Bacon's Rebellion

  • Motherโ€™s Day in Virginia

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Doughertyย 

    It all began in 2020. Our annual Motherโ€™s Day escape.

    Four years ago Ralph Northamโ€™s reign of Covid despotism was underway and we were desperate to shake off the suffocating restrictions he imposed on a weekly basis. (The governorโ€™s Thursday press conferences were a source of stress and dread for many of us.)

    Confident that rural Virginians were as skeptical as we were of masks, social distancing and not gathering in groups larger than 10, our family snuck out of town, rented an Airbnb in Meadows of Dan, and celebrated Motherโ€™s Day. Pre-pandemic style.

    For four glorious days that first year, when the pandemic was in its infancy and the lunacy was cranking up, we were able to forget that society at large was losing its collective mind.

    Thus began our annual Motherโ€™s Day weekend trip to explore Virginia with those near and dear.

    In 2021 we went to Onancock. Next year it was a river house in Gloucester. After that, a creek-side place in Madison.

    This year we found ourselves in a sprawling log cabin on Lake Anna. Big enough for 11 of us – plus three dogs.

    (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    by

    James A. Bacon

  • The Crying Game

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    After President Jim Ryan ordered a breakup of their liberation zone for Gaza a week ago in what one might call a “mostly peaceful” police action, encampment veterans are posturing as victims of “brutal” fascist state “violence” and “trauma.”

    “I got brutalized by the police at a UNESCO World Heritage site,” reads one meme making the rounds.

    “Welcome to the University of Virginia, where we encourage free speech and expression unless youโ€™re protesting genocide, where we brutalize our students and mace our community members,” says an UVA Encampment for Gaza post on Instagram.

    “I just want to acknowledge the trauma that I believe some of them [the protesters] felt in all this,” said a health-care provider participating in a two-hour “Honest Town Hall” organized by faculty members in response to Ryan’s earlier “town hall” presentation.

    A student speaking at the counter-town hall spoke of “layers of violence” at UVA stretching back to the displacement of the native peoples and days of slavery. “The University is unique in the kind of violence that it has … endorsed and propagated.”

    “Every time I go to Grounds,” the student continued, “I actually am physically ill when I’m near the Range. I feel like I’m surrounded by the ghosts of slaves … and also the recollection of seeing police brutalize my friends.”

    Time out, snowflakes! Are you ready for some hard truth? You don’t have the faintest idea of what it’s like to be brutalized or to experience trauma. You belong to the most coddled, privileged, self-indulgent generation in the history of mankind. Most of you wouldn’t know hardship or adversity, much less brutality or trauma, if it smacked you over the head… with a foam pool noodle. (more…)

  • So Much for Empathetic Listening

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon



    by James A. Bacon

    Militant students and faculty at the University of Virginia — and elsewhere — often talk about having “hard conversations” about the tragic realities in Gaza. To see what those “conversations” sound like, click on the video above.

    It was hard alright — hard for President Jim Ryan. The students had no interest in confronting any discomfiting truths themselves.

    The Daily Progress has the back story.

    Ryan had an appointment on his calendar for more than a month with UVA Apartheid Divest, a coalition of 43 student groups demanding that UVA divest endowment assets from any company doing business with Israel. He entered Pavilion VI on the Lawn, accompanied by Chief Student Affairs Officer Kenyon Bonner and Dean of Students Cedric Rucker, expecting the meeting he had agreed to. But the students had other ideas.

    โ€œPresident Ryan, your students are waiting for you outside,โ€ they said. They stepped out of the room and onto the Lawn where 30 classmates had gathered. Many had red paint on their hands, symbolizing blood. (more…)

  • No Need to Call the Budget Bluff

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    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Governor Youngkin and General Assembly leaders have reached a deal on the budget for the next biennium. Based on press reports, it is difficult to say who won this battle. Thatโ€™s the hallmark of a compromise.

    The process started off in December with the governor saying the state had more than enough money to fund its needs and, thus, he proposed an overall cut in tax revenue. The legislature responded by saying, โ€œOh, no. There are a lot of unmet needs. We need all the extra revenue that is available and more on top of that.โ€ Therefore, they proposed a tax increase. The governor responded with a bushel of proposed amendments that would have undone much of what the legislature had proposed. The Democratic majorities in both chambers rejected those amendments. Both sides agreed to adjourn and negotiate.

