joint next door to Salt Hill on the Lebanon Mall is the latest effort by Salt Hill's Joe and Josh Tuohy to feed the Upper Valley. Or as blogger Susan Apel puts it, "Because there can never be too much ice cream, or caffeine, in the Upper Valley. Never."Zantop friends, family, oppose James Parker's release. In the second of two opinion columns about the move by the younger of the two Zantop murderers for early release, the VN's Jim Kenyon details some of the letters that will become part of Parker's hearing on August 2. Parker wants the last seven years of his 25-year sentence suspended for good behavior. "James Parker’s crime was neither victimless nor nonviolent. Far from it," writes Dartmouth history prof Annelise Orleck. "[T]his can’t be only about him. Not today. Not ever.” Kenyon concludes by asking, "what we will gain from his continued incarceration?" (VN, you know the deal...)Dive deep into what's going on with the region's black bear population. As you know, they went into their dens hungrier than usual last fall, and they've been ranging widely this spring in the hunt for food. NHPR's The Exchange will be talking all about what's going on today with state wildlife biologists, along with Lyme's Ben Kilham. They'll also be spending some time on Mink, the incredible traveling bear. Ten arrested at NH State House sit-in protesting voter law. About 130 people staged a sit-in at the guv's offices yesterday, arguing against a law set to take effect in July tightening voting requirements, and in favor of a measure passed by the House recently that would reverse the step. When the group, mostly students, ignored a state police warning to disperse, 10 were busted on misdemeanor charges.NH's child abuse and neglect crisis is real, and the state needs to act now. With a measure to boost the numbers of child-protective workers having passed the legislature and awaiting signature, Concord attorney Michael Lewis takes to task a Union Leader editorial calling the crisis overblown. On the contrary, Lewis says, "DCYF cannot even answer the telephone when citizens call to report." He goes on: "Executive branch officials, in an apparent, coordinated communications strategy with the editorialists at the UL want to defend the governor’s budget, which falls dozens and dozens of positions short."VT House Democrats wavering on $15 minimum wage. With support in their own caucus far from assured, Democratic leaders in the House appear to be suggesting that the $15/hour figure they've had their eye on all session may not be as etched in stone as it appeared. Their members have been fielding calls from small-business people worried that the hike would be too much too fast. If you want to go deep, VTDigger has a roundup of their three-part exploration of what the measure would mean to the state.VT broadband bill facing amendment to account for 5G concerns. There's been a concerted push by people worried about the health effects of 5G development at the statehouse, and its found a receptive audience among lawmakers. And they've argued that bill to promote broadband that's making its way through the legislature would also make it easier to install 5G equipment. So the Senate Finance Committee is moving toward requiring more public review of proposed 5G installations.Both VT chambers pass legislation protecting access to abortion services. The state has no underlying law guaranteeing access, and proponents are worried that Roe v. Wade could be in jeopardy. So yesterday, the House passed a constitutional amendment that originated in the Senate, and the Senate passed a House-originated measure to create a state law guaranteeing a woman's right to an abortion.SO... GOT PLANS?Just a reminder: today's the day that Hillary Clinton visits the Dartmouth campus. She'll be in conversation with former colleagues Daniel Benjamin and Jake Sullivan in Spaulding Auditorium, starting at 4:45 pm.Bill McKibben's in town to talk about the end of humanity as we know it. Okay, maybe that's an overstatement. But his new book, Falter, does carry the subtitle, "Has the human game begun to play itself out?" and as the NYT points out, of the book's 23 chapters, only five offer grounds for hope. McKibben sees climate change, artificial intelligence, and robotics as the big threats. "I think we’re uniquely ill prepared to cope with the emerging challenges," he writes. Though adds: "This book ends with the conviction that resistance to these dangers is at least possible.” Presented by the Norwich Bookstore, he'll be at the Norwich Congregational Church starting at 7 pm.Or maybe you want to be more personal about the end. Open Door in WRJ is holding a "death café" -- part of a movement that began in Europe in the early 2000s to make it easier to talk about death, dying, and how to make the most of the time we have. Conversation will be led by Bayada Hospice nurse Cynthia Stadler. Runs from 5:30 to 7.Brooklyn Rider is at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord. Yes, they're a string quartet, but they go well beyond the conventional -- their 2018 album, Dreamers, focused on "gems of the Ibero-American songbook" and used pieces written to texts by Octavio Paz and Federico García Lorca. Let's just hand the podium over to NPR: "Brooklyn Rider is one of today's most technically accomplished string quartets, full stop. Its superb playing is matched only by the thought, commitment and inspiration its members pour into...making the string quartet not a relic of times long gone, but a vessel for the shape of music to come." Starts at 7:30.Have a fine day out there. See you tomorrow.
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