Bacon's Rebellion

  • Fundamental Change = New Virginia Constitution

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    James A. Bacon

    In the Aug. 16 edition of The New Republic, Sarah Williams Goldhagen explores the causes of America’s collapsing physical infrastructure. (You can read the first paragraph here; then you have to subscribe.) She posits a number of causes, including the difficulty in a democracy of constructing large-scale public works without trampling on peoples’ rights, and the abdication of the federal government as a funding source. But the third point she raises should be of interest to anyone familiar with Ed Risse’s call for Fundamental Change in governance structures.

    Goldhagen writes:

    The country has undergone a structural transformation from city-suburb-exurb-farmland, a constellation that does not necessarily conflict with the tripartite local-state-federal structure of government, into metropolitan regions, a constellation that does conflict with that structure. We are stuck with the existing political, legal, and institutional structures of states (usually bigger than metropolitan areas), and municipalities (smaller and self interested) through which almost everything must be organized and funneled. Neither is the right kind of entity for managing a metropolitan region, but together they inevitably organize our thinking and, more important, our policy planning, which turns out to be too unfocused (in the case of states) or too hyper-focused (in the case of municipalities).

    The recent creation of transportation authorities in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads partially addresses the issue here in Virginia. The authorities allow the state’s two most populous metropolitan areas to address their transportation needs on a regional basis

    At this stage of development, however, there are two mega problems with the Virginia solution. First, regional transportation authorities have the power to raise taxes but are not accountable to the public in the same way that local governments are. Representatives are not elected directly, and the rules of open, transparent government do not necessarily apply.

    Secondly, because transportation and land use decision making is so closely intertwined, it should be made at the same level of government. I know that the idea of transferring land use decisions from municipal to regional governments would strike some people as a horrifying prospect. Keep government close to the people, they would argue. (A valid point, I would add.) On the other hand, the munipical government boundaries we have now are artifacts of the 19th century, devised to serve a largely agrarian economy, not the economy dominated by sprawling metropolitan areas.

    The writers of the Virginia constitution originally envisioned two types of municipality: cities to serve urban areas, which required a higher level of government services, and counties to serve rural areas. Cities were given more taxing power and legal authority, and counties less. As development spread beyond city boundaries, cities annexed the developed portions of their neighboring counties and extended urban infrastructure and services to them. The animating idea was that a single governmental entity would preside over a single urbanized area. For a variety of complex reasons, however, cities lost the right to annex. Thus, as urbanized areas grew, they came to encompass multiple jurisdictions.

    The system we have today is not what the architects of Virginia’s system of local government intended. It is time for Fundamental Change in the institutions of governance. It is time to revise the Virginia Constitution. Virginia adopted a new constitution in 1971 to reflect the new realities of the Civil Rights revolution. Thirty-six years later, it’s time our system of local government reflect the realities of 21st century human settlement patterns.

  • Fear of Men

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    James A. Bacon

    Jeff Zaslow’s Wall Street Journal column continues a discussion about how society is teaching kids to fear men.

    As the father of an eight year-old boy, this topic hits close to the mark, doubly so once I read Zaslow’s piece, which is based on feedback he received from readers regarding his first column on this topic. Snip:

    Frank McEnulty, a builder in Long Beach, Calif., was once a Boy Scout scoutmaster. “Today, I wouldn’t do that job for anything,” he says. “All it takes is for one kid to get ticked off at you for something and tell his parents you were acting weird on the campout.”

    It’s true that men are far more likely than women to be sexual predators. But our society, while declining to profile by race or nationality when it comes to crime and terrorism, has become nonchalant about profiling men. Child advocates are advising parents never to hire male babysitters. Airlines are placing unaccompanied minors with female passengers.

    Child-welfare groups say these precautions minimize risks. But men’s rights activists argue that our societal focus on “bad guys” has led to an overconfidence in women. (Children who die of physical abuse are more often victims of female perpetrators, usually mothers, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.)

