Good morning, RVA! It's 67 °F, and the excellent temperatures continue. Today you can look forward to highs in the mid 70s but a bit less sunshine than yesterday.
Water cooler
Whoa, you’re going to want to block out some time to work through this long piece by Sarah King in Richmond Magazine about violent encounters with the police. She dug through interviews and videos, included some chartsandgraphs, and provides a clear, fair picture of the the entire region as it wrestles with an increased focus on police-related violence. This is good work and worth your time.
I’ve talked about the Borg Cube Apartments planned for that block of Cary near VCU before. I’m not a fan of the design, and I’m pretty sure the existing, old row houses could be saved in exchange for giving the developer some more height to work with (or something similar) making everyone happy. Design and preservation are important! That said, I can’t get behind some of the vibe of this Style Weekly Back Page which pines for bygone times, rural streets, and calls growth a kind of cancer. I’ll keep saying it forever and ever: We need to build more and denser housing! Of course we shouldn’t dig up old urban renewal scorched-earth strategies and level blocks of centuries-old homes to build an fleet of Borg Cubes. But we also can’t sit safely behind memories of times gone by as it gets harder and harder for folks to afford places to live in our region.
Love this quote from Mayor Stoney in this piece from Justin Mattingly, “I don’t think kids of color should be going to a school named after a Confederate general.” After giving an overview of Virginia’s Confederately-named schools, Mattingly dives into the history of the previous attempt to rename Richmond’s J.E.B. Stuart Elementary—which comes from a time that predates my political awareness when I spent most of my free time at Ipanema instead of reading PDFs. That really terrible quote from Hanover County School Board Chair Sue Dibble makes another embarrassing appearance, and Richmond School Board Member Jonathan Young goes on record with “I believe in telling everyone’s story by way of addition not subtraction.”
Michael Paul Williams has an interesting piece up about the Richmond Community Bail Fund, which provides cash bail to defendants who cannot afford to pay it. Cash bail goes against that whole “presumed innocent” thing we’ve got going on and the pretrial jail time that comes with not being able to afford bail is a punishment that inequitably impacts the poor. You should dig into the MPW piece though, because there are some good quotes from Richmond’s Commonwealth’s Attorney in there about the direction his office is heading.
The Black History Museum will host a showing of Living in a Food Desert this Saturday as part of the Youth Advocacy Film Fest and will welcome special guest Duron Chavis. Duron is the Community Engagement Coordinator at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens, and he’s also just the best. Don’t sleep on an opportunity to hear him speak!
Speaking of folks who are just the best, Richmond Magazine has picked their 2018 Class of Daring Women, and it includes artists, entrepreneurs, and advocates. Start your Friday morning getting inspired by women doing inspirational things!
Aw dangit, I’d seen the news that Green Flash had put their Virginia Beach brewery up for sale, but not that they’d cease East Coast distribution. Bummer.
Easter is this coming Sunday, which means the Easter Parade, which means if you’re in the Monument Avenue Area between 1:00 PM and 5:00 PM expect dogs, hats, and dogs wearing hats.
Sports!
- Kickers will host North Carolina FC on Saturday at 5:00 PM.
- Nationals open up their season today against the Reds at 4:10 PM.
This morning's longread
The Jumpsuit That Will Replace All Clothes Forever
People spend their time on the most interesting projects.
I give it a try. I want to see what changes when I wear the same garment every single day. Abigail and Maura have been doing it for three years; I can do it for three weeks. The next morning, as I walk to work, I realize that it’s the first time in years, maybe decades, that I am wearing such loose-fitting clothing in public. Sure, I’ll wear a baggy sweater or a swing dress, but there is always a bit of Lycra or a constricting band in there somewhere—a pair of tights or skinny jeans, a too-tight sleeve or an uncomfortable armpit. Abigail and Maura tell me that clothing companies make everything tight and stretchy so they can make fewer sizes—it’s cheaper to cut three sizes than six.
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