Good morning, RVA! It's 47 °F, and a cold front has set up shop in the area keeping today's highs to 60 °F—if we're lucky. We'll see a bunch of clouds in the sky, gusty winds, but beautiful weather comes our way on Saturday and Sunday. Next week: Expect temperatures in the mid 80s!
Water cooler
Please read this Facebook post from Richmond Cycling Corps about how they respond to trauma (like last week's murder of two teenagers in Mosby Court) among their youth. Spring Break begins today for Richmond Public Schools, and to combat the developmental regression RCC sees after the break, they've decided to take as many kids on as many trips as possible. From the post: "Our first race of the year is Saturday, near Charlottesville, and so we’re leaving early on Friday afternoon, extending our stay to late Sunday night. Once we come back, we’re splitting up the youth, and will begin road trips as far as Pittsburgh for some, and day trips around the area for others. Was this trip a planned line item in our 2017 budget? Nope. Is it necessary? Absolutely." If you want to help, to get involved, donate now to cover the costs of these unplanned but very necessary trips.
Jackie Kruszewski at Style Weekly has a long piece about our Confederate Monuments and what we should do about them. The difference between the vibe of this piece and the vibe of similar stuff written two years ago is really apparent to me. It feels like we're (finally) moving steadily down the path towards "adding context" to these things. Instead of just wandering around shouting at each other, now we're talking about how the statutes fit into the public art landscape, who maintains them, and who pays for "adding context." I mean, the embarrassing Flaggers are almost entirely an afterthought! I consider that progress. However, if the best, most creative idea we can come up with to add context is a series of historical plaques, I will be very disappointed. Take a minute to scroll through the Google images search of "Holocaust public art" to see what other places around the world have done to add extremely serious and sobering context with public art.
Katy Burnell Evans updates us on the status of the mayor's Education Compact currently rolling out through a series of public meetings across town. You can read the draft document in its entirety right here (PDF).
I love stories about urban agriculture, and I love stories written by Michael Paul Williams. This article about The Community Food Collaborative is both. Read on to hear Fairfield Middle School students talk lovingly about gardening and farming and working to break up food deserts.
I keep forgetting to let y'all know about this, but DPU will award four artists the chance to design original art for storm drains—Meredith Scroggin at Richmond Magazine has the details. This is the second year of the project, and you can see some of the first year's winners down by the river near Brown's Island. They're really neat.
Say what you will about the RTD's anonymous editorials, which I did yesterday, but I'm not sure I've ever seen "abominates" in a newspaper...or anywhere else?
Republicans nuked the Senate's filibuster rules, and it'd looks like we'll have a new Supreme Court judge today. Vox also has a What We Know about the US missile strikes on a Syrian airbase.
Sports!
- Squirrels beat Hartford 11-1, and that series continues tonight at 7:05 PM.
- Kickers host Louisville City FC on Saturday at 5:00 PM.
- Nats fell to the Marlins, 3-4. They'll face the Phillies today at 3:05 PM.
This morning's longread
It’s completely ridiculous to think that humans could live on Mars
Aw man, harsh. Don't burst my Martian bubble!
Our 12-year-old daughter who, like us, is a big fan of The Martian by Andy Weir, said, “I can’t stand that people think we’re all going to live on Mars after we destroy our own planet. Even after we’ve made the Earth too hot and polluted for humans, it still won’t be as bad as Mars. At least there’s plenty of water here, and the atmosphere won’t make your head explode.”