    Coincidentally, I am now, also, the adult leader of my son’s Cub Scout Den. Before I can fully assume those duties, I must first take the BSA’s online course in child protection and in addition, I must allow the church which sponsors the Pack to conduct a background check on me to ensure that I am not a predator/scofflaw/deadbeat. If I do not give them permission to investigate me, I will not be allowed to perform any functions with the Den. Period.

    In some ways, I can appreciate the scrutiny. Screening for creeps is probably long overdue and, given the potential for legal liability, regrettably necessary.

    Still, it leaves me cold, and wondering whether all this scrutiny — however well intentioned — doesn’t reinforce the perception that all men are suspect. My son and I have a good relationship (he still calls me DaDa… at least when none of his friends are present). And he still holds my hand, whether we’re crossing the street, or simply because he feels like it.

    It’s a small, but very touching gesture. One day, he’ll stop doing it and that will be a sad day, indeed.

    But now I wonder…do others who see me holding his hand think I’m some sort of trench-coated creep who ought to be reported? Does it help that our own Attorney General has made a virtual crusade out of tracking down online predators — a crusade that’s repeatedly reinforced by a stream of breathless press releases?

    No, it doesn’t. While there can be no doubt whatsoever that depravity exists and that predators, creeps and weirdos can and have inflicted great pain on so many innocent lives, they are are distinct, deserved minority. Society has the right and the responsibility to punish them.

    But in doing so, it does not have the right to make suspects of us all.

  • Is Pre-K the Best Place to Invest our Education Dollars?

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    James A. Bacon

    “The most important and precious resource in the world today is not oil. It’s not water. It’s brainpower,” Gov. Timothy M. Kaine told business leaders in Harrisonburg yesterday as he stumped Western Virginia in support of his pre-K expansion initiative. “Strategies that increase our brainpower are going to keep us on top.” (See the Daily News Record story here.)

    I totally and whole-heartedly concur. But there our agreement stops.

    It does not necessarily follow from Kaine’s initial premise that the most cost-efficient way of increasing “brainpower” among Virginia’s youth is to spend an additional $75 million to expand the scope of existing Virginia’s pre-K programs, which currently cost $50 million already.

    Why not invest in kindergarten? Municipalities in Northern Virginia, in Virginia’s educational vanguard, are dedicating their extra resources to expanding kindergarten, not pre-K. (See “Forget Full-Time Pre-K, How about Full-Time Kindergarten?“) What do they know that the Governor does not?

    Why not invest in middle school? For purposes of argument, I will accept Gov. Kaine’s assertions that pre-K improves pupil performance in the early grades. But Virginia national standardized tests show Virginia students performing comparatively well in elementary school. The problems in the Virginia educational system manifest themselves in middle school, where performance slides markedly. Why not target middle school with extra resources instead?

    Even that point begs a number of larger questions. Why does Gov. Kaine find it necessary to raise $75 million in new revenue for his initiative? With state aid to public education in Virginia amounting to $6.7 billion in Fiscal 2008, he can’t carve out $75 million? Isn’t it time we take a look at the rigid funding allocation formulas that deprive governors of any flexibility in educational spending?

    Speaking of the subject of rigid, centralized educational bureaucracy in Richmond, why does Virginia permit so little experimentation within its school system? To raise the questions posed earlier by Norm Leahy, why don’t we have more charter schools? Why can’t we give parents a wider array of choices, via vouchers, of where to send their children to school?

  • Whither the Liberal Education?

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    James A. Bacon

    In the outline of his ideas for the future, Jim made this point:

    The next stage of economic development is to systematically develop a region’s human capital through education and training of the population, as well as recruitment and retention of individuals who possess cutting-edge knowledge and skills — the so-called “creative class.”

    I can see the point — an educated population tends to be more dynamic and adaptable to changing conditions. That is generally a good thing. But what troubles me is that too often, education is reduced to the mere acquisition of skills, rather than the development of the ability to think.

