Good Morning, RVA: Is this the worst weather?
Cold, rainy, bleh.
Photo by: iKobe!
Good morning, RVA! It’s 50 °F, and today you can expect some cold October rain. Highs in the upper-50s and a greater than 50% chance of rain for the entire day will make it hard to hold a candle–but don’t worry, nothing lasts forever!
Water cooler
The ACLU of Virginia has released its super comprehensive report on police “body worn cameras” (BWCs). I had totally never thought about all the practical details that need to be hammered out for body cams not to have the potential for creepy/terrifying usage. Like, can they be used in your home? When is the footage deleted? Can they be used for surveillance? The report advocates for a statewide system that all law enforcement agencies using body cams can adhere to so that citizens know what to expect. Right now–and justifiably so, as many departments (like Henrico) are just now getting BWCs–it’s a total grab bag.
How many City employees are assigned to pick up your big trash from the alley? Two, says Ned Oliver for the RTD. This might mean that Councilman Agelasto’s ordinance to increase penalties on gross porch couches (PDF) is off the table for a minute–you can’t punish porch couchers if there’s no way for them to get rid of their nasty couches. While the city looks for ways to afford hiring more folks to pick up bulk refuse, I feel like there’s a great opportunity here for a few kids and a truck to make some extra money on the side. Come forth entrepreneurial youth! Your golden ticket awaits!
Richmond’s first hostel opened up a couple weeks back, but I didn’t really grok it I until I saw these photos from Trevor Dickerson. Whoa! This is, like, way nicer than my current living space? Can I just move in permanently?
You probably shouldn’t be eating processed meat anyway, but sometimes hotdogs are delicious, so I understand. Regardless, the WHO study linking meat to cancer is not as OMG OMG OMG as some folks would have you believe–Vox explains in 400 words.
I’m sure that by now you’ve seen those disturbing videos from Spring Valley High School in South Carolina yesterday showing a school resource office violently arresting a student for “disturbing school.” Just this weekend the RTD ran this article about what Richmond schools are doing to curb the “school-to-prison pipeline.” Arresting kids out of their classrooms is not part of that plan.
Our elected federal representatives decided to take a break from their real-life reality show and govern the country for a hot second, tentatively agreeing on a two-year budget.
Sports!
- Game 1 of the World Series begins tonight at 8:07 PM as the New York Mets take on the Kansas City Royals in Kansas City.
This morning’s longread
Who Owns the Patent on Nutmeg?
Defeating patents with ancient texts!
The problem was one of information availability. “How is the guy in D.C. who is doing the novelty determination on a patent that claims neem oil as an antibacterial supposed to find some book in Sanskrit in a library in Bangalore?” Sprigman asked. “It’s a legitimate defense,” Basheer said. Or it was, before the creation of the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library. In 2000, at the behest of the Indian government, Gupta assembled a team of about two hundred linguists, patent examiners, botanists, information architects, I.T. specialists, and practitioners from each of India’s traditional systems of medicine–Ayurveda, Unani, and Siddha.
This morning’s Instagram
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Ross Catrow
Founder and publisher of RVANews.
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