Good Morning, RVA: Holiday season is go for liftoff

Richmond holiday spirit is a lot more predictable than space travel.

December 5, 2014; 6:56 AM • by Ross Catrow

Photo by: BlueGoo Studios

Good morning, RVA! It’s 41 °F, and today’s weather will bring moist gloom with a chance of frozen lethargy. The clouds will blot out the sun; there’s a small, but annoyingly consistent, threat of rain; and the temperatures will not muster themselves out of the 40s. Wear some layers.

Water cooler

Zachary Reid over at the RTD has a good piece on the new Huguenot High School, which recently opened for a media tour. New schools are cool, but as Reid notes, the majority of students at neighboring Thompson Middle will end up attending the 60s-era George Wythe High School–which needs $676,000 (PDF) in repairs and maintenance to its HVAC systems.

One unbreakable rule that I hold fast to is: I will always link to news about a helipad.

Richmond’s annual holiday traditions start this weekend, and I hope you find yourself prepared. You’ve got the Christmas Parade, for which the weather is unfortunately looking none-too-hot. But if that’s a bust, there are a trillion cornucopias of holiday events begging for your attendance. Here are five.

NASA scrubbed the Orion launch yesterday due to a combination of boats, winds, and valves. They’ll attempt a launch this morning (the window opens at 7:05 AM), but the weather looks like it may shut things down again. You can watch live via the Internet’s tubes.

The conversations we’re all having about race, justice, and the police are important–so let’s keep having them. Here are six links that are sure to bum you out, induce a furious rage, or at least make you think:

• Protesters Fill the Streets Across the Country Over Decision in Eric Garner Case
• The glaring problem with #CrimingWhileWhite
• On Being a Black Male, Six Feet Four Inches Tall, in America in 2014
• Rand Paul: The bigger story of Eric Garner’s death is about cigarette taxes
• Why wasn’t the cop who killed Eric Garner indicted?
• The Department of Justice’s full Investigation of the Cleveland Division of Police (PDF)

Sports!

• Caps win on the road against the Hurricanes, 2-1.
• Spiders (prolate spheroid) continue their run in the FCS playoff against #7 Coastal Carolina, Saturday at 1:00 PM.
• Rams face the #7 Wahoos in the Clash for the Commonwealth this Saturday at 2:00 PM. Whose cuisine will reign supreme!?
• Spiders (roundball) head to Harrisonburg for a meeting with the Dukes (strictly business) on Sunday at 2:00 PM.
• Hokies host Highlanders on Sunday at 3:00 PM.

This morning’s longread

The shaping of Shaka

Who’s ready for some sportsemotions?

It’s such a common thing that Smart, all these years after being left by his father, now finds himself coaching a VCU team featuring nine players who were also raised without fathers. One player’s dad was murdered. Another player’s dad is in jail. There are multiple non-existent fathers because of addictions, either to drugs or alcohol.

“And then there’s just some absenteeism,” Smart said.

The byproduct of all that is that this fatherless 37-year-old now serves as the de facto father figure for the majority of the players on the VCU roster, and Smart shared his story with them, in great detail, for the first time, just before this season began.

This morning’s Instagram

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December 5, 2014 6:56 AM 0