    Independent, critical thinking is supposed to be one of the benefits of a liberal arts education. It also, increasingly, seems to be passe. Businesses say they want a highly educated workforce. That is in their interest, naturally, as it saves them time and money having to train workers how to make better, faster, cheaper widgets. But what is their vision of an educated workforce? Is it one that can apply critical thinking to problems, and question assumptions, or one that can simply make correct change and do what it’s told? I fear the trend is toward the latter.

    If we are to compete effectively with the prussianized hoards, the thinking goes, we must sacrifice or at least minimize any forays into art, philosophy, music and literature. You can’t build a new economy on the back of a screenplay, so get thee to a technical school and quit wasting time.

    And what a bleak, colorless, humorless world that would be. I suggest that if we really want to build more human capital (a phrase that deserves to be banned form all polite speech), we first ought to demand that our educational system allow people to spend more time developing their abilities to think critically, to observe, to analyse, to question…to be independent.

    In other words, it demands we become more liberal in our learning. But I’m not sure that concept would sell.

  • Forget Full-Time Pre-K, How about Full-Time Kindergarten?

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    James A. Bacon

    (Governor to taxpayer: Cough it up, you little twerp!)

    While Gov. Timothy M. Kaine talks up his bid to expand pre-k funding for disadvantaged children, Northern Virginia localities have a different priority: expanding their kindergarten programs from part-time to full-time. Fairfax County, home to one in seven Virginians, is spending $5.6 million this year to expand part-time programs to full-time at 21 more schools, bringing the full-time total to 94 countywide, reports Maria Glod with the Washington Post.

    Arlington County and Alexandria already have full-time programs, while Prince William is moving to one this year. Of Northern Virginia’s most populous jurisdictions, only fiscally stressed Loudoun County is not evolving to full-time Kindergarten.

    The evolution is understandable, given the increased emphasis American society places on education. If you want children to be better prepared to learn the basics in 1st grade, make sure they get the foundational skills in kindergarten. Education spending is skyrocketing in Virginia, even when adjusted for inflation and the increased number of pupils. But there appears to be a disconnect between the funding priorities of local school boards the educrats in Richmond who control the opaque and inflexible process for allocating state aid for education known as “Standards of Quality” — not to mention between the school boards and Gov. Kaine, who wants to expand pre-K.

    If local governments are putting their money where their mouth is, in expanded kindergarten programs, why is Gov. Kaine spending political capital to expand pre-K programs?

    (“Kindergarten Cop photo credit: http://www.videodetective.com/.)

  • 500 Vanpools, 12 Buses an Hour

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    James A. Bacon

    Phew! It’s been a marathon blogging session today, but there’s one more story I need to bring to your attention. Lyle Solla-Yates has done a great job digging into proposed HOT lane project for Interstates 95 and 295. In “HOT Commodity,” he has uncovered more details on how it would work than I’ve seen anywhere else.

    The Fluor-Transurban plan would apply millions of dollars of toll revenues to upgrading mass transit service in the I-95/395 corridor. As part of its analysis, the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) has been studying the mass transit and shared ridership services along the corridor that already exist. Lyle reports these numbers:

    At present, there are 500 independent vanpools in the area. More than 90 buses per hour go through the portion of the corridor currently served by HOV lanes. Some of these are private, some public transit like the Fairfax Connector. In the southern portion, where the two new lanes are planned, there are 12 buses per hour, which are mostly private buses like Quicks and Martz.

    There are 19 slug locations in private lots throughout the area. These lots are self-organized and self-run — sometimes by major employers such as the Pentagon. That is a significant amount of privately provided transportation capacity. I’m especially intrigued by those 500 independent vanpools. Who runs those vans? Who rides in them? Has anyone talked to these people to find out what the public sector can do to encourage more of them? The same questions could be asked of the private bus operators.

    Clearly, the private sector can be part of the traffic-congestion solution. DRPT should be applauded for unveiling the existence of these small-scale players. Now let’s see if state transportation planners can craft a policy that harnesses the entrepreneurial potential of the marketplace instead of creating some lethargic, play-it-by-the-book, quasi-public agency to provide the mass transit service.

