Good morning, RVA! It's 71 °F, and highs will creep back up into the 90s today. It’s been a while since I’ve reminded you, so: Stay hydrated!
Water cooler
I feel like I have to link to this Jeff Schapiro piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about taxes 💸. It’s very long and sounds very smart, but my eyes kind of glaze over when reading about the political implications of state-level tax/finance schemes. Never the less, I persisted and read to the end, and it sounds like Northam will do a thing to help poor people maybe, but then I also saw a comparison to the car tax and we all make fun of Gilmore for that now, so, honestly, I don’t know. 🤷♂️
GRTC announced that Charles Mitchell will serve as their interim CEO. This is the second time Mitchell has filled the role, and, now, with a temporary leader in place, GRTC will move forward with a search process for the new CEO. That is exciting!
Noooooooo! Somehow I missed that the Richmond Library’s 100 Days program started all the way back on July 4th! 100 different readers will read from 100 different books all across the city, and, today, Catherine Komp says that Mayor Stoney will read from Grapes of Wrath at the City Hall Observation Deck from 2:00–2:15 PM. This is such an epically good book, and I promise that it is not weird for an adult to go listen to another adult read out loud. P.S. I want to point out that on September 9th, some folks will read from Hatchet by Gary Paulsen which is a top-10 book for me.
Oh hey, I think I forgot to mention that Danny Plaugher won the Democratic primary in Henrico’s Brookland District over this past weekend. He’ll face his Republican challenger this November (and then have to run again next November). Congrats, Danny!
Wow, the Happily Natural Day festival will celebrate its 16th anniversary this year. That’s wild! Eileen Mellon talks to founder and all around fascinating person Duron Chavis about how the festival got started and what’s new this year.
The stars have aligned, and the RTD Editorial Board has an editorial in support of the First Amendment and Bill of Rights, which I too am in support of! Gasp! Agreement! I’m really linking to this piece for this sentence: “At The Times-Dispatch, that means intensifying our focus at home, by paying deep attention to Greater Richmond and our Commonwealth of Virginia.” I’m into this! I would love to see the RTD totally abandon all national coverage and focus exclusively on the region and some statewide news.
NOT SO FAST, as Lee Corso would say, because literally the next link I opened from the RTD is this trash editorial from Walter Williams—yes, that Walter Williams (PDF), the terribly misogynistic opinion writer that the RTD continues to pay to syndicate his verbal vom. To quote from his new screed, “Over the past 50 years, more than $16 trillion has been spent on poverty programs. The majority of those programs have simply made poverty more comfortable by giving poor people more food, health care, housing, etc.” If the RTD wants to focus more locally, it could start by getting rid of this guy who does not live in Richmond, does not write about the region or the state, and is a consistent embarrassment.
If I made a list of artists with the biggest impact on contemporary music, Big Freedia would definitely make that list. Check her out at the Broadberry tomorrow night—it’s an absolutely unique experience.