Good Morning, RVA: The week continues

And it’s gotta go somewhere.

April 28, 2015; 7:04 AM • by Ross Catrow

Photo by: Micolo

Good morning, RVA! It’s 42 °F, and today you can expect highs in the low-70s and clear skies. Warmer temperatures are just around the riverbend.

Water cooler

Reported.ly has a pictorial roundup of yesterday’s unrest in Baltimore. The Baltimore Sun continues to provide excellent coverage: here’s their overview of the situation and this map, which is helpful to get a sense of the location and scale of things.

Could what’s happened in Ferguson and Baltimore happen in Richmond? The RTD’s Michael Paul Williams looks into what new Police Chief Alfred Durham and the community are doing about unfair treatment by police. Ex-Councilmember Marty Jewell makes an appearance and says some cogent things.

The death toll from the Nepal earthquake has climbed to over 4,300.

Katy Burnell Evans keeps us up to date with the ongoing–glacial, for sure, but still ongoing–budget talks. It’s encouraging that Council seems determined to properly fund the school system, but we’ll see if they can find the cash to do so. At what point do we just go and make a Kickstarter to get this thing done?

A fluid leak at DuPont’s Zytel plant sent 22 people to the hospital for “inhalation irritation.”

The Minecraft developers announced that they’ll add a new default skin to the game on Wednesday that will allow folks to choose to play as a more female character. If none of that sentence made any sense, I can point you in the direction of a six-year-old who would love to tell you all about it.

Sports!

• The Squirrels lost their 10th straight game for the first time in franchise history. They’ll regroup against Reading tonight at 6:35 PM.
• Make that six losses in a row for the Nats, after they fell to the Braves 4-8. They’ll try agin tonight at 7:10 PM.
• Caps take the series against the Islanders with a 2-1 victory. Washington will face the New York Rangers in the next round of the Stanley Cup.

What to expect

Today on RVANews read about these exclamations:

• Sweet day trips!
• Neat Week continues!
• Science on your lunch break!
• Teacher of the year!

This morning’s longread

Two things you should read this morning:

Baltimore and the State of American Cities

Those disparate realities produced bizarre dissonances in Baltimore. On Pratt Street, a scalper tried to sell game tickets to the protestors marching toward the stadium. For a brief moment, it was possible to purchase to both a Baltimore Orioles and a “Black Lives Matter” T-shirt on a single corner. On Howard Street, which runs alongside Camden Yards, cheers from the stadium competed with angry chants from the streets. The public-address system in the rail station that connects the stadium to downtown announced, “Due to a large number of protestors in the area, the system is experiencing significant delays. We apologize for any inconvenience.” Just before 7 P.M., the protestors doubled back toward downtown and began smashing the windows of police cars parked next to the light rail. A detail of police ran up the street, past the row of now-windowless cars, but just as it seemed that bedlam would erupt, they stopped and a tense standoff with the protestors resumed instead. Traffic on the nearby streets choked to a halt. Protestors began chanting, “The police broke his neck!” By sunset, the protest had dwindled, though it remained tense enough, for a while, for the mayor to request that fans delay leaving the stadium after the game ended. The Orioles beat the Red Sox, five to four. On Monday, thousands of people gathered for Freddie Gray’s funeral.

As Riots Follow Freddie Gray’s Death in Baltimore, Calls for Calm Ring Hollow

When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is “correct” or “wise,” any more than a forest fire can be “correct” or “wise.” Wisdom isn’t the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the rioters themselves.

This morning’s Instagram

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April 28, 2015 7:04 AM 0