Bacon's Rebellion

According to a recent Gallup poll analysis, as reported by the Washington Times, the South contains eight of the 10 most church-going states in the nation. Virginia, it appears, is not among them.

Nationally, 42 percent of those polled say they attend church at least once a week. Here’s the breakdown for the Top 10:

58 percent — Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina
57 percent — Mississippi
55 percent — Arkansas and Utah
53 percent– North Carolina and Nebraska
52 percent — Tennessee and Georgia

At 44 percent, Virginia was the lowest-ranking state in the South, and only a hair above the national average. Seems like everyone around me in Richmond goes to church (or synagogue). All those heathen in Northern Virginia must be dragging the numbers down!

For awhile now, this blog has explored the state of mainstream media business models, particularly the impact of technological advances and the decentralization of news-gathering and op-ed functions to alternative media modes such as blogging. In particular, there has been debate about the effect of shifting media market dynamics on the coverage of local issues. Though normally concerned with the national and large regional outlets, this issue is one that also involves smaller papers that serve local markets. Case in point: Just two months removed from its shift from twice-monthly to weekly publication, the Chesterfield Observer is announcing that access to the online addition will no longer be free to readers.

One of two weekly newspapers covering Richmond’s largest suburb, the free print news outlet, which reports a delivery base of over 35,000 and distribution of 47,000 copies through other means, will now charge $24.95 per year for access its current content. However, according to the paper, “there will be no charge to read the newspaper’s previous issues or search its archives.” In a few weeks, online readers will face the prospect of paying what amounts to around 50 cents per issue to gain immediate access to content. The publisher acknowledges that this will not please some saying, “We realize some online readers will be disappointed to find they have to pay for the latest week’s stories. We think this method is fair both to our online readers and to the advertisers in the print edition that support this community service. And, overall, it’s a much more useful website to our county now.”

How this situation plays out could shed light on the future of newsgathering and reporting by such community-based media outlets. For example, Chesterfield’s other weekly newspaper, The Village News, provides its print and online versions free of charge, including full access to its archives. Its circulation is around 10,000, and it is distributed to over 200 local business locations. It takes a different editorial-page bent than the Observer, focuses primarily on the eastern end of the county (whereas the Observer leans toward the western end), and provides links to other sources outlets such as blogs (including this one). Together the two papers roughly reach between 15-30% of Chesterfield’s 300,000 residents via distribution, and both claim to have steadily increasing print readership numbers, contrary to the trend with national papers. Both serve as alternative information and opinion sources to the venerable Richmond Times-Dispatch for Chesterfield residents.

With the steady growth in the local population, and the growing demand for news content, it remains to be seen if either paper’s business model (free print/free online vs. free print/paid online) is sustainable over the long term. We all know that generally, times are tough for the newspaper industry nationwide, particularly large daily papers and some larger regional ones. Smaller-circulation, community-focused papers represent quite a different operating paradigm than larger regional entities with whom they share markets.

Will changing consumer tastes, demographic shifts, technologies and cost factors represent increased opportunities for community-based papers, or will they wade through the same troubled waters as their larger brethren as they struggle to adapt their business models? Is there a role for blogs in this equation as either collaborators or competitors with these weekly outlets?

It looks like the state Senate is backing down in its confrontation with the House of Delegates over taxes and transportation. From today’s report from the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Hoping to jump-start budget talks, the Virginia Senate could be poised to eliminate a major roadblock to new funding for transportation. Senators last night were discussing isolating new taxes for roads and transit from their version of the proposed two-year, $74 billion budget.

Just one comment on the reporting… sorry, I can’t resist. Jeff Schapiro and Michael Hardy also made the following statement: “The Senate proposal would represent a retreat by the chamber as well as an overture to a seemingly intransigent House.”

A “seemingly intransigent House?” Did Schapiro and Hardy refer to a “seemingly intransigent Senate” when the House caved on taxes back in 2004? As I recall — and I’ll be happy to stand corrected — the House was being characterized as intransigent back then, too!

You wouldn’t know it from the myopic punditry regarding the transportation debate in Virginia, but a revolution in transportation financing is sweeping the world. According to Kenneth Orski, editor/publisher of Innovation Briefs, tolls and privatization represent the future of highway construction funding.

