Bacon's Rebellion

  • “White Supremacy with a Hug”

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    James A. Bacon

    https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1437560071714709506?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1437560071714709506%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fhotair.com%2Fjohn-s-2%2F2021%2F09%2F14%2Fvirginia-teacher-asking-students-to-listen-to-the-teacher-is-white-supremacy-n415922

    by James A. Bacon

    Josh Thompson, an English teacher at Blacksburg High School in Montgomery County, explains in the TikTok video above how Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (BPIS), the disciplinary approach used by Virginia public schools, amounts to “white supremacy with a hug.” BPIS was touted originally as a reform of the traditional disciplinary system, which relied more heavily upon punishments and was considered racist because Blacks were sanctioned disproportionately. But in the minds of some, PBIS is itself racist.

    Fortunately, the Northam administration has not embraced the PBIS-as-white-supremacy critique…. not yet. I re-post Thompson’s TikTok here as an example of the kind of thinking that flows logically from the social-justice theories being batted around in Virginia public schools and could soon work their way into the mainstream. (more…)

  • Questions McAuliffe Will Never Be Asked… But Should Be

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    James A. Bacon

    Photo credit: Steve Helber/AP.

    by James A. Bacon

    Aspiring Governor Terry McAuliffe has referred to concerns about Critical Race Theory in public schools as a “right-wing conspiracy.” Likewise, the media has downplayed the CRT controversy roiling many school systems by dismissing CRT as an obscure academic legal theory that is “not taught in schools.” That response, of course, is a rhetorical dodge. Radical social justice doctrines, however you label them, are being pushed by the Virginia Department of Education, Virginia’s education schools, many school districts, in staff and teacher training sessions. and sometimes even in classrooms.

    Susan Page of USA Today, moderator of the gubernatorial debate between Democrat McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin last night, missed a chance to pin down exactly what McAuliffe thinks about what is happening in Virginia schools.

    Page pressed Youngkin on matters that might put him at odds with elements of his Republican coalition. What is his stance on abortion? Does he think Democrats will steal the election this fall? What does he think about vaccine mandates? All fair questions, to be sure. But, based on media accounts (I did not watch the debate) she failed to query McAuliffe about his views on the most sweeping overhaul of Virginia public education system since the dismantling of Massive Resistance.

    Here are some questions she could have asked the candidates. (more…)

  • Follow the Science. Yeah, Right

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Ever since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic I’ve been wondering what it would take for Americans to finally say they’d had enough.

    Enough of absurd and ineffective regulations imposed on them by leaders hiding behind claims that they were simply “following the science.”

    I was furious early in the spring of 2020, when Virginia’s governor — who was “following the science” — forbade SITTING ON THE BEACH. Remember that slice of crazy? It was OK to walk, run or fish on the beach, but no sitting.

    That was followed by even more “follow the science “ idiocy: no football or volleyball on beaches. No loud music. No umbrellas. The constant wiping down of handrails to the beach with disinfectant, even though we knew the virus couldn’t survive in summer heat and direct sunlight.

    Then came football season, and the governor ordered “crowds” at outdoor events be limited to 250 spectators, regardless of the size of the venue.

    Hey, he was just following the science. (more…)

  • Your Tax Dollars at Work: The Virginia Breeze

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) subsidizes three bus routes connecting communities in Southside and Southwest Virginia to population centers to the north. One of those, the Valley Flyer, links Blacksburg and Virginia Tech, ferrying college students to Northern Virginia and back. It carried more than 2,800 passengers in the 1st quarter of 2021. The farebox recovery was 45%, and the average cost per passengers was a modest $45.33, according to DRPT’s Virginia Breeze Bus Lines 1st Quarter 2021 report. Not bad as far as public transportation goes.

    A second line, the Capital Connector, connects Martinsville with Richmond and Northern Virginia. It carried 820 passengers in the 1st quarter, for a 10% farebox recovery and an average cost per passenger of $231.60. Not so good.

    Then there is the Piedmont Express, commencing in Danville and running through Altavista, Lynchburg, Amherst, Charlottesville, Culpeper, Warrenton, Gainesville and Dulles airport before terminating in Washington. The 1st quarter passenger count was 269, the farebox recovery 5%, and the average cost per passenger $729.63. (more…)

  • Richmond Wants to Kill Its Gas Utility, Also Ending Service in Henrico, Chesterfield

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    Steve Haner

    Pending Termination

    by Steve Haner

    BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the (Richmond) Council hereby commits to working with the City’s Administration on an equitable plan to phase out reliance on gas and shift to accelerated investment in City-owned renewable energy and hereby recognizes that the continued operation of the City’s gas utility is an obstacle to the City’s goal of Net-Zero emissions in accordance Resolution No. 2020-R024, adopted June 8, 2020.

