Good Morning, RVA: The prodigal sun

Welcome back, big round guy.

August 12, 2015; 7:04 AM • by Ross Catrow

Photo by: pjpink

Good morning, RVA! It’s barely 70 °F right now. I think we’ve seen the end of rain clouds, thunder, and lightning for a while, as today’s forecast from Weather Underground reads “Abundant sunshine.” Expect the same for the rest of the week, plus highs around 90 °F, and, if you’re spending time outside in the evening, better bring a flannel (lows in the mid-60s).

Water cooler

Dorothy McElhaney died this week at the age of 104, and the RTD ran her obituary which she wrote herself. It’s probably the best thing you’ll read all week and begins with “It pains me to admit it, but apparently, I have passed away.” [It’s come to our attention since publishing this that, while Dorothy McElhaney’s memories are very sweet, she did not indeed write 100% of this obituary. It appears to have been taken in part from the obituary of Emily DeBrayda Phillips.]

Ed Slipek at Style Weekly has a long list of roads, buildings, and places in the area named after people with ties to the Confederacy. Renaming some of these things is good and important, but it’s certainly not an all-or-nothing proposition. Which things have we named after people because their sole contribution to history was fighting for slavery 150 years ago? Isn’t there a difference between naming a school after a Confederate general (J.E.B. Stuart Elementary) and naming a park after one of the founders of the Richmond Times-Dispatch who served in the Confederate army (Joseph Bryan Park)?

The Virginia Department of Education just dropped a bunch of data about the 2014-2015 SOL pass rates. Scores are up, up, up–which I guess you’d expect when taking the tests has become such a focus for both students and teachers. If you want to get nerdy and do your own analysis, you can download the data as a couple of spreadsheets (which include a breakdown by division and school).

Read the fourth bullet point and following paragraphs in this Vox piece about what happens if Trump cannot be stopped by the Republican Party.

Sports!

VCU says they are unaware of any allegations of sexual harassment by former Athletic Director Norwood Teague. Although they do admit a settlement was made with former women’s basketball coach Beth Cunningham over accusations of gender discrimination.

• Squirrels fell to Bowie, 1-5. They’ve got two more games before returning home this Friday,
• Nats lost to the Dodgers, 0-5. They’ve alternated wins and losses the last nine games, since August 3rd.

This morning’s longread

How Cheap Can Solar Get? Very Cheap Indeed

Chartsandgraphs, y’all!

And beyond that, by the time solar scale has doubled 4 more times, to the equivalent of 16% of today’s electricity demand (and somewhat less of future demand), we should see solar at 3 cents per kwh in the sunniest areas, and 4.5 cents per kwh in moderately sunny areas.

If this holds, solar will cost less than half what new coal or natural gas electricity cost, even without factoring in the cost of air pollution and carbon pollution emitted by fossil fuel power plants.

This morning’s Instagram

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August 12, 2015 7:04 AM 0