Quasi-socialist Europe is way ahead of the United States. Writes Orski in his May/June issue:

In Europe, virtually all major toll road authorities have been privatized. Italy’s state-owned toll authority, Autostrade SpA, was sold to private investors in the late 1990s (and will soon be merged with Spain’s Abertis, creating a vast 6,700 km (4,200 mile) network of private toll roads throughout Western Europe). In France, the three largest toll enterprises in which the government had retained controlling interest, Autoroutes Paris-Rhin-Rhone (APRR); Societé du Nord et de l’Est de la France… ; and Autoroutes du Sud de la France… were put up for sale in late 2005; their privatization is currently in process of being completed. By the end of the year, 8,175 km (5,109 miles) of France’s toll roads will be in private hands, according to the French toll road association, AFSA. In Spain and Portugal, all major toll roads are likewise in private hands.

As far as I know, House Speaker William J. Howell R-Stafford, is the only elected official to be actively pushing privatization. So far, the idea has been a non-starter in Virginia. No question, a number of prickly accountability and governance issues need to be addressed. But as other nations gain experience with privatization, Virginia could learn from them. Meanwhile, Orski cites these practical benefits of privatized roads:

Private sector involvement may also benefit the public interest in other ways. Private toll road operators are likely to bring a higher standard of customer service, achieve more timely and cost-effective completion of planned improvements and introduce a higher rate of innovation into their operations. They offer access to private equity capital which can speed up project delivery by many years. And they can raise toll rates to control demand or fund needed improvements without being influenced by fear of a negative political reaction (although they will be constrained by the terms of the toll rate-setting schedule in their concession agreement).

The proper role of the state is to oversee the transportation system: to ensure that roads and rail facilities are being built and maintained to proper service and safety standards, to ensure that all pieces of the system fit seamlessly together, and to match transportation capacity with human settlement patterns. There is no compelling reason, other than inertia, for the state to be in the business of operating the system.

I’m a bit late with this, but better late than never. Sen. Walter Stosch, R-Henrico, has sent out an e-mail under the banner of the Virginia Senate Republican Leadership Trust, on the subject of Tax Freedom Day. In Virginia, the day that we symbolically stop working to pay taxes to government and start working for ourselves is April 26.

Stosch used the occasion to celebrate the Old Dominion’s status as a “low tax” state. “Virginia state government and local governments collectively impose one of the lowest state and local tax burdens on their residents. Only eight states can match us. … We are all entitled to our own opinions but we are not entitled to our own facts. And the plain fact remains that the state and local tax burden born by Virginians is among the lightest in the nation.”

The Republican Majority Leader continued: “Since I have been in the Virginia Senate, we have enacted over 50 tax cuts, deductions and credits covering a host of activities. They now total over $1.5 billion in taxes Virginians would otherwise be paying each year.”

Interestingly, there was one set of facts that Stosch omitted from his e-mail: his support for the $700 million-per-year tax increase in 2004 and another $1 billion in tax increases this year. If the Senator wants to pose as a champion of government efficiency and fiscal integrity, that’s fine. But posturing as a tax cutter? Puh-lease.

Roanoker Bob Egbert has a longer commute than most: The 56-year-old Navy veteran gets started at 6 a.m. every day. But the trip has its compensations: He’s never stuck in traffic, never spends a dime on gas, and stays in fantastic condition. He walks to work — a nine-mile trip every day.

As Roanoke Times writer John Cramer notes:

Egbert … is among a growing legion of Americans who walk or bicycle to work to fight pollution, improve their health and save money. It’s part of a nationwide movement away from sprawl and toward more pedestrian-friendly communities, according to Complete the Streets, a nonprofit coalition that promotes bicycle-friendly and walkable neighborhoods.

In recent years, Roanoke has started creating bicycle paths, greenways and traffic-calming measures. Recent opinion polls found that 52 percent of Americans want to bicycle more and 55 percent would prefer to drive less and walk more, according to the National Center for Bicycling and Walking.