  • Coastal Follies and Virginia’s Next Big Hurricane

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    James A. Bacon

    Columns penned this week by Ed Risse and Norm Leahy offer supplementary perspectives on one of the great environmental crises of our time: the overdevelopment of precarious waterfront land. Ed and Norm highlight different aspects of this national folly.

    In “Castles of Sand,” Norm describes the futility of building million-dollar houses on sandy spits of land lining the Atlantic Coast. Sand migrates with the currents and storms. The foundation of thousands of beach-front houses is eroding, exposing property owners to potential losses of billions of dollars. This phenomenon is as pronounced in Virginia Beach as it is in the South Carolina communities that Norm writes about. When the next Category 3 hurricane hits, the impact will be devastating.

    Not only will property be lost, but tens of thousands of Virginians (and residents of the Outer Banks) will be stuck, hard pressed to evacuate. We learned from New Orleans what happens when citizens are unable to flee a hurricane. Unfortunately, by personalizing the disaster — it was all George Bush’s/Ray Nagin’s/Kathleen Blanco’s fault — we have not absorbed the systemic problems underlying the Katrina disaster. Ed provides a much-needed update in his piece today, “A Second Stroll with Katrina.”

    My take-away from Ed’s column was this: Louisana and New Orleans tried to protect everything, and, in so doing, protected nothing. Blaming the federal government for failing to provide enough funding, or faulting the local culture of corruption that wasted much of the money that was made available, misses the larger point: There wasn’t enough money to build levees high enough to protect all the low-lying land that developers built upon. A rational strategy, Ed argues, would be to build higher, stronger walls around a smaller, more defensible area.

    I can’t help but wonder if Hampton Roads is following the same path as New Orleans. Instead of building levees, though, Hampton Roads authorities have spent multi-millions on replenishing sands that continue to wash away. Instead of limiting development on low-lying, flood-prone land, they propose to spend multi-billions to build massive road-and-bridge projects to expedite “hurricane evacuation.”

    Incredibly, one new highway, the $2.5 billion Southeast Expressway, would skirt Stumpy Lake and the Great Dismal Swamp, displacing wetlands that would help absorb a storm surge. The highway could help evacuate Virginia Beach residents crowded along the coast in the event of a hurricane — but only if the hurricane doesn’t raise water levels enough inland to inundate the road.

    I’ll confess, I don’t know what the specifications of the road are — they probably haven’t even been written yet. But someone had better make sure the darn thing sits high enough above sea level that a storm surge pushing water inland won’t take it out while thousands of Hampton Roadsters are using it to evacuate!

    (Photo credit: The Schlatter Family Website.)

  • A Relentless Focus on Productivity and Innovation

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    James A. Bacon

    “The world is flat,” columnist Thomas Friedman proclaimed in 2005, and everyone who matters agrees with him. The question that Friedman doesn’t really answer is, what do we do about it? In the upcoming “Economy 4.0” series, I will try to provide some answers. In the first essay in that series, “Peak Performance in a Flat World,” I make a number of key points:

    1. New Urban Regions are replacing nation-states as the key economic-development players in the globally competitive trading system. NURs can be seen as labor markets, or repositories of human capital, comprised of individuals with a specific constellation of educational attributes and economically useful skill sets.
    2. There is no easy path to prosperity. The only way to raise living standards is to increase the productivity of the workforce and the innovation of its businesses. Virginia needs to create a culture of productivity and innovation. Human capital is the key to achieving both; all else follows.
    3. Virginia regions, for the most part, are mired in outmoded economic development paradigms focused on recruiting outside corporate investment and, to a lesser degree, cultivating the growth of home-growth entrepreneurial companies. Both tasks remain important, but they are not sufficient to maintain regional competitive advantage.
    4. The next stage of economic development is to systematically develop a region’s human capital through education and training of the population, as well as recruitment and retention of individuals who possess cutting-edge knowledge and skills — the so-called “creative class.”
    5. Recruiting and retaining members of the creative class adds a new dimension to economic development: building the kinds of communities where “creatives” want to live.
    6. Any economic development strategy also must be economically and environmentally sustainable, minimizing resource consumption and its adverse environmental impacts.