    In the meantime, the Virginia economy was perking along and producing even more tax revenue than projected. Now the Democrats have the money they need to fund their priorities without raising taxes. The compromise proposal provides healthy raises for state employees and teachers, more funding for K-12, more money for higher ed so as to discourage tuition increases, money for Metro in Northern Virginia and for toll relief in Hampton Roads, and lots more money for mental health services. The result is that the Governor does not get his proposed tax decrease and the Democrats do not get their proposed tax increase but do have enough proposed funding to pay for their highest priorities. In a way, the Democrats seem the winners, but the governor has not objected to the uses of the additional money. In fact, his proposed budget included additional money in all these areas, just not as much as the Democrats wanted.

    So far, there has been no mention in the press whether all this additional available revenue will be sustainable in the future. In budget terms, is the proposed budget โ€œstructurally balancedโ€™? Is there a lot of one-time revenue included that will not be available for future biennia? Some of the staff at the Department of Planning and Budget and the staffs of the money committees, as well as some of the General Assembly leaders, have a good idea as to the answer to this question, but they will not be talking about it. (more…)

  • FUCK UVA Redux: The Revolution Consumes Its Own

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Militant students and faculty held an online gripe session today skewering President Jim Ryan and Provost Ian Baucom, and their rhetoric — including calls for Ryan’s resignation — is more heated than ever. While I support the actions Ryan and Baucom took to shut down the UVA Encampment for Gaza, where protesters were flouting university regulations and spoiling for a confrontation, I have to say that the failure of University leadership to consistently enforce its rules makes it partially to blame for the mess.

    For example, Team Ryan has long tolerated political messaging on Lawn room doors in violation of occupants’ lease terms. We’ve been through this drill before. The infamous “Fuck UVA” sign in 2020 was a trigger for furious alumni to organize and create The Jefferson Council. Ryan allowed the sign to remain on the grounds that taking it down would violate the student’s free speech. But he promised to enforce new lease rules, which limited signage to a small bulletin board on the doors, in the future. Enforcement faltered, and the signs blossomed. Now, just in time for graduation ceremonies, a new “Fuck UVA sign” (shown above) has been taped to a Lawn door.

    Ryan defends his action shutting down the pro-Palestinian tent compound last Saturday on the Grounds, maintaining that there are limits to free speech based on “time, place and manner.” I agree. He did the right thing. But why should campus militants have taken him seriously? Lawn room residents had been flouting the rules for months — as Tthe Jefferson Council has repeatedly documented. (more…)

  • Has the Rural Brain Drain Ended?

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    During the first year of the COVID-19 epidemic, decades of migration out of rural counties nationally sharply reversed. But migration into rural counties has persisted even as the epidemic has receded.

    by James A. Bacon

    Remote work isn’t the only trend encouraging Americans to relocate from major metropolitan areas to small towns and rural communities, suggests Hamilton Lombard in a new StatChat post. The rise of social media has allowed smaller communities to emulate the entertainment and culinary offerings of big cities, while the rise of Amazon.com puts even remote communities within one-day delivery of the world’s largest marketplace of retail products.

    The lower cost of real estate has always favored rural/small town America, but that advantage has been more than offset by the “agglomeration” effects of big metros with larger, deeper labor markets and clusters of industry expertise. New technologies are tilting the balance back toward smaller communities. Even as professionals and free-lancers find it easier to make a living in remote areas and smaller metros, Lombard observes, they enjoy access to a greater range of amenities than ever before.

    There’s another factor that Lombard omits, no doubt because of its intrinsically political nature — he is scrupulously apolitical in his analysis — and that is the growing unease at signs of social breakdown. Decriminalization of minor crimes. Disorder in schools. Protests on college campuses. Homelessness and tent cities. A sense that things are spinning out of control and that urban elites are either blind to it or are part of the problem.

    Whatever the reasons for the migratory shift, the data leave no room for doubt that it is occurring. (more…)

  • UVA Soft on Nazis but Brutal to Students?

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    White supremacists carry tiki torches in 2017 march through Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village. Photo credit: Salon.com.

    by James A. Bacon

    A continuing meme in the ongoing rhetorical battle between leftists and anarchists on the one hand and the Ryan administration on the other is that University of Virginia authorities brutally cracked down on peaceful protesters May 4 while allowing White supremacists to march through UVA unmolested in 2017.