Egbert, a member of the Sierra Club who predicts an “oil storm” within the next decade, says he is rebelling against America’s “car culture.”

As part of an ongoing effort “to build a more inclusive and welcoming campus climate,” Virginia Tech will spend $337,000 to renovate and expand its Multicultural Center this summer. Next year, the Office of Multicultural Programs and Services will host “Dialogues Around Difference,” a series of workshops focusing on “student success strategies, cultural consciousness, and community collaboration.”

Said Zenobia Hikes, vice president for student affairs: “This project will strengthen and enhance the cultural competencies of the Virginia Tech community while creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for all students. It will support a rich campus climate that contributes to a civil and just community for all Virginia Tech members.” (See press release.)

Does it occur to anyone that the more people talk about their differences, the more they will end up accentuating those differences? Does anyone else worry that Virginia Tech is drifting towards a University of Virginia-style system in which minority students self-segregate by race under the guise of multiculturalism? Is there anyone else out there who thinks that the best way for people to overcome racial and ethnic stereotyping is to interact with one another as individuals in everyday circumstances, not guided in groups by ideologically driven facilitators?

Well, gasoline in Richmond has has hit $3.00 a gallon, or just shy of it, and I spent $48 filling up the gas tank of my Jeep — the most I’ve ever paid for in my life. I’m not happy about it, but I don’t see high gas prices as a reason to start foaming at the mouth and chewing on the carpet. Others feel less constrained.

The hysteria over rising gas prices has reached a fever pitch. The economic ignorance of the sound bites and commentary I’ve seen on national television knows no bounds. Demagogues are calling for self-destructive taxes on oil company profits, oblivious to the reality that, in a capitalist society, profits are a critical signal that guide the flow of capital. (1) If you confiscate Exxon Mobil’s profits, you reduce the capital available to the world’s largest oil company to invest in more exploratory drilling, new oil wells, new pipelines, new refineries, etc. (2) If you tax oil industry profits, you also reduce the incentive for owners of outside capital to invest in new capacity. Why bother if the profits will be taxed away?

Here in Virginia, a semblance of sanity still reigns. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has not yet proposed anything as breath-takingly stupid as the proposals emanating from Washington, D.C. The Governor has said he will investigate reports of “price gouging,” which, given the fact that the the concept of “price gouging” is meaningless and impossible to define, means he will, for all practical purposes, do nothing…. Which is exactly what he should do. Nothing. Virginians and Americans will adapt to higher gas prices if government does not interfere.

(The Governor also is considering applying for a waiver of federal regulations requiring cleaner gasoline be sold in Virginia’s major metro areas, but has not yet made a determination. See the Times-Dispatch report. Unfortunately, he’s sticking to his guns on trying to raise $1 billion for transportation projects without raising gasoline taxes — a topic for another post.)

As I have been hammering away relentlessly on this blog (See “A World with One Billion Cars“), the world economy is moving from a 20-year era of cheap petroleum to a plateau of more expensive petroleum. This shift is driven by the combination of (a) escalating world consumption of petroleum, especially in rapidly developing economies like China and India, and (b) the peaking of global oil production capacity, the increasing expense of exploiting the remote and isolated oil reserves that remain, and terrorist/political instability in oil-producing countries. This is not the oil companies’ fault. This is not Dick Cheney’s fault. This is not the auto industries’ fault. It is not the environmentalists’ fault. It’s the reality of geology and geopolitics.

The American public can adapt to the new global realities by changing their energy-intensive lifestyles, and politicians can help them by speaking honestly and forthrightly about why the price of gasoline is increasing, instead of demagoguing the issue for short-term political gain.

Here in Virginia, the General Assembly has been examining what Virginia can do to increase energy production. That is OK, as far as it goes. But there is nothing that Virginia can do to increase the global supply of oil, and probably little it can do to increase the petroleum refining capacity needed to convert oil to gasoline. What the political and business leadership of Virginia has so far failed utterly to do is admit that Virginia is acutely vulnerable to oil price shocks. Virginians consume more gasoline per capita than the national average, in part because our transportation policy is geared toward matching every increase in automobile travel with an increase in transportation capacity with no thought of modulating travel demand.

