Good morning, RVA! It's 67 °F, and...there’s a chance of thunderstorms this afternoon. I am sorry. Maybe it’ll miss us, though! You don’t know!
Water cooler
The General Assembly could get over themselves and pass a budget that includes Medicaid expansion as early as today, says Michael Martz at the RTD. That sounds great, but I’ll believe it when I see them quit futzing around and, like, actually schedule the meetings needed to pass the dang budget.
This past Friday, the City opened the new, two-way, protected Franklin Street bike lane, and I’m here to tell you that it’s great. But, since it is a new bit of infrastructure for Richmond, it’ll take awhile for folks—both people on bike and people in cars—to adapt and get used to it. If you’re confused about where to bike, park, or drive, Bike Walk RVA has put together this helpful PDF. I want to highlight a couple things, keeping in mind that this two-way bike lane allows you to travel west on the one-way-heading-east Franklin Street. First, people on bikes should use the pedestrian signals to know when to cross intersections. At some point, we might could get bike-specific signals, but until then use the pedestrian ones. Second, bikepeople heading west should keep their eyes out for cars turning left off of Franklin across your path. Yesterday, I rode the length of the lane after a happy hour and it felt magical. Here’s to building more of this sort of infrastructure—and soon!
I must admit, I am mystified by Henrico County Supervisor Courtney Lynch’s sudden about-face and decision not to run for reelection in the Brookland District next year. Personal drama aside, the incredible forward progress in public transit over the last couple of months clearly illustrates what’s possible with three Democrats on that board and to do anything at all to slow the region’s progressive momentum feels crushingly wrong. Michael Paul Williams has written her political obituary.
It’s that time of year: You can now register your favorite middle school girl for Full STEAM Ahead, a conference that empowers young women through STEAM fields and connects them with female role models. Each year I get excited to flip through the conference’s workshop tracks, and this year is no exception: There’s one on CRISPR!!
Another day, another opportunity to attend a public meeting about renaming J.E.B. Stuart Elementary School. Tonight, you can hit up Virginia Union University at the Claude Perkins Living and Learning Center from 6:00–8:00 PM to continue to give feedback or suggest new names. If you want to just do the latter, you can fill out this form on the Richmond Public Schools website. Also, Justin Mattingly at the RTD let’s us know what practically needs to change when we decide to rename the school and how much that will cost (less than I thought!).
Every once in a while, my pal Susan picks out a fun Donor’s Choose project in the Richmond region for us to fund. This go around it’s Get Scared With Eerie Elementary at Henrico’s Arthur Ashe Junior Elementary School. I cannot tell you how stoked I am about making sure kids have access to scary books. I would, however, like to add to their book list the Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark with the story about that girl who had spiders in her face. Auuughhhhh just thinking about it!
This picture of Alex Buchanan of Big Herm’s Kitchen in Richmond Magazine managing eight different takeout apps blows my mind and looks like something from The Onion. I’m lazy and love takeout, but I’d never really thought about how irritating working with all the various apps and services must be for restaurants.
Sports!
- Squirrels begin a brand new series at Binghamton tonight 6:35 PM.
- Nats dropped double digits on San Diego in a 10-2 win. That series continues tonight at 7:05 PM.
- Caps beat the lightning, 3-0, setting up a winner-take-all situation tomorrow.
This morning's longread
The Rage of the Incels
Terrifying.
The label that Minassian and others have adopted has entered the mainstream, and it is now being widely misinterpreted. Incel stands for “involuntarily celibate,” but there are many people who would like to have sex and do not. (The term was coined by a queer Canadian woman, in the nineties.) Incels aren’t really looking for sex; they’re looking for absolute male supremacy. Sex, defined to them as dominion over female bodies, is just their preferred sort of proof.
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