GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Patchy fog, then partly sunny. I'm starting to feel a little sorry for the weather forecasters, whose writeups are getting shorter and shorter this week. The high pressure that's been in place since forever will be with us again at least today and tomorrow, maybe longer. Today, highs in the low or mid 80s, down into the mid or upper 50s tonight, calm winds.A mom and fawn moment. In Sharon, from Dee Gish.And a bonus pic: The start of last night's lunar eclipse. From Orford, by Robin Weisburger.Hanover police release arrest report on two Dartmouth students. Monday night's move caps the Valley News's nine-month legal quest to get the record of what happened the night last October when student protesters Kevin Engel and Roan Wade were busted for pitching a tent in front of the college's administration building. In the VN, John Lippman details the legal to-and-fro and the report's recounting of events, which "show that police were acting on behalf of college officials who wanted the students cleared." He adds that some 75 students were back protesting events in Gaza yesterday—without permission. "This time, however, the college didn’t call police," he notes.Dartmouth unveils $500 million housing plan. It includes the college's largest-ever gift for housing, $30 million from Thomas and Gina Russo, whose name will go on the new residence hall that broke ground last month at 25 West Wheelock. That apartment-style building will be the first of several the college plans to build along the entranceway to Hanover—along with "green space and pedestrian and bike paths connecting to the West End and central campus," the college says in its announcement. The release includes a handy map of the parcels along West Wheelock that are college-owned vs. privately owned.What may be behind the Orange County Sheriff's loss of county courthouse security contract. You'll remember that last month, VT officials handed security duties for the Chelsea courthouse over to the Windsor County sheriff's office. They're still not saying anything about why, but VTDigger's Ethan Weinstein obtained emails through a public records request that shed some light. Court staff, he reports, complained several times about a sheriff's deputy leaving early and allegedly asking about visitors' immigration status. "Staff is at the point where they don’t feel like they are safe," one email ran.SPONSORED: Learn about becoming a part of Advance Transit's dedicated team at our Driver Information Session! Come to AT's Operations Center on Billings Farm Road in WRJ on Saturday, October 5 (session begins at 8am). You'll learn about our mission and the perks of being part of our team, from competitive pay to comprehensive benefits. Hear from current employees about AT's rewarding careers and find out about our Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) training program; you can even submit an application on-site! Learn more here or at the burgundy link. Sponsored by Advance Transit.What music does to "our brains, our bodies, our psyches, our communities, and our histories." That's the wide-ranging subject renowned opera singer Renée Fleming tackles in Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, which she edited. It's got plenty of essays by medical researchers, writes Howe librarian Jared Jenisch in this week's Enthusiasms, but "for the music lover, the most enjoyably browsable essays are those by musicians, writers and artists." He cites the novelist Richard Powers, for instance, who writes that while we are often told that the secret to health is moving, there is “also great health in being moved.”The amazing quilts at the Howe, and the amazing stash of quilting fabric amassed by Judi Simon-Bouton. Susan Apel went to the Northern Lights Quilt Guild's exhibit at the Howe and came away enthralled by color, texture, threads, the stories quilts tell—and quilting stats (the average quilter has 7.5 pairs of scissors "which you would never dare to touch without permission." Meanwhile, WRJ's Judi Simon-Bouton, who died about a year ago, was a quilt artist of great accomplishment; her "stash" of fabric is huge, and writer Sonja Hakala and other friends are holding a sale Oct. 6. Susan's got the details.SPONSORED: Musical Comedy at the Grange Theatre! The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee kicks off the 8th season at Artistree's Grange Theatre! Reserve your tickets now for this professional theatre performance of the hilarious comedy and musical: It runs from Sept. 19th - Sept. 29th at Artistree Community Arts Center in Pomfret, VT. Sponsored by Artistree.Out there in the woods this week: lots of brightly colored berries. As Northern Woodlands notes in "This Week in the Woods", a lot of plants produce berries and other fruit designed to attract birds, rodents, and other animals that eat them and then spread their seeds. Some plants go even further by gussying up their foliage and stems. Like pokeweed, which is sporting glossy purple berries on fuchsia stems these days. Also out there: Virginia creeper and Viceroy butterflies, easy to mistake for monarchs, only they go for goldenrod.You knew it: the numbers on diversity in NH, VT. WalletHub is out with a new set of state-by-state numbers that includes income, language diversity, race and ethnicity, birthplace, occupational diversity, and more. No surprise who's at the top: CA, TX, and FL (with, interestingly, NM ranking fourth). Down at the very bottom: West Virginia. And just up from there: Maine (49th), New Hampshire (48th), and Vermont (47th). NH ranks 15th on birthplace diversity and 16th on educational attainment diversity, but dead last on religious diversity. VT's 12th on income and education, 50th on race and ethnicity.UMass, CT River Conservancy scientists find evidence of endangered fish as far north as Vernon, VT. The shortnose sturgeon has been on the federal endangered list since 1967 and had been thought to live only as far north as Turners Falls, MA. But this summer, scientists began collecting water samples from along the river bottom between Turners Falls and Walpole, reports Sophia Keshmiri in the Keene Sentinel, and found DNA evidence of the sturgeon at four sites. What they don't yet know: "whether or not the fish left and came back to the area, or if it was always here and scientists just didn’t know."VT State Police officially identify homicide victims in Pawlet as selectboard member and his family. The three shooting victims are Brian Crossman Sr., his wife, Erica, and 13-year-old Colin Taft, Erica's son and Brian's stepson. Brian Crossman, a lineman for GMP, had recently taken on a one-year selectboard position. The VSP first announced three "suspicious deaths" on Sunday; the Manchester Journal's Cherise Forbes reports that a person of interest "reportedly called the police on himself, and was allegedly waiting for police in blood-covered clothing at the nearby Wells Village School" that day. The VSP (burgundy link) says no arrests have been made.Vermont lands a Guinness record: Most Pledges Received for Trash Clean Up in 24 Hours. Believe it or not, it's a thing. And the 6,833 pledges from Vermonters and others collected by Green Up Vermont last May sailed past the previous record of 5,000, reports Jordan Barbour for MyChamplainValley. The top pledge-collector in the state was Tunbridge's Eliza Minnucci, a teacher and volunteer town Green Up coordinator. "There definitely have been some interesting petitions circulating at town meeting before, but I’ve never seen one more popular than promising to pick up trash,” she tells Barbour.What the heck is a high bailiff? And other Vermont voting questions... In Seven Days, deputy publisher Cathy Resmer is out with a pair of voting guides.