    For example, the Virginia Student Power Network posted the following on its Instagram account three days ago:

    #Charlottesvilleย students who stood up to torch-bearing Nazis in 2017 affirm their solidarity with the UVA encampment for Gaza, which is currently being threatened by dozens of cops in riot gear – the same police agencies that were fully aware of + allowed 300+ white supremacists with torches and guns on UVAโ€™s campus.

    UVA President Jim Ryan took the meme seriously enough that he addressed it during the virtual “town hall” meeting yesterday in defense of his decision to shut down the UVA Encampment for Gaza protest. (more…)

  • Spying in Salem

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Scott Dreyer

    On March 9, 2010, in the heated struggle to approve the controversial โ€œObamacareโ€ legislation (aka โ€œAffordable Care Actโ€), then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) made national headlines when she tried to support the bill and remarked, โ€œBut we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in itโ€ฆ.โ€

    Pelosiโ€™s line comes to mind regarding the roiling debate in Salem about proposed surveillance cameras that may (or may not) be installed at some yet-unclarified locations around town.

    The Roanoke Starย reached out toย Salem Mayor Renรฉe Turk,ย Vice Mayor Jim Wallace, andย City Manager Christopher Dorsey, who began his position on January 8, 2024.

    The questions were as follows:

    • Do you have any statement about the issue of city-funded surveillance cameras, and your personal perspective on it?
    • Do you know about how many cameras there will be, and how much it will cost to install and operate them?
    • Who will have access to all that information collected, and where and how long will it be stored?

    Vice Mayor Wallaceย didย respond, City Manager Dorsey didย not, and Mayor Turk did not respond but delegated the task toย Communications Manager Mike Stevens.

    Itโ€™s unclear if Stevens realized he was taking a page from Pelosiโ€™s playbook, but twice he essentially claimed (paraphrased), โ€œThe cameras havenโ€™t been approved yet, so itโ€™s too early to talk about it, but if they are, then we can have a discussion.โ€ (more…)

  • Team Ryan Defends Shutdown of Tent Encampment

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    President Jim Ryan during virtual Town Hall

    by James A. Bacon

    The University of Virginia called in the Virginia State Police to disperse “UVA Encampment for Gaza” protesters because they feared the demonstration was spiraling out of control, said President Jim Ryan, University Police Chief Tim Longo, and other University leaders in a virtual town hall early this afternoon.

    Some protesters had tried to smuggle in wooden structures that could be used as barricades to fortify the encampment, as seen at pro-Palestinian demonstrations at other universities. Although that effort was thwarted, law enforcement authorities learned that four individuals associated with previous Charlottesville events “that resulted in violence” had entered the so-called liberation zone. Meanwhile, organizers were using social media to appeal to more outsiders to join them, and the numbers were growing.

    Ryan said he acted before more outsiders joined, the encampment became more entrenched, and the potential for violence increased. “If we didnโ€™t act, would we be faced with 50 tents and 20 outsiders?” he said. “Where would we be then?”

    Ryan, Longo, and Provost Ian Baucom stated repeatedly that protesters spurned repeated efforts to engage in dialogue. The limited communications that did occur were relayed through faculty members. University officials were at pains to contrast the anarchist protest with other pro-Palestinian demonstrations organized by student groups, in compliance with university guidelines. (more…)

  • Intellectuals Yet Idiots on the Loose

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Microsoft Image Creator’s AI-generated image of Intellectuals Yet Idiots… well, Intellectuals Yet Fools, actually. The word “idiot” violates its word-usage guidelines.

    by James A. Bacon

    Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the “Black Swan” and “Antifragile” author and curmudgeonly critic of just about everyone, coined the term Intellectuals Yet Idiots (IYIs) to describe the modern-day class of journalists, academics, and other cultural elitists who think they know everything better than anyone else.

    The term well describes professors with the University of Virginia Department of History who signed an open letter critical of President Jim Ryan’s crackdown on the “Encampment for Gaza” protest on UVA grounds ย in violation of university rules.

    “As historians” they wrote, “we are acutely aware that this police action fell on the anniversary of the murder of four student protesters at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. History has not judged those who ordered the violent repression of that protest kindly. History will also judge the University of Virginiaโ€™s actions on May 4, 2024, and we have no doubt that history will also condemn the disproportionate, draconian and excessive use of force against nonviolent protesters exercising their free speech rights on an academic campus founded by the author of the Declaration of Independence.”

