Bacon's Rebellion

  • VMI, Media Bias, and Lies by Omission

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Larry Houseworth

    Charlie Beckett of the London School of Economics addressed journalism’s turn to emotionalism in a talk given at the 2015 Science Festival in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England (“How journalism is turning emotional and what that might mean for news.”) He stated, “the value of objective journalism is the idea that journalism can attempt to give an account that is balanced, fact-based and that gives a fair summary not just of what has happened but the context around it without the distortion of the journalist’s own feelings.”

    Beckett acknowledged there is a place for tempered emotion. He said, “Making a drama of a crisis has always been part of mass media. The theatre of news is as old as broadcast journalism. … If news does not get your attention, if you do not find it interesting, amusing, frightening or uplifting than you are less likely to take notice.”

    The balance of emotion and objectivity “can only be an aspiration,” he conceded. “All journalists are human and have different factors that shape their worldview and their understanding of particular circumstances. … By selecting a story for reporting you have made a choice. The facts that you omit, as well as those you include, are selective.”

    To validate Beckett’s opinion, we need look no further than the media’s recent treatment of the Virginia Military Institute where the omission of relevant facts has colored the coverage. (more…)

  • Map of the Day: College Acceptance Rates

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Source: Virginia Public Access Project

    If you’re applying to one of Virginia’s four-year colleges, you stand the best chance of being admitted if you come from a non-metropolitan area, judging by this map compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project on the basis of recently published State Council of Higher Education for Virginia data. The odds are best of all if you come from one of Virginia’s coalfield counties.

    Of the 74 students from Dickenson County who applied to a Virginia college in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 academic years, 97.4% were admitted somewhere. That compares to a 71.1% admittance rate for Fairfax County students. On the other hand, the number of Fairfax students applying to college was immeasurably larger — more than 22,000. (more…)

  • Bacon Bits: Follow Ups

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    James A. Bacon

    Facebook face plant. On more than one occasion, I have complained on Bacon’s Rebellion that Facebook had blocked advertisements promoting the blog on the social media platform. I conflated the restrictions with the de-platforming experienced by other conservative outlets. I can now report that after a brain-numbing exercise, that Bacon’s Rebellion is now qualified to advertise. The hang-up was a restriction on anyone promoting “Social Issues, Elections or Politics.” To over-simplify, I had to prove that I was not a Russian bot. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you. The Facebook administrative interface for advertisers is labyrinthine in its complexity. I had to repeatedly call upon the Facebook help desk for assistance (which is not easy to find) as I waded step by step through the morass of links, unclear language and instructions that did not match up with what I was seeing on my screen. But those obstacles apply to everyone, not just conservatives. A special call out to “Mimi” for carrying me across the finish line. Here’s hoping Bacon’s Rebellion can grow big and influential enough to warrant a genuine de-platforming!

    Proof of vaccination. Two weeks ago I blogged about my less-than-satisfactory experience using the Virginia Department of Health’s online portal to obtain a certified proof of vaccination. I was required to submit an online request. Would VDH respond or would my request disappear into the ether? I promised to report back. A VDH employee did call me. I emailed scanned copies of my vaccination card, the data was duly entered into the VDH database, and I now possess a PDF certification. The system isn’t scam-proof, and if something can be scammed, you can be sure that someone will try to scam it. A clever person undoubtedly could forge a a digital certification. Therefore, it makes eminent sense that VDH is developing a QR-code system that connects directly from smart phone to VDH database without intervening digital documents. All in all, it was a positive encounter with the state bureaucracy.

    — JAB

  • Correction: Vaccination Advantage Exaggerated

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    by Steve Haner

    Twenty to one?  Where did that math challenged fellow get that?  Oh, wait, I am the math challenged fellow and I have to offer a big correction to my post from yesterday.  Yes, the advantage to being vaccinated is evident in that new data set on the Virginia Department of Health dashboard, but the advantage is not that large.

    Over the period measured, January 17 to February 14, a vaccinated person had about a 15 to one advantage over an unvaccinated person (2 versus 31 out of 100,000) when considering risk of death, and slightly better than ten to one (9 versus 98 out of 100,000) when considering risk of hospitalization.   The blatant error I made probably reflected a bias to see that advantage, having gotten the shots and hoping the hesitant will come around.

