Good morning, RVA! It's 43 °F, and today you can again expect cloudy skies with highs in the 50s. Depending on where you’re sitting, though, you might see the sun break through—which is exciting. Count on more of the same over the weekend, and then, fingers crossed, some cold, sunny, winter days next week.
Water cooler
As of last night, Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield posted their second week at medium CDC COVID-19 Community Levels. The 7-day average case rate per 100,000 people in each locality is 22, 177, and 112, respectively, and the 7-day average of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people is 10.6. Looking at those case rate numbers, and one of those things is definitely not like the others; I have no idea why Richmond’s case rate is eight times lower than Henrico’s, and I’d take those numbers with a grain of salt. But! The hospital admission number I accept salt-free and has continued to creep up since last week. So whatever you think about the wonky case rates in our region, more people are ending up in the hospital right now and you should keep that in mind when you’re out-and-about or while putting together your holiday plans. It’s simple: If you haven’t yet gotten your bivalent COVID-19 booster, do it this weekend and chase it with a flu shot. Getting vaccinated against these diseases is the best and easiest way to protect your friends and family over the holidays.
Delegate Lamont Bagby, one of the top contenders (or maybe the top contender) for Representative McEachin’s Congressional seat, posted this cryptic teaser tweet last night: “My name is Lamont Bagby and as Chair of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus I have been focused on saving Virginia's children’s classrooms from Glenn Youngkin trying to erase Black history from our schools. Please Retweet and follow me— I have a major announcement coming soon!” This sure sounds like a “I’m going to Congress!” tweet to me. Bagby moving up to the federal level wouldn’t set off a bunch of election dominos in Richmond, as the 74th District is almost entirely parts of Chesterfield. Stay tuned, I guess.
Scott Bass has an interesting column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch reflecting on Mayor Wilder’s police chief, Rodney Monroe. While you can’t deny how popular Chief Monroe was at the time, the head RPD job in 2005 was just entirely different. It’s hard for me to tell if Monroe was in the right place at the right time or if he brought some sort of special magic to the position. Whatever the case may be, it’s not great that, as Mayor Stoney looks to hire his next police chief, we’re looking back two entire decades for an example of what works.
VPM’s Ben Paviour reports some related and predictable news: The Virginia State Police have asked for $25 million more dollars in this year’s budget to hire more officers, give pay raises, and replace two helicopters. I can think of about 25 million better ways to use that money—schools or public health or housing are easy answers.
Karri Peifer at Axios Richmond has put together a great (and bike-friendly) tacky light tour. Can someone build a route on Strava or Ride With GPS and send me the link?
I’m pretty sad about Saison Market closing—after 12 years in business!—this coming Monday. It’s the only place that ever had my coffee waiting for me before I came in the door. Eileen Mellon at Richmond Magazine has a good farewell piece.
Tomorrow, December 10th, from 9:00 AM–12:00 PM, you can join 79 other people in “One Great Morning of Raking,” a delightfully-named volunteer opportunity hosted by Maymont. They’re looking for literally 80 people (38 spots remaining!) to help rake out the Japanese Garden. I can’t imagine what a volunteer army of seven dozen rakers looks like, but I bet its awesome. Please bring your own rake!
This morning's longread
Every "chronically online" conversation is the same
This piece in Vox puts words to a lot of what I feel about The Online Discourse. While the author, in my opinion naively, hopes that it “doesn’t have to be this way,” I’d suggest that social media platforms are specifically designed to encourage these types of horrible (and horribly boring) results.
Because none of these encounters matter. It literally doesn’t matter that someone made chili for their neighbors because you were never meant to know about it in the first place. It’s not your business. To demand retribution against someone who says they enjoy coffee with their husband or makes surprise chili for strangers — or even someone who complains about these things! — reflects something far more disturbing than humblebrags or being a presumptuous neighbor. It’s that these reactions are so normalized online that they’re almost boring. Of course people are going to freak out about someone’s misguided problematic author spreadsheet even though it has zero bearing on the real world whatsoever, and of course people are going to accuse a beloved indie rocker of ableism for being annoyed by constant flash photography. It doesn’t have to be this way! People in their regular lives don’t react this way to things. It’s only on platforms where controversy and drama are prioritized for driving engagement where we’re rewarded for despising each other.
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Picture of the Day
VCU fall colors.
