Good Morning, RVA: Stay under the covers

Is it even worth getting out of bed today?

November 19, 2014; 6:58 AM • by Ross Catrow

Photo by: fiat luxe

Good morning, RVA! It’s 23 °F, and that makes me wanna give up on today and crawl back in bed under a big stack of covers. Highs today may crack 40 °F, but only deep into the misleadingly sunny afternoon. Carrie Rose Pace from CBS6 says today is the coldest day since March 27th!

Also, it’s too far out to mean anything, but I kid you not, Monday’s temps may be in the upper 60s. Make up your dang mind, seasons!

Water cooler

I’m starting to feel like the RTD’s Graham Moomaw is not a big fan of the Stone Brewing Co. project. Either that or he’s diligently doing the sacred job entrusted to reporters to uncover The Truth, even when that truth may be bitter and hidden under 100 bottles of delicious beer. In today’s story, he brings to light some slightly suspicious permits but stops short of accusing the City of any impropriety.

HDL laid off 132 employees yesterday–that’s 15% of their staff. This is a big deal for Richmond, even outside of the lost jobs: BizSense also reports that HDL has pulled back on some of their philanthropy which funds a ton of great stuff (not any of your projects, I hope) around town.

RVANews Live is tonight! Get your ticket and join me, our brilliant moderator Susan Howson, and a set of the most beautiful panelists you’ll ever see. We’re talking Walmart coming to VCU, the new Quirk Hotel, and how the East End just keeps (figuratively) exploding. It’ll be a blast!

Sports!

• Rams downed a great Toledo Rockets team, 87-78, behind a classic HAVOC-fueled run with less than three minutes remaining.
• Spiders couldn’t hang on to a late lead and fell to Old Dominion, 57-63. What does this mean for basketball in the Commonwealth?
• Wahoos crushed South Carolina State, 75-55. Cavs allowed just 20 points at the half.
• Caps defeat the Coyotes, 2-1.
• Hokies face Liberty at 7:00 PM in another Commonwealth matchup tonight.

This morning’s longread

Illustrations of Madness: James Tilly Matthews and the Air Loom

A fascinating (and sad) look inside the mind of a crazy person from the early 1800s–with illustrations!

Mike Jay recounts the tragic story of James Tilly Matthews, a former peace activist of the Napoleonic Wars who was confined to London’s notorious Bedlam asylum in 1797 for believing that his mind was under the control of the “Air Loom” – a terrifying machine whose mesmeric rays and mysterious gases were brainwashing politicians and plunging Europe into revolution, terror, and war.

…

The machine’s operators were a gang of undercover Jacobin terrorists, who Matthews described with haunting precision. Their leader, Bill the King, was a coarse-faced and ruthless puppetmaster who “has never been known to smile”; his second-in-command, Jack the Schoolmaster, took careful notes on the Air Loom’s operations, pushing his wig back with his forefinger as he wrote. The operator was a sinister, pockmarked lady known only as the “Glove Woman”. The public face of the gang was a sharp-featured woman named Augusta, superficially charming but “exceedingly spiteful and malignant” when crossed, who roamed London’s west end as an undercover agent

This morning’s Instagram

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November 19, 2014 6:58 AM 0