Good Morning, RVA: Time to cool down

Cooler temperatures, probably more rain, don’t float away!

June 3, 2015; 7:03 AM • by Ross Catrow

Photo by: sidonath

Good morning, RVA! It’s 58 °F, and all this wet weather continues to bring the temperatures down. Today’s forecasted high is just 66 °F! Rain continues today, probably tomorrow, and maybe Friday. Theoretically, things will dry out by the weekend. Umbrella Week 2015!

Water cooler

Just when you thought it was safe to get back into the baseball stadium water, President and Managing General Partner of the Flying Squirrels Lou DiBella drops this supremely frustrated open letter to the RTD. The frustration continues from almost everyone involved in this thoroughly quote-filled follow-up piece by John O’Connor and Michael Martz.

Also in the RTD, Katherine Calos has this interesting bit about the VMFA allowing their lease with the Sons of Confederate Veterans to expire and replacing it with a use agreement instead. While I’m sure the flaggers will be hanging around the VMFA’s sidewalks until the heat death of the universe, I’d say the days of an official Confederate presence at the state’s art museum are numbered.

Richmond Mag’s Mark Robinson says the opening of VCU’s Institute of Contemporary Art will be pushed back until 2017.

The folks over at the UVA school of medicine are just changing the world of biology, no big deal. They found previously undiscovered structures directly connecting the brain to the immune system. Take a journey deep into the innerspace!

Annnnnd just like that FIFA’s president Sepp Blatter has resigned, despite winning reelection just last week. Sounds like bad news is on the horizon for that guy.

RVANews Live #003 is tomorrow! Can you believe it? I’ll moderate a panel of geniuses about the Big Bike Race™, while our own resident genius, Aaron Williams, will lead the discussion on what makes a city work. It’ll be at least your most interesting Thursday this month! Tickets are $15 and you can buy them right now. Let’s hang out!

Sports!

• Squirrels downed Portland 4-3 and will attempt to do so again at 7:00 PM tonight. The Squirrels don’t return to The Diamond until this coming Tuesday.
• Nats won one and lost one yesterday to the Blue Jays. They’ll wrap up the series tonight at 7:05 PM.

What to expect

• Five adorable things for you and your adorable family to accomplish this weekend.
• What’s the deal with Stone Soul? Marc Cheatham explains!
• Our pal Andrew Cothern’s RVA Playlist project turns five this week!
• Did you know there are primaries next week? You should learn a thing or two and vote in them.
• Now is the time to remember the Big Bike Race™ stories we’ve run as you prepare for RVANews Live #003.

This morning’s longread

The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think

But in the 1970s, a professor of Psychology in Vancouver called Bruce Alexander noticed something odd about this experiment. The rat is put in the cage all alone. It has nothing to do but take the drugs. What would happen, he wondered, if we tried this differently? So Professor Alexander built Rat Park. It is a lush cage where the rats would have colored balls and the best rat-food and tunnels to scamper down and plenty of friends: everything a rat about town could want. What, Alexander wanted to know, will happen then?
In Rat Park, all the rats obviously tried both water bottles, because they didn’t know what was in them. But what happened next was startling.

The rats with good lives didn’t like the drugged water. They mostly shunned it, consuming less than a quarter of the drugs the isolated rats used. None of them died. While all the rats who were alone and unhappy became heavy users, none of the rats who had a happy environment did.

He also talks about how very, very few people leave the hospital after receiving medical-grade heroin and head straight for their local drug dealer.

This morning’s Instagram

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June 3, 2015 7:03 AM 0