One covers the basics you'll need to know in order to vote Nov. 5: how to register, vote early, find your polling place, and more.
The other is a set of Frequently Asked Questions, from who runs elections in the state to where to find campaign finance info. Oh, and the high bailiff? "If for some reason the county sheriff is incapacitated or unable to fulfill their duties, the high bailiff takes over until the governor appoints a new sheriff." Don't you feel smarter already?
Live trout swim better than dead ones; getting worms drunk; making 350,757 coin tosses... It must be the Ig Nobels! The prizes are awarded each year by the Annals of Improbable Research to "honor (or dishonor) research that 'first makes you laugh, and then makes you think'," writes Stephen Luntz on IFLScience. And though there's plenty to snort at, there's also serious stuff in there, like Saul Newman's demonstration that the "blue zones" that supposedly produce lots of centenarians tend to be places without reliable birth certificates—and with what looks like plenty of pension fraud."Daybreak" looks pretty cool in Landsat images... For the last 50 years, the Landsat satellites have been amassing images of the Earth's fine points, and it turns out some of them look like letters. So the very fine people at NASA have created "Your Name in Landsat". At the burgundy link, you can type in any name and get (and export) the results. Click on an individual image and they'll tell you where it's from. Lake Guakhmaz, Azerbaijan, for instance, makes a very fine "A". Oh, and if you're curious, here's Daybreak.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
We may be the middle of nowhere to everyone else in VT and NH, but
we
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!
In his NH Humanities talk, Taylor will look at the lasting legacy of one-room schools: "Revered in literature and lore, they actually were beset with problems, some of which are little changed today"—including inequities in financing education, as well as "teacher preparation and quality, curriculum, discipline, student achievement and community involvement in the educational process." 5:30 pm in Trumbull Hall.
Anderson, author of Newbery Honor winner
Elf Dog & Owl Head
, the Octavian Nothing series,
Feed
, and a pile of other immensely popular books for children and young adults, has a new one out:
Nicked
, a medieval-monk swashbuckler. Never less than entertaining, he'll be in conversation with fiction writer, journalist, and Dartmouth prof Alexander Chee, starting at 7 pm.
A
Harrington teaches economic sociology at Dartmouth and focuses her studies on inequality and the offshore financial system. Her new book details how "the world’s ultra-rich can use offshore finance to escape tax obligations, labor and environmental safety regulations, campaign finance rules, and other laws that get in their way." She'll be talking to Collins, who directs the Program on Inequality at DC's Institute for Policy Studies. 7 pm.
At Thetford's Latham Library, a twin bill starting at 7 pm: “The Common Loon: Stories About a Loon’s Life and Their Conservation” and "Loon Stories: Through the Lens of the Lake Fairlee LoonCam”. The evening features Eric Hanson, loon biologist and head of the Vermont Loon Conservation Project for over 25 years—he'll be talking loons and narrating a video compilation of highlights from the 2024 season showing seldom-seen loon behavior. He'll be joined by locals Sean Brown and Doug Tifft on the Lake Fairlee loon nesting raft and the renowned Lake Fairlee LoonCam. No link.
Yep. I'll be talking local media, the challenges it faces, the hopeful signs, and why it all matters. 7 pm in the Center at Eastman's Draper Room.
So here's to health!
That Richard Powers quote up above (in the Enthusiasms item) comes from his essay about "The Parting Glass", the classic Scottish traditional song—also claimed by the Irish—that pays tribute to leavetaking. It's a beautiful, moving song, and Face Vocal Band, the Boulder
a cappella
rockers,
.
Good morning and joy be to you all. 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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