Good morning, RVA! It's 33 °F, and today it will rain. It is slightly too warm for snow, so, instead, we get lots and lots of cold rain. Boooo! Expect the rain—which is not snow—to really kick in this afternoon.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 3,160↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 56↗️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 329↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 172, Henrico: 82, and Richmond: 75). Since this pandemic began, 506 people have died in the Richmond region. This is the third straight day with a decrease in new reported positive cases statewide, and new hospitalizations have at least leveled out (albeit at an extremely high level of around 100 per day). Does this mean we're past the peak? Or are we still just waiting to catch up from the weekend? I don't know, but maybe folks got the message—or at least a portion of the message—and are making better public-health decisions. Speaking of getting things, Governor Northam will be on hand at 12:00 PM today as the very first VCU Health System frontline workers get their first round of COVID-19 vaccine! So rad. My coronacounts spreadsheet has 278 rows in it, and it feels so bizarre that, in just under a year, we could be looking at the beginning of the end of this pandemic. It also feels so bizarre that I've been keeping a pandemic spreadsheet for almost 300 days now. Weird feels all around.
The Virginia Public Access Project has pulled the demographic information for the 88 people who have applied to serve as citizen members of the state's Redistricting Commission. The results are real predictable and real bad: The vast, vast majority of applicants are rich old white dudes. This needs to change! If you are not a rich old white dude, please consider applying for this commission before December 28th! Of course, the prospect of serving on a volunteer commission—with a time commitment of "unknown" (PDF) but "serious and substantial"—is set up to favor rich old white dudes with a bunch of time to kill. These are the results you should expect when "posting the application online" is pretty much the extent of your outreach. Del. Cia Price, who'd been pretty publicly against the redistricting amendment, puts it better: "Cue up the folks with the 'well anyone can sign up' and 'well we can't make people sign up' but that's the difference between an announcement and OUTREACH! You don't get diversity through the chosen methods for promoting the applications. So yeah. No."
Today, the Richmond Times-Dispatch's Michael Paul Williams has a good piece about the Lost Cause narrative and how Republican's attempts to toss out the election results mirrors the South's attempts (and partial success!) to toss out the results of the Civil War. I'm just going to quote this excellent paragraph: "Our notions of the past shape our present and our future. Richmond’s unabashed celebration of its Confederate heritage sent contradictory messages about the virtue of white supremacy, winners and losers, truth and reconciliation, and loyalty to nation. Our post-election turmoil dramatizes the historic willingness of a chunk of Americans to embrace misinformation and forsake this nation’s stated principles—be it freedom prior to Emancipation or free and fair elections today."
Also at the RTD, Chris Suarez reports on GRTC's most recent board meeting, which you can watch here or scroll through the agenda here (PDF). Mindblowing to me is that ridership on local routes actually increased month-over-month by 1.45%, and, still, year-over-year ridership on local routes has only fallen by 6.01%. I think this continues to speak to the critical role public transit plays for essential workers in Richmond. Two other transportation-related bits of news: First, Congress's new compromise COVID bill could contain $15 billion for public transit; Second, President-elect Biden has named Mayor Pete as his Secretary of Transportation. Transit Twitter had all kinds of takes on the Mayor Pete announcement, but I think it's mostly fine.
As I lamented above, we will NOT see snow today, but Karina Bolster at NBC12 reached out to Henrico County Public Schools spokesperson Andy Jenks about the possibility for snow days during virtual school. Take heart: "I think folks reacted very positively to the idea that it might still be a thing...That won’t get changed; that won’t get taken away, everything else might be different, but snow days might still be a thing." The situation might be different in Richmond Public Schools where more faculty and staff are working from home than in the County, so don't take too much heart—just the appropriate amount of heart.
With so much happening in 2020 can one single Year in Review contain it all? Style Weekly says no!, and has six Year in Reviews for you to scroll through and go "Whoa, that was this year??"
This morning's patron longread
The intriguing maps that reveal alternate histories
Submitted by Patron Sam. In addition to giving you lots of cool, fake maps to explore, this piece is filled with alternate-history novels to put on your reading list.
Such maps can also help us see the past and present with fresh eyes. For example, any alternate history is not simply a point of divergence, followed by seat-of-the-pants conjecture. True masters develop scenarios and fleshed-out histories, ones that simply beg for a slew of maps to go along with them. The alternate history textbook For Want of A Nail by Robert Sobel is such a scenario, exploring what if the United States had lost the American Revolution. Or, as this textbook from an alternate 1970s might put it, if the Rebellion had been crushed by the British Empire.
If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.