But reality is a stubborn thing. With each increase in the price of gasoline, the bankruptcy of the old order becomes increasingly evident. Let us hope that Gov. Kaine, who prides himself on straight talk, begins leveling with the people of Virginia.

John Yellig with the Charlottesville Daily Progress describes the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) center in Hoo-ville, which times the traffic lights on three major corridors: West Main Street, Emmet Street and Preston Avenue.

Motorists can now drive from Jefferson Park Avenue to Ridge Street on West Main without stopping for a light, and maximum travel times on that stretch have been cut from 15 minutes to 3 minutes, 18 seconds, he said.

“So often we get stuck thinking what road we’re going to build next or what $20 million project we’re going to build,” said City Councilor Kevin Lynch, a supporter of the project. “It’s something that I think is positive news … that things are going to get better.”

The project has cost about $850,000 so far. The estimated
build-out cost stands at around $2 million, Randall said.

If Virginia rated transportation projects on a Return on Investment basis — travel times improved per dollar spent — I suspect that traffic light synchronization projects like Charlottesville’s would out-perform most road construction projects by a wide margin. Why doesn’t the General Assembly insist upon putting ITS on an equal footing with expensive road and transit projects? Beats the heck out of me.

Alec MacGillis with the Washington Post describes the daily trek of Shenandoah Valley residents to jobs in Fairfax County: gathering in the park-and-ride at 3:50 a.m. and piling into vans for a 77-mile trip. Writes MacGillis:

It has come to this in the Washington region, where an imbalance of housing and jobs produces commutes that stagger the imagination and confound the biological clock: Every weekday, seven vans set off from Luray and six other far-flung locations with 55 passengers bound for a single workplace: the physical plant shop at George Mason University in Fairfax. The college looks so far afield for carpenters and electricians that it has started letting workers use campus vans for the commute. …

George Mason’s predawn van pools may seem like just another example of the extreme commutes in a region where roads are illuminated with brake lights well before sunbeams, but they challenge the assumptions behind the trend. The conventional explanation is that people are moving farther out for tranquility and more affordable homes and paying for them with a long commute.

The Luray riders serve as a reminder that there is another dynamic. They are not exurban wanderers but people with lives deeply rooted in towns far away who would have nothing to do with the Washington area if not for this: It’s the only place they can find work.

The Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia has approved a 9.3 percent increase in tuition and fees for the 2006-2007 academic year to $7,845. That’s an increase of $665. If it’s any consolation, the Board is sticking it even harder to out-of-state students, raising tuition and fees by $1,845 to $25,945.

Chief among the priorities to be funded are competitive salaries for faculty and staff, deferred maintenance on Grounds, core investments in academic activities, and Access UVa, the University’s financial aid program. More.

I’ve been following the War on Terror pretty closely ever since 9/11, and it is only by perusing the Counter Terrorism Blog that I realized that a gang of jihadists operated in Virginia. Articles have been written in national media about the “Virginia Jihad Gang”, though never given much prominence. Virginia media have either buried the stories or ignored them altogether. This dates from an April 9, 2004, Associated Press article:

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Two American Muslims were sentenced Friday to 20 and 15 years in prison, respectively, for their roles in support of a Virginia-based conspiracy to engage in holy war against nations deemed hostile to Islam, including the United States.

The two men, Randall Todd Royer, 31, and Ibrahim al-Hamdi, 26, were among nine men who either pleaded guilty or were convicted of charges related to their participation in what prosecutors called a “Virginia jihad network.” Two others who faced charges were acquitted on all counts.

The group used paintball games played in the woods near Fredericksburg in 2000 and 2001 as military training in preparation for holy war around the globe. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, some of the members turned their focus against the United States, traveling to Pakistan in the days after the attacks with the goal of joining the Taliban and fighting U.S. troops.

And this from the Sept. 14, 2005, Washington Post, buried on page B-4:

Federal prosecutors in Alexandria unveiled terrorism charges against a Maryland man yesterday, alleging that Ali Asad Chandia helped a foreign terrorist group acquire an electronic autopilot system and video equipment for use on model airplanes.