    Virginia has a lot of work ahead. Virginia’s economic performance (as measured by per capita income expressed as a percentage of the national average) stagnated between 1985 and 2000, and has picked up since then mainly due to the injection of federal dollars in the post 9/11 era. That development, which has benefited Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads primarily, reflects the large presence of the military-industrial complex in the state economy, not an improvement in underlying competitiveness.

    We’ve been lulled into complacency by ratings that proclaim Virginia the “best state” for business. We may be the best state under the old economic-development paradigm of recruiting corporate investment. But that’s like saying you’re the best mini-computer manufacturer when the world has evolved to PCs. We need to re-think what it takes to prosper in a globally competitive knowledge economy, which in turn means re-thinking how to build more livable, sustainable regions.

  • A Series Is Born: Economy 4.0

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    James A. Bacon

    Over the years, I have written about economic development, the state budget, transportation policy, education, urban design and energy restructuring. It may not be apparent to readers, but there is an underlying and interconnecting logic to the positions I have staked out on these topics. I have endeavored to apply throughout my writing a consistent set of principles, which I set to words in the outline of a book I provisionally entitled, “Economy 4.0.” Although I long ago concluded I would never have the time to complete the book, the principles I identified have continued to guide my thinking.

    I had never given much thought to publish any version of the “Economy 4.0” online until a particularly animated dialogue took place on the Bacon’s Rebellion blog last month. Surveying the politics that guided the Comprehensive Transportation Funding and Reform Act of 2007 – the financing portions of which I considered an abomination – I had concluded that no meaningful principles divided Virginia Republicans and Democrats on issues of governance. The only important differences between the political parties were the particular constituencies they favored with their ill-considered schemes for redistributing the wealth extracted from taxpayers.

    A regular participant in the blog who goes by the pseudonym of Groveton responded enthusiastically that the time had come to create an independent party in Virginia. Groveton, a senior Northern Virginia technology executive, offered $25,000 of his own money to fund a start-up if others would match it by the same amount and if I committed a significant amount of time to the project. While I agreed that disenchantment with the two incumbent parties was endemic, the history of independent parties in the United States was none too encouraging. The effort would be worthwhile, I suggested, only if someone could articulate a core set of principles that appealed to a demographic constituency broad enough to potentially win a majority of votes. I had no interest in devoting my energies to creating a marginal party like the Libertarians or Greens. The effort would be worthwhile only if there were an opportunity to spark a fundamental realignment comparable to the origins of the Republican Party in the 1850s. Otherwise, it made sense to work within the existing two-party system.

    Then it hit me: I had already outlined a set of internally consistent principles for thinking about Virginia’s future. The principles were forward looking: how to build more prosperous and livable communities in a globally competitive and environmentally constrained world. For the most part, the ideas in “Economy 4.0” were mainstream. The strategies were based upon fiscal conservatism and environmental sustainability. They emphasized marketplace solutions to problems over bureaucratic, command-and-control solutions. They prioritized the creation of wealth and economic opportunity for all segments of society over the redistribution of wealth and the cultivation of grievances by minorities and special interests.

    The principles avoided hot-button, culture-war issues. Like many, perhaps most, Virginians, I personally respect traditional values while acknowledging the need to accommodate evolutionary change in cultural norms. If Democrats and Republicans want to embrace the cause of the culture warriors on the left and right, then let them go right ahead. The rest of us just want to muddle through life as best we can.

    Thus was born the new “Economy 4.0,” as a 10-part series in Bacon’s Rebellion. This series does not issue a clarion call for a new political party, however. Rather, it provides a framework for analyzing the challenges facing Virginia in the early 21st century. It provides a systematic way of looking at the crucial issues and appreciating how they are interconnected.

