Good Morning, RVA: Cloudy with a chance of D’Angelo

It can rain all it wants, still doesn’t change the fact that there’s a new D’Angelo album.

December 16, 2014; 7:05 AM • by Ross Catrow

Photo by: jimmy_ray

Good morning, RVA! It’s 37 °F, and here ends our streak of really pleasant days. Temperatures should stay in the mid-to-upper-50s, but we’re likely to see some rain starting late morning and continuing through the afternoon. The weather returns to its temperate raddness tomorrow.

Water cooler

From the RTD’s Laura Kebede: “The Richmond School Board voted Monday night to convert the under-enrolled Binford Middle School into a combined fine arts academy and Advanced Placement and career readiness program.” Their decision blends two of the four options the School Board considered. I’m not sure how they’ll go about executing that vision (we’ll learn more in January), but at least they have a plan.

The Del. Joseph D. Morrissey sex scandal story continues. It’s gross and tabloidy. This past weekend he announced that he will soon announce whether or not he will retire or will continue on in the General Assembly while serving jail time. I only bring it up because that announcement should come sometime this week, then we can all stop reading about it.

In media news, the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Richmond.com will merge tonight. You’ll have until January 5th to read the new combo site with no restrictions, after which a paywall kicks in, limiting you to 20 articles per month.

You guys, Richmonder D’Angelo released another album–his first since 2000–and people are kind of losng their minds.

Your daily learny Vox link: “Vivek Murthy is the new surgeon general. Who is he, and what the heck is his job?”

Sports!

VSU head coach Latrell Scott has been named the new head coach of the Norfolk State Spartans. In 2011, Coach Scott resigned from UR after a DWI arrest and later took the job at VSU–where he has had a ton of success. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Scott end up with his own FBS program at some point. Good luck Coach Scott!

• Rams take on the short-handed Belmont Bruins tonight at 7:00 PM.
• Caps travel to Florida to face the Panthers at 7:30 PM.

This morning’s longread

Inside the mind of the octopus

This guy really likes octopuses, like a lot.

“She’s looking at you,” Dowd said.

As we gazed into each other’s eyes, Athena encircled my arms with hers, latching on with first dozens, then hundreds of her sensitive, dexterous suckers. Each arm has more than two hundred of them. The famous naturalist and explorer William Beebe found the touch of the octopus repulsive. “I have always a struggle before I can make my hands do their duty and seize a tentacle,” he confessed. But to me, Athena’s suckers felt like an alien’s kiss–at once a probe and a caress. Although an octopus can taste with all of its skin, in the suckers both taste and touch are exquisitely developed. Athena was tasting me and feeling me at once, knowing my skin, and possibly the blood and bone beneath, in a way I could never fathom.

This morning’s Instagram

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December 16, 2014 7:05 AM 0