Chandia, 28, of College Park, is also accused of shipping 50,000 paint balls to the group, Lashkar-i-Taiba, which the U.S. government has designated as a terrorist organization. The group runs terrorist camps in Pakistan and claims to have trained thousands of Islamic “holy warrior” mujahideen to fight in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo and the Philippines.

The charges against Chandia, a legal permanent resident who emigrated from Pakistan in 1994, are an outgrowth of the “Virginia jihad network” case, in which nine Muslim men have been convicted over the past two years of training overseas for holy war against the United States.

Let’s see, Virginia and Maryland have a home-grown network supporting jihadist training camps abroad… Members of this network have conducted paramilitary training in the woods around Fredericksburg in preparation for holy war… and no one is friggin’ curious? HOLY, FRIGGIN’ MOLY! Is there not a really, really big story here?

Some might say, get over it, Bacon, this is yesterday’s news. But I would like to know: Who were these jihadists? How did they get here? What is the reaction of Virginia’s Muslim community? Were they isolated individuals, or were they embedded in a larger culture — like the subway bombers in London — that is hostile to the West? Did they attend mosques? Do Virginia mosques have radical imams spewing anti-Western invective? Surely it is a sign of utter complacency in our society that this story has not attracted more attention.

In a 21 April 2006 posting, Jim Bacon reports on Gov. Kaine’s commitment to “conserve” 400,000 additional acres of land in the Commonwealth by 2010. He added a note on the topic today as well. Both were right on. There is however a larger issue:

Let us be clear:

If citizens could be assured that:

The 400,000 acres of land will be used in the future only for agriculture & forestry / air & water recharge / hunting &gathering / passive recreation and other extensive land uses; and,

It was certain that those 400,000 acres will be not be developed for intensive urban land uses; then,

The conservation of 400,000 acres could be an economic, social and physical benefit to the land owners and to the public in general; but only if,

All 400,000 acres of conserved land are IN THE RIGHT LOCATIONS.

Just as clear that if the 400,000 acres are IN THE WRONG LOCATIONS they will have the opposite result:.

Preserved / conserved acres can raise the speculative value of adjacent land for urban use (“no one can build next to your five acre lot”), cause urban development to leapfrog to unprotected land in even more dysfunctional locations, waste the public investment that has already been made to serve urban land uses on the newly “conserved” land. The list goes on.

Underlying the “location” problem is the fact that there are no region-wide – much less a Commonwealth-wide – strategies or plans to provide a context for conservation actions of 40,000, 400,000 or 4,000,000 acres.

A survey of past actions document that many of the “conservation” efforts – especially high-profile “rescues” by municipal and state action – are IN THE WRONG LOCATIONS.

A compounding problem is that just the announcement of a 400,000 acre goal generates a false impression that something really meaningful is being done to rationalize human settlement patterns.

An even greater problem is that 400,000 acres is an inconsequential percentage (1.6% of 25,000,000 acres) of the land area of the Commonwealth. The maximum land area needed (minimum functional urban intensity at the Alpha Community scale) for the daily activities of 95% of the citizens (the urban residents) of the commonwealth is around 700,000 acres.

Between twice and three times that amount of land is already committed to urban activities.

Worse, vastly more land is speculatively held for future urban land uses by those that advocate scattering urban land uses outside Clear Edges. For a discussion of Clear Edges see: “Beyond the Clear Edge,”26 May 2003 at https://www.baconsrebellion.com/ and the three part special report starting with “Wild Abandonment, 8 September 2003 at the same site. (Just enter the title in the search window on the home page.)

If someone has documented a different minimum density for functional settlement patterns at the Alpha Community scale, let us know. The formulas to determine minimum functional human settlement patterns are summarized in Chapter 4 Box 5 in The Shape of the Future. They are based on the human settlement patterns generated by the market over the past 50 years. The desired patterns and densities of land use for private-vehicle and shared-vehicle access are the ones for which citizens are willing to pay a premium on the basis of both acreage and square foot of built space.

An optimistic estimate is that there may be 10,000,000 acres of land already “conserved” or completely unsuitable for urban land uses. (Total unsuitability for urban land uses is not slowing down the pace of land subdivision for second home / retirement home / the hobby farm / “off the grid” and other forms of urban development.

