😵‍💫 Good morning, RVA: Unpredictable rain, unpredictable politics, unpredictable schools

Good morning, RVA! It’s 73 °F, and you can expect slightly warmer temperatures later on today accompanied by more rain—which will probably continue into tomorrow, too. If you can find a gap in the rain, get out there and enjoy it!
 

Water cooler

I don’t spend a ton of time following national news or news from other states, so reading this New York Times article about the Texas Education Agency’s pause on enforcing their governor’s mask ban makes me feel unmoored. It’s like the NYT’s editors accidentally negated all the verbs. For example: “In a reversal, the agency’s new guidance requires schools to notify their local health department if a student tests positive. The school must also notify students in the same classroom as well as those who share extracurricular activities.” In a reversal?? Before now, how did the local health department do contact tracing in schools if they…didn’t know about positive cases in schools? Sensible folks living in Texas right now must be terrified, which, maybe is old news and y’all are like “yeah, duh, Ross.” Still, though, I mostly share this story to point out, yet again, how much local and state elections matter. Even if you’re not thrilled at the prospect of a second helping of T-Mac, do you really want Virginia to elect a Republican governor who’d dabble in literally banning life-saving public health best practices?
 

WTVR reports that Hopewell City Public Schools, which already opened for the 2021–2022 school year, has canceled both in-person and virtual learning today "due to a staffing shortage." Seem ominous. I’m not saying that Richmond, Henrico, or Chesterfield Public Schools will see similar outcomes once they open up in a couple of weeks, but I do think parents across the region should prepare for this type of unpredictability throughout the fall.
 

It feels like it’s rained a lot recently, yeah? Sarah Vogelsong at the Virginia Mercury reports that, yes, it has rained more and those more frequent downpours are a result of climate change. But it’s not like rising temperatures mean we’ll just get another rain shower here and there—the unpredictability and intensity of weather events are also increasing. Vogelsong talks to local climate scientist Dr. Jeremy Hoffman, who says “Because we’ll switch between these longer drier periods interspersed with these deluge conditions, that becomes really hard to manage.” Tap through to this article for the climate terror, but read through to the end for a quick chat about stormwater management!
 

I love this piece, from Patrick Wilson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, about Blakely Lockhart. She’s challenging Goochland’s Del. John McGuire for his GA seat because he made the decision to attend the January 6th insurrection. He denies entering the building, and does do some light condemning of that particular part of the insurrection, but is, of course, quick to drop quotes filled with Trumpy election security nonsense. I’m inspired by people who get tired of shenanigans and get involved in the process. Good luck, Blakely.
 

To close out this kind-of-slow news Friday, here are 250 pictures of Richmond in the 1940s via the RTD. I could have spent my whole morning scrolling through this pile of photos, but, unfortunately, need to wrap up this email!
 

This morning’s longread

Simply White, Snowfall White, School House White: Proliferation of White Paint Shades Stupefies Renovators

I chuckled out loud at several parts of this Wall Street Journal article on white paint.
 

Benjamin Moore offers a collection of 152 of its “most requested off-white colors,” shades that are “versatile yet complex.” Behr’s website lists 167 white options. PPG, which owns the Glidden line, has 315 at Home Depot. “To say ‘curated to 152 paints’ is like narrowing down to the grains of sand on a beach,” said Jonathan Levav, a marketing professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business who has studied how the number of choices available can affect consumer decision-making behavior. “It’s somewhere between ridiculous and pointless.” Dr. Levav, whose research shows people who need to make a series of decisions can get worn down by the process and start acting irrationally, avoided such stress during his recent renovation. His decorator narrowed the field to a manageable three or four choices.
 

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Picture of the Day

Not helping.