    Still pretty dramatic, you say.  There is more bad news.  The data is week by week, and looking at the most recent weeks, those gaps have dropped substantially.  One week’s data is a small snapshot but looking at all the weeks in July (probably fairly complete now) a trend of smaller gaps is evident.    (more…)

  • COVID Bringing Out the Ugly in Americans

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    You know what America needs right now? A little less schadenfreude.

    A little less rejoicing over the misfortunes of others. A little less wishing death on the unvaccinated. A little less fist pumping when an unvaccinated person gets sick.

    This unattractive character trait was on display last fall when a group of mostly Republicans gathered at the White House Rose Garden to celebrate Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

    Headline writers sneered that this was an outdoor “super-spreader” event and applauded each report of an attendee falling ill with COVID.

    There was absolute glee when former GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain fell ill with COVID and died not long after attending a Trump rally in July of 2020. The scornful mob dancing on his grave took no notice that Cain was a Stage 4 colon cancer survivor with several comorbidities. (more…)

  • Enough Inefficiency to Go Around

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Folks here on BR seem to take great pleasure in pointing out and criticizing the shortcomings and inefficiencies of government. I have spent my entire professional career working in state government and I have suffered through more than my share of meetings at which nothing was decided and have seen a lot of inefficiency and some incompetence (though not nearly as much incompetence as some would have us believe exists). So, I can understand these complaints and agree with a lot of them.

    However, what has always irritated me is the assumption, both implicit and explicit, that the private sector is always better. Somehow, the private sector is sacrosanct and, thus, is immune from criticism.

    A recent experience provides me a two-fer — an opportunity to point out shortcomings not only in the private sector, but, as a bonus, in private medical services, as well. After consulting with an orthopedist, I decided to have a metal plate, implanted in my wrist many years ago, removed because it was causing some problems. It was a relatively simple outpatient procedure. (more…)

  • VDH Data: Vaccinated Improve Odds by 20 to 1

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Virginia Department of Health

    According to the Virginia Department of Health’s count, just more than 400 fully-vaccinated patients have ended up in a Virginia hospital with a case of COVID-19, and 83 have died. This was the count for the period of January 17 to August 14 and represented five percent or less of the total hospital cases and deaths in that period. The percentages are even smaller when compared to the pool of 4.7 million fully vaccinated people.

    So. being vaccinated is safer than being unvaccinated by a factor of about 20. Your odds of staying out of the hospital or morgue improve 20 to one. Out of every 100,000 vaccinated Virginians, nine ended up in the hospital and two died. Among the millions of unvaccinated and partially vaccinated, 164 per 100,000 went to the hospital and 55 died. Partial vaccination is not that useful.

    The website is proving glitchy today, probably swamped with visitors. VDH had promised an update for this data set last Friday, but then delayed the release to today. As it is it is still a week behind, but weekly updates are promised. Death stats in particular are slow to arrive. Apparently, they are cross referencing with the state database of vaccinated individuals, and a previous Bacon’s Rebellion post raised other issues about that. (more…)

  • First Morning Bus Delays in Fairfax Public Schools

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Updated Aug 23 at 5.50 PM

    FCPS has published its first morning FCPS Bus Delay list of buses delayed more than 15 minutes.

    Remember:

    • This is the first day of school, but certainly there were several trial run days this summer in an attempt to provide sufficient time in the schedules to avoid lateness. Every school district does that.
    • A lot of these schedules required multiple runs by individual drivers, so the delays would have cascaded and been longer the later in the morning the child was scheduled to be picked up and delivered to school.
    • FCPS publishes transportation contact names and phone numbers for each school and center, so I expect they had a very busy morning.
    • The list does not indicate how long the bus ride was scheduled to take before the delays. Nor how many routes each driver was scheduled to drive.    

    Roughly a third of FCPS schools and centers were affected. Some schools took the brunt of it.  

    The school system is not playing favorites. Langley High is a case in point. Langley serves one of the wealthiest public school populations in America. You would have no trouble telling the student parking lot from the teachers’ lot. But those are just the seniors. (more…)

  • What’s the Best COVID Metric — Vaccinations or Antibodies?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The University of Virginia has “disenrolled” 49 students who had registered for fall classes but failed to comply with the school’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Another 184 temporary waivers were granted to students who have had trouble getting vaccinated, according to The Washington Post.