    Translation:  The Richmond Gas Works, a municipal owned public service utility, is targeted for closure.   Council sees its continued operation as “an obstacle.”  The 117,600 customers (as of 2018) will need to run their lives and businesses without natural gas.  Those customers are not confined to the city itself but are also located in Henrico and Chesterfield counties.  (more…)

  • VDH Should Show Vaccinations for Age and Race Together

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    James A. Bacon

    by Carol J. Bova

    Jim Bacon used an infographic from the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) in his recent post, God, COVID and the Rage Against the Unvaccinated showing the percent of the eligible population in Virginia with at least one dose.

    What the infographic doesn’t say is the numbers are based on Virginians age 12 and up. When you look at another VDH chart by age, you see some pretty impressive numbers from age 35 and up, ranging from 71.0 to 89.9 percent. (more…)

  • 2021 SAT Scores: Virginia Still Shines… With Caveats

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    James A. Bacon

    SAT scores range from 200 to 800 in both English and Math. Composite scores range from 400 to 1600.

    by James A. Bacon

    CollegeBoard has released SAT data for the 2021 testing season, and the good news for the Old Dominion is that Virginia high school graduates outperformed their peers in the other 49 states (and Washington, D.C.). Virginia’s average overall score of 1151 for English and Math was 91 points higher than the national average.

    Even in a normal year, however, comparing state SAT scores is a dicey proposition. This year, after K-12 schools across the country adopted widely different strategies in response to the COVID-19 epidemic, comparisons are even more problematic.

    “While this year’s results represent a snapshot of achievement on the SAT during an extraordinary year,” said Superintendent of Public Instruction James Lane in a press release yesterday, “Virginia students overall continue to perform well above their peers nationwide.”

    Lane’s statement holds up under scrutiny, as I shall show momentarily. Virginia’s schools did outperform their peers. However, Virginia schools have always outperformed other states. The key question for Virginia voters evaluating the performance of the Northam administration is whether Virginia’s lead over other states grew or shrank in the past year. Did we fare better or worse relatively speaking? Answers are difficult to come by. (more…)

  • McAuliffe Promises $8.3 Billion in New Spending

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    James A. Bacon

    by Jesse Lynch

    As of August 2021, Terry McAuliffe has released over eighteen plans for his second term as Governor of Virginia. The policy proposals oscillate between highly specific and indefinitely vague. This report attempts to forecast five of these proposals: education, economics, entrepreneurship, COVID-19, and healthcare. The Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy has attempted to assign a fiscal impact for all the proposals using publicly available information from reports from the Department of Planning and Budget, the Virginia House and Senate Appropriation Staff, and other entities involved in the allocation and appropriation of Virginia’s Budget.

    Our budget projections are based on current spending, excluding the American Rescue Plan Act funding. According to our analysis, a McAuliffe budget would have the following significant effects:

    • Virginia’s Operating Budget spending would increase by $8,312,224,332 over the biennium. The General Fund would increase by $7,634,029,721, and the Non-General Fund (NGF) would increase by $678,194,611 (See Table 2).
    • McAuliffe’s proposals would represent an increase of 5.99% to the 2022-23 Operating Budget in new proposals.
    • The costliest proposed policy would be allowing Virginia’s state government employees to engage in collective bargaining, which would cost the Commonwealth more than $1,874,965,290.

    (more…)

  • September 16

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    James A. Bacon

    At the Jersey Shore before I was born.

    by Kerry Dougherty

    I’m almost never satisfied with my writing. That’s why, if you read one of my posts in the morning and go back in the afternoon it will be slightly different. I can’t stop tinkering.

    Over the years I’ve written a handful of pieces that I thought were pretty good. This is one. I’ve shared it before, but I’m posting it again today for those who may have missed it or don’t mind reading it again.

    The reason for offering you this today will be obvious to anyone who reads to the end.

    I can remember exactly where I was on September 16, 1998. I remember what I was wearing, the cup of 7-Eleven coffee that went cold on the tray table and the way the morning sun sifted through the dingy window.

    Shortly after dawn, I was in a hospital bed in Hamilton, N.J., cradling the snowy head of the woman who taught me how to ride a bike, roller skate and shuffle cards like a blackjack dealer.

    If you had peeked into her room, you would have seen a frail, sick woman. That isn’t what I saw. (more…)

  • The Economics of Flood Control in Virginia

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    sherlockj

    Hampton Roads base flood – 1% annual risk

    by James C. Sherlock

    We have work to do, and need to do it quickly and well.

    • If we want to get storm defenses built before major storm damage rather than after; and
    • if we want the federal government to pay 65% of the costs.

    Let’s assume we do.