    If “Economy 4.0” provides the philosophical underpinnings for a new, broad-based political party, then that would be wonderful. But it is important, even in this age of technological marvels, to put the proverbial horse before the cart. First, we must articulate a cohesive set of ideals, principles, goals and solutions. Only then does it make sense to organize a political party around them.

    In future editions, I will adapt the outline for “Economy 4.0” into columns for the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine. Then I will post them on the Bacon’s Rebellion blog for commentary and feedback. I encourage the widest possible participation.

    First, do you, as a Bacon’s Rebellion reader, find that the principles and priorities make sense? And, second, if you do, do you think they could form the basis for a third political party? Or should we work within the current, two-party system to implement them?

  • Nathaniel Bacon Vindicated, Gov. Berkeley Shamed

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    James A. Bacon

    As all good readers of the Bacon’s Rebellion blog know, Nathaniel Bacon, instigator of Virginia’s first rebellion against the English crown and inspiration for 21st-century Virginia rebels against outmoded institutions, was a genuine hero. Representing the common man against the minions of the monarch, he championed the rights of free-born Englishmen in 1676, long before anyone had articulated the principles enumerated in the Declaration of Independence.

    In recent years, the rise of politically correct thinking has been unkind to Nathaniel Bacon. Historians and commentators, many of whom spread their heinous ideas on the Web, observe that Bacon organized the frontiersmen to fight Indians, and take it upon the word of his enemies that he massacred a tribe of friendlies. Thus, Bacon stands in a long line of Europeans, from the Spanish overthrow of the Aztecs and Incas to the murderers at Wounded Knee, for the indiscriminate genocide of native Americans.

    Now comes a much-needed revision to the revision, and it comes at the hands of Richard L. Thornton, a Muscogee Indian, who has intensively researched the largely ignored colonial-era history of native Indians of the Southeastern United States. In his essay published here, “Berkeley the Butcher,” Thornton makes a persuasive case that Gov. William Berkeley was the bad guy, thus, by implication, salvaging Bacon’s reputation.

    Berkeley, Thornton reminds us, was a zealous partisan of the Stuart kings. Appointed as royal Governor of Virginia in 1642, he returned to England to fight on the side of the monarchs during the English Civil War. He returned to Virginia, where he suppressed the Openchoncanough Indian Uprising, was deposed by Oliver Cromwell, and then reappointed Governor in 1660. Less known to Virginians, Berkeley also was named one of eight Lord Proprietors of the Colony of Carolina, which consisted of what is now North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. As Thornton notes, “The Royal Proprietors planned to become unimaginably wealthy by subdividing and selling their eight ‘duchies’ into feudal estates with titled nobility.”

    In 1660, Berkeley pushed laws through the Virginia assembly that officially recognized the institution of race-based slavery, and codified laws removing any legal rights from slaves. Up to that time, Native American and African slaves were theoretically bond-servants. After that time, they were chattel for life. Nice guy, that Berkeley.

    As it so happened, Berkeley had a personal interest in the enslavement of native Americans. Thornton writes that Berkeley armed the Rickohocken tribe, located in western Virginia, with firearms and sent bands of warriors southward “to capture slaves for Virginia’s tobacco plantations.” These Indians, whom history came to know as the Cherokee, he theorizes, plundered far and wide, largely depopulating the Carolinas of the native tribes. This genocide against native Americans was committed by other native Americans — with the aid and complicity of Gov. Berkeley.

    How does this relate to Nathaniel Bacon? Writes Thornton: “It is theorized that one of the primary reasons that Berkeley refused in 1675 to authorize large-scale resistance to Indian raids on the Virginia frontier, was his long-time business relationship with the three branches of the Rickohockens.” In other words, Berkeley was trying to protect his buddies who were conducting slave-trading raids in the Carolinas! Whether you accept this theory or not, you should read Thornton’s essay for a glimpse into a fascinating and little-known era of Virginia history.

