Good morning, RVA! It's 74 °F, and, listen, I don't know what you want me to tell you, but we are stuck in the dead center of the summer doldrums. You can expect temperatures near 90 °F but a Feels Like closer to 100 °F. You can expect to sweat. You can expect me to nag you about drinking more water.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 897↗️ new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 4↘️ new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 118↗️ new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 12, Henrico: 73, and Richmond: 33). Since this pandemic began, 306 people have died in the Richmond region. As per always, the COVID Tracking Project has a good thread analyzing last night's national coronavirus data. Important context that applies locally, too: "We've seen for months that the Saturday-Monday numbers tend to be lower than Tuesday-Friday." Also: "The 7-day average for cases seems likely to rise. There were storm-related drops in testing and cases, which showed up in the numbers from the 3rd-6th." It's hard, at least for me, to remember that all of this data ultimately comes from folks out in the world running tests and filing reports. Those folks are definitely impacted by things like "the weekend" and "tropical storms."
Hey, this seems like a big and important update from last week: On Friday, the Governor announced that the Virginia Supreme Court granted a temporary, statewide eviction moratorium beginning today and ending Monday, September 7th.
City Council will meet today for what I think is both a special meeting and their final meeting until September. They'll consider a bunch of time-sensitive papers related to polling places for the November election—including ORD. 2020-163 which will establish City Hall as a satellite in-person absentee polling location. Remember! This is an important and necessary ordinance since the City's decision to relegate the Registrar's office to the far end of Laburnum Avenue—under and adjacent to a couple of highways—makes it very hard to access by anything other than a car. Moving forward, I wonder what sorts of in-person services the Registrar's office provides and if we could just establish a permanent outpost at City Hall for those sorts of things? Council will also consider amending RES. 2020-R046, which is part of the police reform package, and asks the CAO to make ongoing reports on a handful of asset forfeiture special funds. 9th District Councilmember Jones says that they're amending the paper at the Commonwealth's Attorney's request, which, to me, seems like it means the resolution will pass. Assuming that's true, out of the five pieces of police reform legislation submitted last month three have/will pass: Establishing a task force to create a Civilian Review Board, Establishing a work group to create a Marcus Alert, and requesting a recurring asset forfeiture report. Tune in today at 4:00 PM to listen live.
Also, Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense says Council could approve a "$500,000 grant program tailored to helping businesses and property owners that sustained financial losses from recent civil unrest." I can't find it on Council's agenda, but if you own a business with shattered windows or property damage that's not covered by some sort of insurance, this may be worth your attention. Spiers said the Mayor's office will roll out more information, including details on how to apply, later this morning.
Check out this from the Archives piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about the Nickel Bridge. The bridge opened on New Year's Day in 1925 and included a nickel toll for bikes and pedestrians, 10 cents for cars, 25 cents for one-horse or two-horse vehicles, and 50 cents for four-horse vehicles. Pedestrian tolls! Get outta here with that! While pedestrians can now (thankfully) cross for free, the view from the bridge, as described by a 1924 advertisement, remains "unspeakably beautiful."
Via /r/rva this wonderful old map of Richmond. I'm sure folks smarter than I can nail down the exact date of this map, but since Manchester is listed separately from Richmond, I'd put it at pre-1910.
I promised I wouldn't link to every single candidate event for the next three months, but I can't not talk about 8th District Candidate Amy Wentz's Virtual Town Hall on Transportation. Talking about transportation is one of my favorite things and these are some of my favorite people. Join Candidate Wentz; Kendra Norrell, RVA Rapid Transit's Board President (and my former boss); and Louise Lockett Gordon, Director of Bike Walk RVA at 7:00 PM for a conversation about transportation. If you've got questions about how buses, bike/shared-use lanes, and sidewalks can better and more safely connect the 8th District, you couldn't ask for a better group of folks. P.S. Here's my growing list of candidate events—if you know of any that need to be added to the list please send them my way (no canvassing or fundraisers, please)!
I've already made peace with the fact that college football will not exist in 2020. The Powers That Be haven't gotten there yet, but I'm pretty sure it's only a matter of time since over the weekend ESPN reported that "Big Ten presidents, following a meeting on Saturday, are ready to pull the plug on its fall sports season." The Middle Atlantic Conference cancelled their season on Saturday, which was the first real dominion to fall, and now it looks like the rest of the college football dominos are about to quickly tumble down.
This morning's patron longread
When the Mind's Eye Is Blind
Submitted by Patron Cait. I'm kind of shocked at how many folks have aphantasia, which means they cannot picture things in their mind.
An extensive literature search on the inability to form visual imagery offered little help in understanding MX. The first mention of this phenomenon was apparently Francis Galton’s “breakfast” study from 1880. The British naturalist asked 100 adult men to talk about the table at which they ate breakfast each morning. He requested information on the lighting, sharpness and color of the images in their head. Much to his astonishment, 12 of his subjects were unable to tell him much: they had assumed up to then that the phrase “mental imagery” was not meant literally.
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