Bacon's Rebellion

  • The Affordable Housing Crisis Intensifies

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    The Washington Post has published an interactive graphic showing how much rents have increased across the United States over the past year. Average rents in Virginia increased most rapidly in Hampton Roads, the Richmond metro, and the Fredericksburg area — up 20.4% in Spotsylvania County and 20.2% in Bedford County outside Lynchburg. Among localities that provided data, rents declined in only one county: Wise County.

    Housing affordability has been a long-festering issue in Virginia. With the cost of housing skyrocketing over the past year, it is rapidly becoming a social crisis. Poor households are being displaced, forced to double up with family and friends. The poor are (rightfully) blamed for many problems of their own making, but unaffordable housing is not one of them. That is the outcome of temporary, COVID-related market forces and decades of anti-development housing policy in Virginia.

    The Youngkin administration needs to get ahead of the curve on this issue with market-based policies to promote new housing construction. Otherwise, you can be sure that Democrats will come up with policies of their own that, if initiatives in other states are any indication, require government subsidies, interventions in the housing market, and short-sighted panaceas like rent control that will make matters worse.

    — JAB

  • Paying for Miscarriages of Justice

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    The 2022 General Assembly appropriated $6.5 million to compensate seven individuals who had been wrongly incarcerated.

    The men had been convicted of crimes which it was later determined they did not commit.  They were:

    Eugene Stevens--$1.7 million. (HB 394)  Stevens was convicted of murder in 1986 in Lancaster County and sentenced to 99 years in prison. The only physical evidence against him was a hair. The FBI now states that the tests used to compare that hair with Stevens’ hair is scientifically unreliable. Also, several prosecution witnesses lied and the Commonwealth presented false testimony.  Stevens was paroled after serving 32 years in prison. Based on work by the University of Virginia Innocence Project and the published opinion of a federal Court of Appeals judge that, in light of the facts newly discovered in the case, no jury would have reasonably found Stevens guilty, Governor Northam granted him an absolute pardon in 2021, noting that it “reflects Mr. Stevens’ innocence”.  For a fuller discussion of this case on this blog, see here. (more…)

  • At This School, the Cellphones Rule

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Literally every student at the high-poverty high school where Fletcher Norwood teaches has a cellphone — and not just a flip phone, but an expensive smart phone. And every student seems to have an unlimited data plan, and earbuds, and a recharger. Kids may get free lunches, they may wear t-shirts to school, and they may not be able to afford backpacks, but they do have smart phones.

    And they use them… Continuously… Even during class.

    Norwood (not his real name) tells the story of a teacher who joined the staff in September. It was her first year of teaching. One day, says Norwood, a kid was being difficult and refused to put his phone away. The handbook discourages the use of cellphones in class (unless they’re part of the instruction), but leaves it to the discretion of teachers if and when to confiscate them. In this case, the teacher tried to grab the phone. A tug of war ensued. Other kids in the class whipped out their phones and filmed the encounter. The incident came to the attention of the administration.

    “I don’t know if they fired her, or if she said, ‘f— this, I’m out,’” says Norwood. But she left. “This was within the first month.”

    Cellphones are an issue in almost every high school in Virginia. School authorities remain in control at some schools. They’re struggling but at least trying to maintain control in others — such as the high school principal in Alexandria I blogged about yesterday who was cracking down on cellphone use. And in some schools, like the school where Norwood teaches, administrators and teachers have just given up. (more…)

  • Building Systems to Use Methane Not From Wells

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    Steve Haner

    Methane escaping from a well being burned off.

    by Steve Haner

    Methane (CH4) is money. It is also known as natural gas, one of the most efficient fossil fuels we use, and allowing it to leak into the atmosphere when it could be used wastes energy and money.

    Methane is also a greenhouse gas (GHG). But the story gets more interesting here, because when CH4 leaks into the atmosphere it mixes with oxygen and begins to break down into carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor (H2O), also both greenhouse gases. Burn it in your home furnace and the same byproducts result, carbon dioxide and water (and valuable heat, of course).