    (Photo credit of Gov. Berkeley: Wikipedia. C’mon, just look at the guy. Velvet jacket, flouncy shirt, curly wig… Who’re you going to believe — him or Nathaniel Bacon?)

  • Vacation’s Over. Back to Work, You Scurvy Dogs

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    James A. Bacon

    Vacation season is over. It’s back to serious business — like catching up on the latest profundities found only in Bacon’s Rebellion. The Sept. 4, 2007, edition is now available online.

    If you don’t check the Bacon’s Rebellion blog religiously, you might miss the next edition. Take no chances, sign up here for a free subscription to the ezine.

    Here are the current highlights:

    Economy 4.0: Introduction
    Virginia needs fresh thinking about how to build more prosperous, livable and sustainable communities in a globally competitive economy. The “Economy 4.0” series is a start.
    by James A. Bacon

    Peak Performance in a Flat World
    There is no easy path to prosperity and sustainability in a globally competitive economy, only the relentless pursuit of productivity and innovation. Virginia must bend every institution to that end.
    by James A. Bacon

    A Second Stroll with Katrina
    We haven’t made much progress preparing New Orleans for another hurricane, but at least we have a clearer idea of what went wrong. Dysfunctional human settlement patterns + Business As Usual governance = disaster.
    by EM Risse

    Love Hurts
    Christian Americans are conflicted on the issue of illegal immigration: torn between compassion for poor, struggling newcomers and respect for the Rule of Law.
    by James Atticus Bowden

    Don’t Write Off “Reading First”
    The Reading First program has led to dramatic gains among pupils in high-poverty school systems. Why does Rep. David Obey want to cut it back?
    by Chris Braunlich

    Nasty, Brutish and Short
    The life of the pit bull is marked by violent struggle and death. The only creatures more bloodthirsty — a long line of them, since the time of the Romans — are the humans who fight dogs for sport.
    by Norman Leahy

    Castles of Sand
    America’s love of sea and sand is leading to rapid over-development of the East Coast barrier islands. Mother Nature is fighting back.
    by Norman Leahy

    HOT Commodity
    HOT lanes on Interstate 95 could make way for public-private partnerships and congestion pricing across Virginia. But questions about the project linger, and public support is fragile.
    by Lyle Solla-Yates

    Berkeley the Butcher
    Gov. William Berkeley, suppresser of Bacon’s Rebellion, instituted race-based slavery in Virginia and organized the Cherokee raids that enslaved thousands of Native Americans.
    by Richard L. Thornton

    Nice & Curious Questions
    School Days Governing the Academy in Virginia
    by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

  • Enjoy Labor Day… Then Get the Hell Back to Work!

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    James A. Bacon

    Labor productivity is one of the key determinants of material prosperity in any society. On this Labor Day, Americans can take some satisfaction in the fact that they have the most productive workforce in the world, according to the U.N. International Labour Organisation.

    According to the U.N. report, “Key Indicators of the Labor Market,” the United States recorded the world’s highest labour productivity levels in 2006, measured as value added per person employed per year, at $63,885. The U.S. was followed, “at a considerable distance,” the report notes, by Ireland $55,986 and Luxembourg at $55,641. How about that — Ireland and Luxembourg as No. 2 and 3. Somebody take a look at what those two countries are doing right!

    The productivity gap between the U.S. and most other advanced industrial countries continued to widen in 2006, the report stated. Spunky little Ireland, the world success story for rapid productivity growth, was an exception. Productivity growth was stellar in fast-developing East Asian economies as well.

    Americans owe some of their high productivity to a willingness to work longer hours than most other nationalities in the developed world. However, judged on value added per hour of work, Norway led the way ($37.99). The United States ($35.63) came in second, followed by France ($35.08). Moral of the story: It pays to work hard. But it also pays to work smart.

  • Another Milestone in Virginia’s Evolving Self Image

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    James A. Bacon

    There once was a time when Virginia celebrated heroes of the Civil War like Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and JEB Stuart. Virginia has, by and large, moved beyond its nostalgia for the Lost Cause, rightfully honoring heroes of the American Revolution, such as Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, and the Civil Rights era, such as the recently deceased Olive W. Hill.