    Yeah, right. The crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters was just like the Kent State massacre in which four students were killed and nine wounded by the Ohio National Guard…. except for the fact that no one at UVA was killed. Or wounded. Or seriously injured. (more…)

  • Parking Decks, Debt, & Trap Doors

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Jon Baliles

    On Wednesday afternoon at 3:00pm in City Council chambers, City Council will vote and approve the plan presented by the Mayor and Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) to allow Richmond to issue $170 million in bonds to pay for the new baseball stadium on ten acres that will be surrounded by about 57 acres of new development built out over the next decade plus.

    Two years after kicking off the Diamond District process, the new plan announced a month ago was suddenly hailed as the fastest way to build a new stadium so Major League Baseball (MLB) doesnโ€™t move the franchise for failing to upgrade stadium facilities as promised since The Diamond is too archaic to be retrofitted or modernized.

    Wednesday will be a rosy โ€œkumbayahโ€ meeting in which all the positives will be laid out in front of the Council and the public and none of the negatives or risks will be discussed. The public hearing will take place, but many people will be at work in the afternoon or picking kids up from school, and others might decide to stay home knowing this deal will be approved by Council on a 9-0 (or maybe an 8-1) vote.

    The cityโ€™s โ€œleadersโ€ and financial experts promise this new plan will save millions over the next three decades because of lower interest rates and โ€œalmost no risk,โ€ compared to the original plan they started out with two years ago. But the Mayor and CAO, in their desperation to get any deal done and not lose a second baseball franchise, forgot to put any protections in the deal for the city and managed to leave a trap door.

    They swear up and down that the development that has been occurring organically in and around Ashe Boulevard and Scottโ€™s Addition will continue (which is very probable), and that the new development in the Diamond District will produce enough new tax revenue to cover, or almost cover, the annual debt required to pay the bonds back (or so we are told).

    But what no one will talk about on Wednesday is the trap door in the form of a blank check called the Community Development Authority (CDA) that will have a real impact on future city budgets and city services for decades to come. Two years ago when the Diamond District was announced, the plan was to create a CDA to issue bonds for the stadium that would be paid back by tax revenue from the development within the districtโ€™s boundaries. (more…)

  • Ignoring FOIA?

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Joe Fitzgerald

    I’ve wondered since college, if not high school, what happens when a public body decides to just ignore the Freedom of Information Act. I donโ€™t know if thatโ€™s what the Rockingham County School Board is doing right now, but if they are, the criticism might be just the cost of doing business. Itโ€™s not Hell to pay. Itโ€™s Hell to pay off before moving on to the next liberal interference in their drive to replace education professors with City Elders.

    The board recently formed a panel to judge their banned books, and because people making decisions for the public should be judged themselves, the Virginia Freedom of Information Act says we should know who those people are.

    Of course FOIA doesnโ€™t mention judgment, possibly because so many public servants come up short in that category. What it does mention is that public bodies shall be public, and that the definition of public bodies, โ€œshall not exclude any such committee, subcommittee, or entity because it has private sector or citizen members.โ€

    Not so much, says Matt Crossโ€™s School Board majority. Theyโ€™re not revealing the names of the book-vetting committee members. The superintendent has said that in forming the committee, they looked for people who could read. Thatโ€™s an extraordinarily low bar for people judging literature, perhaps akin to demanding that a referee be able to see. (more…)

  • With the Tents Down, the Blowback Begins

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Following the decision to take down the tents in the UVA Solidarity Encampment for Gaza “liberated zone” at the University of Virginia on Saturday, UVA President Jim Ryan is facing strong blowback from leftist elements in the UVA and Charlottesville communities.

    Pro-Palestinian protesters had rebuked the administration’s orders to take down the tents and refrain from the use of loudspeakers in violation of University rules. After repeated warnings, the decision was made to send in Virginia State Troopers in riot gear Saturday to break up a tent encampment of anarchists and militants near the University Chapel, resulting in the arrest of 25.

    The Jefferson Council contends that the takedown was fully justified. The issue was not the protesters’ right to free speech — they had been shouting and chanting their pro-Palestinian views for almost a week — but their refusal to abide by the rules regarding time, place and manner of protests that everyone else is expected to obey. (more…)

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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