Even if 10,000,000 acres are now conserved, that means the Commonwealth needs to “conserve” 1,000,000 acres of land a year, every year, for the next 14 years for functional human settlement patterns to emerge over the next two decades. That is just 10 times the pace of the Governor’s 400,000 acres in four years.

Spending the next 20 years to evolve functional settlement patterns may not be rapid enough given the rising cost of settlement pattern dysfunction. The impact of location-variable costs of goods and services is sapping individual, family, enterprise and agency resources. Settlement pattern dysfunction is best illustrated in the lack of access and mobility and the lack of affordable and accessible housing.

The 400,000 Acre Foolishness illustrates the systemic problem with land conservation efforts, as well intended as such efforts may be. They have not yet addressed:

1) The scale of the problem

2) The reality that there is already far more land committed to urban land use than will be needed in the foreseeable future

3) Fair and equitable ways to transition to functional human settlement patterns

We will be examine these issues in a forthcoming report on the Use and Management of Land.

These issues will also be a focus of PROPERTY DYNAMICS, coming to an Alpha Neighborhood near you soon.

EMR

If Gov. Kaine chooses to flip flop on his promise NOT to do a Confederate History Proclamation, here is some grist for his speech writers.

The quotes below come from my current read, “History of the English-Speaking Peoples” by Sir Winston Churchill – one of the greatest men of the recently past century.

The North, it was said, was enriching itself at the expense of the South. The Yankees were jealous of a style and distinction to which vulgar commercialism could never attain. They had no right to use the Federal Constitution which the great Virginians Washington and Madison had largely founded, in order to bind the most famous states to their dictates. They maligned and insulted a civilization more elevated in manners, if not worldly wealth, than their own. They sought to impose the tyranny of their ideas upon states which had freely joined the Union for common purposes, and might as freely depart when those purposes had been fulfilled.

Upon Lincoln’s call to arms to coerce the seceding states Virginia made without hesitation the choice which she was so heroically to sustain. She would not fight on the issue of slavery, but stood firm on the constitutional ground that every state in the Union enjoyed sovereign rights. On this principle Virginians denied the claim of the Federal Government to exercise coercion.

This decided the conduct of one of the noblest Americans who ever lived, and one of the greatest captains known to the annals of war. Robert E. Lee

Most of slaves, who might have been expected to prove an embarrassment to the South, on the contrary provided a solid help, tending the plantations in the absence of their masters, raising the crops which fed the armies, working on roads, building fortifications, thus releasing a large number of whites for service in the field.

The Army of Northern Virginia “carried the Confederacy on its bayonets” and made a struggle unsurpassed in history.

On the death of Virginian Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson: His loss was a mortal blow to Lee and the cause of the South.

On the charge of Pickett’s Virginians at Gettysburg: General L.A. Armistead with a few hundred men actually entered the Union centre, and the spot where he died with his hand on captured cannon is today revered by the manhood of the United States.

Lincoln had entered Richmond with Grant, and on his return to Washington learned of Lee’s surrender. Conqueror and master, he towered above all others, and four years of assured power seemed to lie before him. By his consistency under many varied strains and amid problems to which his training gave him no key he had saved the Union with steel and flame. His thoughts were bent on healing his country’s wounds. For this he possessed all the qualities of spirit and wisdom, and wielded besides incomparable authority. To those who spoke of hanging Jefferson Davis he replied, “Judge not that ye be not judged.” On April 11 he proclaimed the need of a broad and generous temper and urged the conciliation of the vanquished.

Democracy in action isn’t always pretty, folks. The Associated Press has this article about how the mayor of the Town of Appalachia, a town councilman and 12 others were indicted in an investigation of voter fraud. Said the AP:

The 269-count indictment by a Wise County grand jury alleges a conspiracy to rig the 2004 election and elect a slate of three candidates to the five-member council. Once in office, the indictment alleges, they helped appoint a head of the police department that engaged in drug trafficking and took money and personal possessions from residents.

The currency of corruption? Alcohol, cigarettes and, yes, even pork rinds.