    The “Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Planning Framework” appears to be heading in a direction that may miss important pieces of any benefit/cost assessment. And those assessments drive federal interest.

    The assumption in Framework going forward appears to be that the value of flood protection is in loss avoidance. Exclusively. 

    Indeed, all of the work that I can find in flooding assessments Virginia is put towards the goal of understanding the costs of such losses.

    Not sufficient, but fixable. (more…)

  • Rules Are for the Little People: Terry McAuliffe Edition

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    James A. Bacon

    Terry McAuliffe violated federal mask-wearing regulations while traveling on an Amtrak train this summer, as seen in photos obtained by Fox News. The Democratic Party candidate for governor, who has urged others to wear masks, spoke maskless on a cell phone while walking through Union Station and boarding a train, according to the passenger who snapped the photos. (more…)

  • Quote of the Day: Mary Trigiani

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    James A. Bacon

    Mary Trigiani is a management consultant in Southwest Virginia. One of her interests is rethinking “economic development” in the region. I was struck by this morning’s lead-in to her daily newsletter.

    Economic development is, for some, the game of redistributing taxpayer money and sustaining agencies for that purpose – without reporting ROI back to taxpayers or marking real progress. When it’s done right, however, economic development is an intricate process of modeling businesses, vetting partners, and building bridges – so that people can find jobs, prosper, and enjoy life. This shift in definition is a condition of today’s renaissance. And I believe Virginia’s Great Southwest will show the way.

    — JAB

  • God, COVID and the Rage Against the Unvaccinated

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    “There is a growing rage among the people who are vaccinated about the people who have refused a free and effective vaccine,” Stephen Farnsworth, an oft-quoted political science professor at the University of Mary Washington, said recently. “We’re all going back toward lockdowns because of the selfishness of a few.”

    As Farnsworth notes, there may be political fallout from the rage against the unvaccinated. The people who feel this righteous anger carry an image of the unvaccinated as White don’t-tread-on-me Donald Trump voters putting their personal liberties ahead of the common good… Except when they acknowledge that a few of the unvaccinated are Black. They view Black vaccination resistance more charitably as an understandable, if misguided, response to the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study that ended a half century ago.

    But I wonder. How many unvaccinated Blacks cite the Tuskegee study? How many are wary of “systemic racism” in the healthcare system? Are such tropes widely shared view among Blacks — or a construct of journalists, academics and other members of America’s clerisy?

    After a lengthy conversation with an African-American tradesman who is active in my neighborhood, I have come to question the Tuskegee talking point. And I suspect that vaccination resistance among many Blacks likely arises from their religious faith. Viewing the world through a secular lens, America’s clerisy may be downplaying the influence of religious thinking among the unvaccinated. (more…)

  • “You Have to…”

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    James A. Bacon

    by Dr. A Schuhart

    The indoctrinal push to impose Critical Race Theory across American society is centered in the verb phrase to have to. Its primary meaning states a requirement, but it is a requirement that also connotes a threat for failure to comply. In every training and in every managed discussion of DEI at the Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) that I have to attend, the arguments used to “persuade” me have been prefaced by this troublesome helping verb.

    I hear “you have to see that” and “you have to understand” and “you have to look at it this way” in every part of the structure of this vast toulminian hornswoggle known as CRT. Yes, it is true that if I see it your way, then I will agree with you. But it does not follow that because you think you are right, that I have to see it your way, or consequently, that you have the right to force to do so. This is an irrational claim, a fallacy at the core of CRT “reasoning.”

    Further, this belief that I have to think, or see, your idea your way gives rise to a set of false deductions that end in conflict, rather than consensus. See, you who think I have to think about CRT and DEI a certain way fail, firstly, to declare your full logical claim. What you mean is I have to see it your way for it to be true because the only way CRT can be true is if everyone says it is true, for it is not logically true (as I am demonstrating here). (more…)

  • Understanding the Jackson Statue Controversy

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    James A. Bacon

    by Donald Smith

    Perhaps you’ve noticed the discussion over the past year about the banishment… er, sorry, removal… of Stonewall Jackson’s statue from the Virginia Military Institute’s Main Post. Well, here’s another contribution. I will make the case that the powers-that-be behind the excision of Jackson’s memory from VMI weren’t trying to help the institute. They wanted to humiliate it.

    The Barnes and Thornburgh analysts who studied the racial climate at VMI noted that many people attend VMI because they want a military experience.  Men and women who enroll at the academy are a lot like cadets or midshipmen at West Point, Annapolis, the Air Force Academy, the Citadel and Norwich.

    Military schools, and military men and women, honor leaders who showed courage, determination and excellence in battle. Military schools are normally proud of the great generals and admirals they produced. (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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