    Now, it appears, the Old Dominion may be transitioning to a new era, honoring a far more controversial figure, as evidenced by the little-noted action of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine informally pardoning Gabriel Prosser.

    Who, you may ask, is (or was) Gabriel Prosser? He was the leader of an aborted slave rebellion who was hanged, along with 34 other slaves, in 1800. “Gabriel’s Rebellion” is well known to students of African-American resistance to the institution of chattel slavery. The 25-year-old slave, inspired by Biblical stories of the Jews’ flight from slavery in Egypt and the teachings of the American Revolution, organized an uprising by thousands of slaves. His plan: to massacre all whites (excepting Methodists, Quakers and Frenchmen) and to install himself as king of a new nation.

    The plot was revealed at the last moment, and the congregation of rebels outside Richmond was disrupted by a torrential downpour of rain. Prosser delayed the attack until the next day, but by then the whites, alerted to the threat, were well organized to suppress the rebellion. Prosser fled to Norfolk, where he was betrayed by his fellow slaves, brought back to Richmond and hung.

    In restoring Prosser’s “good name,” Kaine noted that he was motivated by the rebel’s “devotion to the ideals of the American revolution.” Said Kaine: “It was worth risking death to secure liberty. … History favorably regards Gabriel’s cause while consigning legions who sought to keep him and others in chains to be forgotten.”

    Kaine’s pardoning of Prosser fellows a similar pardon last year in clearing the name of accused 18th century witch Grace Sherwood, of Virginia Beach, reports Jeff Schapiro in the Times-Dispatch. (Sorry, folks, I’d like to the story but I can’t find it in the T-D archives.)

  • Who Should Be Held Accountable for the Virginia Tech Tragedy? Try Seung-Hui Cho

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    In the aftermath of the official state report dissecting the Virginia Tech massacre, bereaved parents of killing victims are calling for the resignation of Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger. I can fully understand Gwaltney’s grief and desire for accountability. But there was one person — and one person only — who bears responsibility for the events of April 16, and that is Seung-Hui Cho.

    The state report presented no evidence that anyone at Virginia Tech, or anywhere else, acted with incompetence or negligence. The report presented no evidence that Virginia Tech had failed to put into place safeguards that were commonly accepted at other universities. Although the report said Virginia Tech officials conceivably could have saved lives if they had acted differently (with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight), it is clearer than ever that the failure, like that of 9/11, was the incapacity of an entire system to contemplate and prepare for the inconceivable.

    Virginia and the United States now have been forewarned. The failures of the system, especially of the mental health system, and devilish trade-offs involving the privacy of mental health patients, have been dissected and laid bare. If lawmakers fail to respond effectively, the bereaved parents will have someone to hold accountable. Fortunately, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine appears to be approaching the tragedy with a sober and thoughtful attitude. I, for one, am confident that appropriate measures will be taken.

  • More on the Loudoun Prosecutor Leak

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    The NV Daily’s Garren Shipley has the full story this morning on allegations that Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Plowman was leaking grand jury information about Senate candidate Mark Tate to the press:

    Charlie Jackson, a former reporter for Leesburg Today, wrote that Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Plowman not only leaked information to him about the investigation into Tate’s faulty campaign finance records, but also pushed to have other negative material about the candidate published.

    Tate’s lawyers want Plowman to answer questions about the conversations under oath, and have asked a court for permission to subpoena him.

    Tate, a Loudoun County resident, challenged fellow Republican Jill Holtzman Vogel for the GOP nod in the November state Senate election. Sen. H. Russell Potts, Jr., R-Winchester, is not seeking re-election.

    There could be a lot more to this story. Based upon the rumors and stories I’ve heard, there are many more people who have a great deal to answer for in this case. If even half of it is true, Plowman is just the tip of the ugly iceberg.

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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