Good morning, RVA! It's 61 °F, and that’s about today’s high. You can expect rain throughout most of the day and then falling temperatures this evening. The long weekend ahead of us looks dry and cool (but still a little too warm for February), and I hope you find the time either to sit quietly and enjoy the ambient sounds of your neighborhood or to catch up on your favorite plot-driven zombie show.
Water cooler
As of last night, Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield continue to have medium CDC COVID-19 Community Levels. The 7-day average case rate per 100,000 people in each locality is 15, 133, and 98, respectively, and the 7-day average of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people is 12.9. Again this week we have a case rate in Richmond that’s an order of magnitude smaller than rates in the surrounding counties, and again I’m not really sure what to make of it. 15 is certainly more believable than “zero”, which was Richmond’s number last week, so that’s something. If you zoom out a bit on the CDC’s COVID-19 map, you’ll see almost the entire country washed in the pleasant green of a low Community Level—maybe that’ll be our future in Central Virginia soon! In the meantime, as we wait for that green, read this piece from Your Local Epidemiologist’s Katelyn Jetelina about the real science behind the fungal zombies in The Last of Us.
Jahd Khalil at VPM has an exciting report that the City has hired a Labor Relations Administrator and that three buckets of city employees have filed for union elections. The collective bargaining enabling legislation passed last year allows five separate groups of employees to join a union, and, yesterday, workers in the Administrative and Technical unit, Professionals unit, and Labor and Trades unit all voted to do so. This is great news, and, while it took a little longer than expected, I’m glad to see the City make progress on this promise.
WTVR reports that police have arrested someone at a pop-up weed market following a raid earlier this week at the Happy Trees grow shop on Arthur Ashe Boulevard. In response, the Richmond Police Department sent out a press release with the subject line “Search Warrant Leads to Arrest, Serving as Strong Reminder of the Law,” pointing out that possessing more than four ounces of marijuana in public is a misdemeanor and more than a pound is a felony. I think this whole situation instead serves as a strong reminder that the current marijuana laws don’t make a ton of sense. The General Assembly could fix this, of course, but, unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until next year’s session to see if anyone wants to actually figure out a tenable, legal retail marijuana market.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Michael Martz reports on the status of Petersburg’s casino, which, at the moment, is not good. From the piece: “The Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee voted 10-6 on Thursday to kill legislation...to let Petersburg voters decide in November whether to approve a $1.4 billion casino resort proposed next to Interstate 95.” That leaves the weird and wild world of budget language as Petersburg’s last hope for a casino bid—which means, for us here in Richmond, we’re a lot more likely to see a second casino referendum coming to a ballot near you.
If you want to vote early in this coming Tuesday’s Congressional Election (in which you can vote for Jennifer McClellan), your last day to do so is tomorrow by 5:00 PM at your local voter registration office. If your Tuesday looks like crap and you don’t think you’ll be able to make it out to the polls, thank your state-level Democrats, and take advantage of early in-person voting over the weekend.
The Great Backyard Bird Count starts today and runs through Sunday and is an excellent chance to spend 15 minutes in one of your favorite places counting birds and submitting data to “help scientists better understand and protect birds around the world.” There are a couple of easy ways to participate, and you definitely don’t need any prior bird or birding experience. Birds! They’re weird but everywhere!
Logistical note! This coming Monday is George Washington Day in Virginia—known elsewhere as Presidents’ Day, President’s Day, Presidents Day, and various combinations of Washington and Lincoln Day. I’ll be taking the day off, and, if the world has dried out enough after today’s rain, you can probably find me on a bicycle in the forest somewhere. We’ll pick things back up on Tuesday (which, remember, is also Election Day!).
This morning's longread
From Bing to Sydney
Ben Thompson at Stratechery is, what I would consider, a Very Smart Man, and reading about his shifting thoughts on AI started to shift my own thoughts. I have no idea where this AI road we’re on leads, but it certainly feels like we’re headed for a period of strange and rapid change.
Sydney absolutely blew my mind because of her personality; search was an irritant. I wasn’t looking for facts about the world; I was interested in understanding how Sydney worked and yes, how she felt...Again, I am totally aware that this sounds insane. But for the first time I feel a bit of empathy for Lemoine. No, I don’t think that Sydney is sentient, but for reasons that are hard to explain, I feel like I have crossed the Rubicon. My interaction today with Sydney was completely unlike any other interaction I have had with a computer, and this is with a primitive version of what might be possible going forward.
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Picture of the Day
Nightwingin’ it.
