Good Morning, RVA: So much eye rolling

Today you have the opportunity to roll your eyes at all levels of government: local, state, and national!

January 13, 2015; 6:56 AM • by Ross Catrow

Photo by: thruhike98

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F and cloudy. Temperatures will fall over the course of a fairly uneventful day giving you time to collect your milk and bread because tomorrow…there’s a chance of snow! Just a chance and no real opportunity for accumulation, but you know how the area handles even the slightest bit of snow. Prepare yourself.

Water cooler

Go ahead and read the entirety of Graham Moomaw’s coverage of last night’s city council meeting. Despite postponing every item on the regular agenda, it may have been the most #rvacouncil meeting ever: the mayor’s office looked confused, protestors in the audience held signs and sang Amazing Grace, a thing about bicycles passed, and well-armed activist Chris Dorsey almost fought a guy.

Virginia’s General Assembly: Impacting people’s lives since 1619. The 2015 session of the General Assembly convenes tomorrow, and here’s what you can expect.

Today, Virginia’s 74th Districts holds its special election to replace Joe Morrissey. Morrissey, who has been convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, is one of the candidates vying to replace himself. What a mess.

Proving that not just local politicians are embarrassing, Congressman Randy Weber from Texas made this misspelled Hitler joke on Twitter. He is elected and paid to represents 698,472 Americans in Congress. Here’s the background on his “joke” if you were too busy following more important things and missed it.

Sports!

Ohio State beat Oregon in the first ever College Football Playoff. Virginia Tech handed the Buckeyes their only loss, early on in the season.

• Hokies continue their brutal schedule with a trip to Louisville at 7:00 PM.
• #17 Rams travel to Rhode Island to face the other other Rams. We’ll be watching the game down at T-Miller’s (where I also happened to watch the Hokies beat the Buckeyes)–join us! Tip is at 7:30 PM.
• #2 Wahoos host the Clemson Tigers tonight at 8:00 PM. The Cavs are now receiving first-place votes in both polls.

This morning’s longread

King of Clickbait

Worth reading for the author’s palpable eye rolling. I’m with him; soulless, clickbaitty sites are not how I want my information conveyed to me.

Eventually, Spartz gave me permission to talk to Chelsea DeBaise, one of the content producers. DeBaise, who is twenty-two, wore a crew-neck T-shirt and a baseball cap advertising a brand of vodka. She had posted several lists that morning. (Recent headlines included “33 Photos of People Taken Seconds Before They Die. #10 Is from My Nightmares” and “No Matter How Much You Stare, You Won’t Be Able to Guess What These Photos Really Are Of.”) She had just graduated from Syracuse University, where she majored in writing and contributed to the Daily Orange. Her best story, she said, was a feature about local poverty, for which she spent several days talking to homeless people. “Stories like that–heavily reported, with one-on-one interviews–there is a lot of value in that,” she said. “But then you have to think about impact. A Dose story I did in an hour would shatter that one, in terms of reac

This morning’s Instagram

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January 13, 2015 6:56 AM 0