    Methane is better at absorbing radiation and thus a more potent GHG than CO2, but it also breaks down far faster than the CO2 it eventually becomes. It all becomes CO2, whether captured and burned or released. So it is debatable whether there are huge environmental benefits behind 2022 legislation to encourage Virginia’s gas utilities to capture and sell methane from sources other than traditional gas wells. (more…)

  • Richmond Starbucks Employees Vote to Unionize

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    James A. Bacon

    Photo credit: Tag24

    by James A. Bacon

    Employees at five Starbucks coffee stores in the Richmond area have voted for union representation — and I’m just fine with that. I oppose public-sector unions for reasons frequently enumerated on this blog. But if private-sector employees want to band together to increase their bargaining power with management, that’s their right in a free society. I wish them all the luck in the world. With paychecks shredded by an 8.5% surge in the cost of living in the past year, they need all the help they can get.

    Employees voted for the union by a wide margin, reports The Richmond Times-Dispatch. The vote followed a union loss in a representation election in Springfield last week, according to Tag24, These votes were part of a larger organizing campaign conducted by the Northern Virginia Labor Federation and Workers United. Twenty Starbucks stores have now unionized nationally, and 220 others have sought elections.

    WUSF Public Media delves into the issues at Virginia Starbucks stores. (more…)

  • Teacher Shortage and No End in Sight

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    James A. Bacon


    by Matt Hurt

    Twenty years ago in Southwest Virginia, PreK-6-endorsed teachers would apply at a rate of 5 to 10 applicants for each posted position. Fully endorsed teachers would sometimes spend years in hourly teachers’ aides positions waiting for their turn to get their own classroom and a full-time teaching contract. Then, a little more than ten years ago, the supply began to dry up. Now the flood of teachers produced by our colleges has dwindled to a trickle. As it turns out, all of this occurred prior to the current political unpleasantness.

    During the pandemic, teachers really began to burn out. JMU soon is expected to publish a paper which describes this phenomenon. My understanding is that researchers found that during COIVD teachers felt like they were not able to help their students be successful. They got into the field not to make millions of dollars annually, but to help kids. The pandemic and school closures made this much more difficult. Now that so many kids are so far behind, many teachers find it difficult to believe they’ll ever be able to help them get caught up.

    This year, I have listened to a disturbing number of administrators talk about teachers leaving in the middle of the year. This certainly happened prior to this year, but it was a very uncommon event. Now, it is all too common. (more…)

  • The Washington Post’s Sleazy Tactics

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    For those who are new around here, I spent 42 years in newspapers. I may not know much about many topics, but I have a clear, first-hand understanding of daily journalism.

    Until rather recently newspapers did a pretty good job of breaking news stories on deadline, while reliably getting it right. Not easy.

    But for the past 15 years or so, as newspapers circled the drain, they offloaded experienced editors with skills and standards and replaced them with young, agenda-driven propagandists.

    The result? Stories filled with mistakes, half-truths and the occasional lie.

    It’s gotten to the point that I can barely get through an entire newspaper without wanting to hurl it at a wall. Many of my former colleagues feel the same way.

    Here’s just one glaring example of misinformation spread by a number of Virginia newspapers last month. (more…)

  • Comparing Freeman and Lincoln on Race

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Douglas Southall Freeman

    by Phil Leigh

    Based upon a background report on Douglas Southall Freeman (1886-1953) by Dr. Lauranett L. Lee, the University of Richmond removed his name from Mitchell-Freeman Hall owing to his alleged racism. All the good that he had done for the school’s funding and academic reputation as a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Board of Trustees Member and Rector counted for nothing. Even though the midpoint of his adult career was 1930, the university administrators are holding him to today’s racial standards without any allowance for being part of a different era when his racial attitudes were judged moderate and often sympathetic to blacks. Despite their similarity to those of Abraham Lincoln, the University of Richmond demonizes Freeman for his racial beliefs while its leading historian and former president, Edward Ayers, glorifies Lincoln.

