Good morning, RVA! It's 47 °F, and temperatures will stay right about there as rain moves into the area this morning and continues throughout the day. A Gloomy Gus day to start the weekend for sure!
Water cooler
Michael Paul Williams, at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, writes today about Henrico’s Brookland District Special election 💸. By now y’all should be super familiar with the Courtney Lynch Saga and how Democratic control of the Board of Supervisors—and, presumably progressive policies like affordable housing and public transportation—hangs on the result of this upcoming special election. Williams, however, makes a decent case that the tide has turned in Henrico and that some of the progressive work we currently see in the County can’t be rolled back. As someone who’s astounded by the shift left the Board of Supervisors has made in the last couple years, I am reaaaaally interested in how this one plays out. We’ll see what’s what in a couple of weeks, I guess.
Vernon Freeman, Jr. at WTVR says the 17th Street Market will open on November 30th! Did I know that already? It feels like new news. Anyway, I’m excited to take the Pulse down there to eat lunch. Richmond has a severe dearth of public lunch-eating spaces.
The RTD Editorial Board has decided to run a straight up nationalist, xenophobic, and fear-mongering screed/editorial by Cal Thomas. The Board feels like they are justified in printing this garbage because they also printed this editor’s note: “Because the migrant issue is both important and volatile, we present here two different perspectives, with the hope of informing and advancing public debate.” I...do not feel informed or advanced after reading terrible sentences like this: “Is this migrant caravan a ploy by Democrats to win sympathy from Hispanic voters so they’ll reverse their growing approval of Trump administration policies and vote against their interests?” Disgusting. Aside: It’s fascinating how the liberal column is all “studies show this” and “the World Bank reports that” while the Republican piece is basically “BROWN PEOPLE 😱😱😱.”
Remember forever ago (September 10th) when the Virginia Museum of History and Culture kicked off a bunch of live mural painting ahead of their new exhibition opening? That work finishes this weekend, and the exhibit, Fresh Paint, opens on Saturday. Colleen Curran at the RTD talks to several of the muralist about which objects from the museum’s massive collection inspired their murals.
One of my favorite annual events, the Richmond Zombie Walk, will braaaaaaiins its way through Carytown on Saturday around 2:30 PM. Show up, and stay out of their way or SUFFER THE GRUESOME AND SHAMBLY CONSEQUENCES.
This morning's longread
The Voyeur of Queen and Spadina
I was a little hmmmm about some of the writing in this piece, but I kept reading and am now terrified that everything I see is a camera.
The original peeping Tom was a young tailor in 11th-century England. As the legend goes, Tom the tailor drilled a hole in his window shutters so he could lustfully watch Lady Godiva ride naked through the village streets to impress her husband, lord of the fiefdom. But voyeurs are no longer just peeping Toms leering through strangers’ windows from the bushes after dark. These days, shadowy figures plant tiny cameras all over the city. Earlier this year, hidden cameras were found in a Starbucks washroom in the financial district, and another one was disguised as an electrical outlet in a restaurant washroom in Scarborough. A few years ago, someone taped smartphones beneath the sinks in women’s change rooms on the Downsview Park military base. In September, a couple renting an Airbnb near King and Bathurst removed the face of a digital clock to reveal a hidden camera. Last year, 864 voyeurism incidents were reported in Canada—a 16 per cent increase from the year before.
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