Good morning, RVA! It's 34 °F, and today we’ve got highs in the 50s with maybe a tiny chance for some overnight rain. Temperatures bottom out tomorrow, and then start to climb back to what I’m hoping will be an absolutely excellent weekend. Until then, though, we hover here between fall and true winter for another few days.
Water cooler
Except for a couple weeks in the summer, I mostly let this newsletter’s Patreon support chug along unattended. It’s worked pretty well for however many years, and I like not having to think too hard about the stressful hustle of sales-and-marketing. But, after reading this Manifesto for posting online in 2023 (in which I particularly liked items #1, #4, and #9), I thought I should lean harder into “Sell your work. Ask for payment. Market your magic.” So, with that in mind, today, December 5th, is my actual birthday, and I would like nothing more than for you to consider signing up for the GMRVA Patreon (that and a new, expensive steel-frame bike from Rivendell). Your support really does mean a ton to me and serves as a direct reminder (in my bank account!) that folks—many folks—appreciate this weird thing I do each and every morning while the rest of the world is still asleep. Thank you to all those that currently support and to all those considering!
The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Anna Bryson reports that the RPS School Board voted to double future school board members’ salaries—up from the currently insulting $10,000. Despite whatever I feel about the efficiency and effectiveness of the current School Board, I 100% support this pay increase and wish the General Assembly would permit us to pay these folks an actual living wage. We’d see a better pool of candidates—one that could devote the necessary time and energy to the work—if we, you know, paid them to do the job. Also, check out this fascinating sentence hidden away in the fourth paragraph of the aforelinked article: “School Board members representing the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th districts are expected to run for reelection next year.” If correct, that means Liz Doerr (1st District), Kenya Gibson (3rd District), Cheryl Burke (7th District), Dawn Page (8th District), and Nicole Jones (9th District) could all move up or move on.
Related! Em Holter, also at the RTD, has the names of the three candidates hoping to temporarily fill 9th District Councilmember Mike Jones’s seat when he departs for the General Assembly at the end of the year. Here’s the list: Angela Fontaine, Stephanie Starling, and the 9th District’s current School Boardmember Nicole Jones (which might explain why she doesn’t plan on running in that particular election next year). Fascinatingly, Nicole Jones can continue to serve on both the School Board and the City Council until next November’s election.
Ian M. Stewart at VPM has some more reporting on Richmond Connects, which, blah blah blah, is the City’s long-awaited update to its transportation plan that I’m sure you’re all tired of hearing about. New to me, though, is this bit: “Money for the temporary projects — just under $500,000 — is in the budget.” While $500,000 doesn’t buy you a whole lot of concrete, it does buy a heck load of cones and barrels that you can use to pop-up temporary roundabouts, curb extensions, and even bus lanes. Pilot projects! They do exist! And I am excited about seeing them hit our streets at some point soon.
Also in VPM (via the Associated Press), a judge has “dismissed a legal challenge that sought to prevent the certification of the election of a state legislator, rejecting claims that Democratic Sen. Ghazala Hashmi had not met the state's residency requirements.” As foretold! I have no idea what the actual situation was with Sen. Hashmi, but the bar for these residency challenges is just so, so high that you really have to make it super clear that you do not live in your district to suffer a consequence. Like, flippantly posting about it on social media might do it—which, honestly, I wouldn’t put past some of our elected officials.
Also by Ian M. Stewart, but in Style Weekly, a profile of the women who brew Richmond’s beer. Stewart talks to Tasha Dixon (Ardent), Hollis Smith (Väsen), Savannah Roberts (Triple Crossing), and Sandra Nazz (also at Triple Crossing) about the industry—locally and otherwise. Triple Crossing makes my favorite beer in town, and I really like this quote from Roberts (their head brewer): “It should be normal. But it is cool. I like for people to know that, pretty much all of the beer here is brewed by women.”
This morning's longread
Doctor does actually mean someone with a PhD, sorry
Sometimes the desire to respond to trolls on the internet—especially trolls who are just straight up wrong—is so strong! What if, instead of egging on each Well-Actually Reply Guy, everyone wrote fascinating essays instead? That’s what we’ve got here with a look into the origin of the term “doctor” after some gasbag wheezed that people in the humanities shouldn’t claim the term.
Anyway, if you got good enough at being totally insufferable in varying Latin was then congratulations – you received your Bachelor of Arts, or BA. As a general rule of thumb this took around three or four years. From here, you could either go take up a literate job at court or in the Church or you could continue your studies. That meant that you had to move to what were known as the higher faculties of a university where you would begin to learn to the quadrivium or arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Completing these four subjects could take up to twelve years, and at the end you would be a Master of Arts and be awarded a doctorate, because the two things were synonymous.[1] This is the very first way to use the term doctor.
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Picture of the Day
It’s easier to catch great sunset photos when the sun sets before 5:00 PM.