    Abraham Lincoln

    In contrast, the university administrators extend Freeman’s critics special allowances concerning time, place, and race. They fault Freeman for opposing interracial marriage, even though 75% of whites and 73% of blacks opposed it in 1968, fifteen years after Freeman’s death. Additionally, when Freeman referred to blacks in his writing he normally did so with the then-respectful term “Negro” as opposed to “colored” or the unmentionable “N-word.” (more…)

  • Can We Afford Affordable?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Photo credit: The Harrisonburg Citizen

    Magical thinking doesn’t build schools or roads.

    by Joe Fitzgerald

    Harrisonburg’s taxes are going up and will continue to go up because of housing decisions.

    Stated another way, because talking about taxes makes me sound like a Republican, the city will have to keep building more schools and hiring more teachers and bus drivers and principals because of a perceived housing crisis (or, if you prefer, the way the solution to the housing crisis is being perceived).

    The past housing decision was the zoning change that encouraged owners of large properties to add 3,000 beds of student housing a decade or so back. Students moved out of older complexes and families with children moved in. (more…)

  • Mass Transit and Flying Machines

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Anderson Cooper in a personal flying machine.

    Real rebound or just a dead cat bounce? After bottoming out at around 21,500 riders a year ago, the Virginia Railway Express commuter rail service in Northern Virginia is experiencing a recovery in ridership, reports The Free Lance-Star. In February, VRE reports, monthly rider trips totaled more than 52,900. That’s a far cry from the previous, pre-COVID February ridership of 355,000, but it’s something. The decision by a federal judge in Florida to throw out the national mask mandate for public transportation might help revive ridership a bit more.

    Yet… the latest numbers suggest that former VRE riders are NOT taking about 300,000 trips monthly that they had been before the pandemic. Some are likely working at home, but some may be adding to congestion along I-95. Virginia has invested in the rail infrastructure, so, it’s a shame if people aren’t using it. On the other hand…

    Self-driving cars and flying cars. The Virginia Mercury reminds us that Sheppard Miller, Virginia’s Secretary of Transportation, thinks flying cars could be a reality within the next 50 years — a reason that the Commonwealth should “reexamine transit.” People have been fantasizing about flying cars for a hundred years now, and we have yet to see anything remotely practical. But a wave of venture-funded innovation is giving rise to what might better be described as personal flying machines. They’re not cars with four wheels and wings; they’re battery-powered, drone-like craft that can lift off from parking lots and the tops of buildings. On Sunday, 60 Minutes broadcast a clip of Anderson Cooper flying (seen above) in one such device. (more…)

  • A Fairfax High School Principal Cracks Down on Cellphones in Classrooms

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Virginia educators are waking up to the classroom disruption caused by cell phones, and one is actually doing something about it. On April 11, Herndon High School in Fairfax County started enforcing major restrictions on cell phone use, reports Fox News-Channel 5. More recently, the New Kent County School Board has directed the schools to look at the issue of cellphones in classrooms, according to The Tidewater Review.

    “Students will be able to use their phone during passing times and during lunch time, but once class time begins, their phones must be turned off and put away,” said Princpal Liz Noto in a letter to the school community. “There are a few exceptions to this rule, including the use of the phone to monitor medical needs and some specific documented learning needs.”

    There is one big loophole, however. According to the Fox article, teachers will be allowed to provide students a five-minute “phone break” during class.

    Students’ use of cell phones has become a major problem in many schools. Practices may vary from place to place, but in some schools students are routinely distracted by access to social media on cellphones and listening to music through earbuds linked to their cellphones. (more…)

  • Teachers Can Take Only So Much

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    I learned recently from a friend that his wife, after more than 15 years of teaching, will not be going back to the classroom next year. She teaches in one of the school divisions in the Richmond area. The reasons for her leaving are myriad. However, they did not include students and behavior problems, as Jim Bacon often cites. Rather they include parents and administrators. One of the last straws was the objection by a parent or two to a book she had assigned her eleventh-grade advanced English class to read. I won’t identify the book, but it is one of those that has made the American Library Association list of banned books over the years. Having to deal with those parents in finding a book to which they did not object was frustrating and time-consuming. To add to her frustration, there is the prospect of more standardized testing, in addition to the SOLs, next year. Finally, due to staffing shortages, particularly substitute teachers, she has had to take on more duties this year.

