Good morning, RVA! It's 51 °F, and today's highs in the mid 60s will feel a bit cooler than the last couple of weirdly summery days. Save for a cloud here or there, plan on a bright and sunshine-filled day.
Water cooler
Mark Robinson at the RTD details the expenses the Richmond Police incurred for the Confederate States of America II "rally" at the Lee Statue a while back—scroll down to the bottom of the article to find the table of expenses. Sure, a lot of money was spent on what turned out to be a whole bunch of nothing, but so soon after the disastrous police response in Charlottesville (or lack thereof) I'd much rather Richmond Police be over-equipped and over-prepared. Nevertheless, a small, cynical part of me does wonder if the RPD used the event as an excuse to buy equipment that they couldn't secure funding for through the regular City budget process. But that part of me is small and grateful that the entire thing was a nonevent.
Tonight at 7:00 PM at Short Pump Middle School, Henrico County Public School officials will hold a community meeting to discuss the disturbing racial/sexual abuse that took place in the football team's locker room, WTVR reports. Officials will share a "preliminary plan for moving forward and will welcome input from the school community." Earlier this week I'd said the County needed to do more than cancel a couple football games, and this seems like a good step in that direction.
Matthew Lynch, writing for Richmond Magazine, has some suggestions for talking to kids about racism and social injustice. His advice for children ages four through nine is to not be bystanders to bullying and racism and be empathetic to people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. THIS IS GOOD ADVICE FOR ADULTS, TOO, OK?
Style Weekly has announced the 2017 class of Top 40 Under 40ers! Who's young(ish), cool, and doing great stuff in town? It's these people! Check out the list, and see if you knew any of them back before they got famous.
Also in Style Weekly is this great piece about All the Saints Theater Company by Karen Newton. You probably know them as the people with the giant puppets that do the annual giant puppet Halloween parade (among other things). This year the parade's theme is a funeral for the Confederacy. The giant puppet festivities kick off in front of the Altria Theatre on October 31st at 6:30 PM; No BS Brass Band will be there to lead the way into Oregon Hill.
Joe Morrissey has sued WTVR and Mark Holmberg for a piece the latter did during last year's mayoral race. The fourth paragraph of this Ned Oliver piece on the matter is so dang intense and reminds me that we almost ended up with that guy as our mayor!
Sports!
The Dodgers downed the Astros, 3-1, in the first game of the World Series. Game 2 begins tonight at 8:09 PM.
This morning's longread
'I will not be complicit.' Jeff Flake's retirement speech, annotated
Arizona's republican senator Jeff Flake gave this speech on the Senate floor yesterday.
Reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as “telling it like it is,” when it is actually just reckless, outrageous and undignified. And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else: It is dangerous to a democracy. Such behavior does not project strength — because our strength comes from our values. It instead projects a corruption of the spirit, and weakness. It is often said that children are watching. Well, they are. And what are we going to do about that? When the next generation asks us, “Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you speak up?” — what are we going to say? Mr. President, I rise today to say: Enough.