    She is not the only one. Of all the teachers in her department, all but one have indicated they will not be returning next year.

    If driving out the teachers currently in the schools was the intent of the vocal parents demanding to have more say in how schools are run and what teachers teach, they, along with administrators relying on standardized tests, are succeeding. One wonders where they are going to find the replacements for those who flee.

  • Virginia Slides Lower in ALEC Economic Rankings

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    American Legislative Exchange Council rated Virginia 30th out of 50 states using these three measures of economic performance over ten years. Click for larger view.

    by Steve Haner

    First published earlier today by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

    As measured by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Virginia’s economic outlook has continued its precipitous drop and now barely ranks in the top half among the American states, 24th out of 50. A decade ago it was in the top five, ranking third in 2011 and 2012 and fifth in 2013.

    Using three direct measures of actual economic performance, gross domestic product and job growth and population out migration, ALEC placed Virginia 30th among the 50 states over the past decade. Neighboring North Carolina, on the other hand, ranked 12th in recent economic performance and second in economic outlook.

    Virginia’s number 24 ranking in the annual “Rich States, Poor States” outlook comparison will be dismissed by some as less important than other indicators of competitiveness, including the ultimate bragging point of being number one in the last CNBC ranking of best states for business. But the downward trend is dramatic, Virginia having ranked 17th last year and dropping seven places in this survey. (more…)

  • Washington Post Editorial Board Nails a Belly Flop

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    sherlockj

    Why is this man laughing?

    by James C. Sherlock

    We sometimes note here that the editorial boards of the largest press outlets in Virginia can seem out of touch.

    Most lack philosophical balance on their editorial boards. We get that. It is their right.

    But that in turn can create intellectual echo chambers, denying the discipline offered by internal challenges. Such discussions can weed out embarrassments before publication. Without them, editorials are vulnerable to occasionally displaying a stunning lack of self-awareness.

    Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post, in order to prove the point, editorialized:

    If you can’t join them, buy them. This is the philosophy billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk appears to have adopted as he launches a hostile takeover bid for the social media platform Twitter. Let’s hope he doesn’t succeed.

    Seriously. They published that.

  • Racial Bean Counting for Dominion’s Offshore Wind Project?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Dominion Energy  expects to create 900 construction jobs and support 1,100 employees in ongoing operations for its proposed $9.8 billion offshore wind farm. Hundreds more jobs could be created if, as hoped, companies in the wind power industry begin manufacturing components and providing ancillary services in Hampton Roads.

    As part of its wind farm initiative, the utility has created an economic development plan for maximizing investment and job creation in Virginia and ensuring that the benefits are shared broadly, including with veterans and “workers from historically economically disadvantaged communities.” The plan says the company will engage with economic development authorities, business trade organizations, workforce development groups, and “minority civic and business organizations.” It even plans to collect data on the number of women, veterans and minorities employed by suppliers with contracts over $500,000 in value.

    But that’s not good enough for the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club. “Dominion’s Plan is not sufficient to meet the diversity, equity, and inclusion targets” outlined in the state code, says Mark Little, co-founder of CREATE in State Corporation Commission testimony on behalf of the Sierra Club.

    Little wants Dominion to set “ambitious, progressive targets” on the number and percentage of employees to be hired by sex, race/ethnicity, and veteran status, collect detailed statistics on the demographic composition of the hires, and publish updates every six months. Furthermore, Little says Dominion needs to make “structural changes” such as hiring Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion officers to execute its vision. (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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