    University officials say that fewer than one percent of students are out of compliance. “We are in a much better and much different position than we were last year, primarily because of the vaccines and the extraordinarily high vaccination rate in our community,” said President Jim Ryan.

    In the spring semester, the university reported 1,950 infections among students, faculty and staff. By comparison the UVa COVID tracker logged only 12 new cases yesterday and notes that only 56 cases are active — mostly among faculty and staff.

    Costi Sifri, director of hospital epidemiology, said that vaccines are one of the best defenses against the virus. “They prevent infection and they are very effective in preventing hospitalization and other serious outcomes,” he said, according to the Post. “It remains the case that people who are vaccinated are much safer from infection than unvaccinated people.”

    There they go again — failing to differentiate between unvaccinated people who have recovered from the virus and unvaccinated people who have not been infected. (more…)

  • Note on Deleted Post

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Last night I took down a post that published the text of a letter from a parent unhappy with the drift toward wokeness of a prestigious Atlanta, Ga., prep school. I did so at the request of the author’s ex-husband who was distraught at the potential impact on their children should the existence of the letter become common knowledge in the student body. Our nation’s culture wars are ugly enough as they are. I have no desire to inflict collateral damage on innocents. — JAB

  • Schools Desperately Short of Bus Drivers; Carpooling App Needed

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    A Fairfax County Public Schools Twitter message August 19:

    “If you can walk with or drive your child (and perhaps a neighbor’s), please do. Also, we ask that you update your transportation status through your school, if you choose to not have your child take the bus.”

    WTOP reported that as of Aug. 12, Fairfax County Public Schools was short 190 drivers.

    Parents have already made plans and notified school districts if their children will be bus riders. I expect that the interlocking administration and logistics of car pools and buses to T-bone one another because of the late start and lack of preparation for the car pool option at scale. But that is where many districts are.

    Driving a school bus is a difficult, nerve wracking and hazardous job. The training required makes them professional drivers. The demand for such skills and the pay and benefits in the private sector are very high and growing because of a labor shortage in the face of increasing demand.

    Like pretty much every other type of blue collar work. (more…)

  • Charlottesville Police Morale in the Dumps

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Question: Has the current political climate in the city caused you to reduce your normal policing activities (traffic stops, arrests, community policing, etc.) for fear of being targeted by community groups? Dark blue = yes. Light blue = no. Green = undecided.

    by James A. Bacon

    Morale in the Charlottesville Police Department is in the tank. Large majorities of respondents to a survey conducted by the Virginia Police Benevolent Association said they did not believe that either Police Chief Rashall Brackney or the command staff had their backs; 90% said that the political climate in the city caused them to reduce their normal policing activities — traffic stops, arrests, community policing — for fear of being targeted by community groups.

    Eighty-four percent of the 62 members who responded said they had considered other career options, and 81% said the police chief, in her role as a leader, made them feel less secure in their future with the Charlottesville Police Department.

    “They don’t feel like they have a voice with their leadership,” said Michael Wells, senior vice president of the Police Benevolent Association’s Central Virginia Chapter Board. “I know it was bad working conditions, I just didn’t know that it was that bad. Lack of trust and leadership is a big thing that stuck out to me.” (more…)

  • Challenging JMU with a Slingshot

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Joe Fitzgerald

    The reasons Jake Conley might win are moral and the reasons he might lose are legal.

    Jake Conley is the Breeze editor suing JMU over FOIA requests the student newspaper made for the location of Covid cases on campus. Call it the Dorms to Avoid suit.

    JMU declined to provide the info, citing privacy laws that allow it to withhold health information about issues involving 10 or fewer of its 21,000 students.

    It’s worth noting that for 10 or fewer of the 697 cases among on-campus students last year to be in one dorm, there would have to be 70 dorms. Or the 25 dorms the school actually has would have 28 cases each, but never 10 at the same time.

    Also worth noting, the Breeze isn’t suing JMU, because the paper is part of JMU and can’t sue itself. So the editor is acting as a citizen of Virginia, and is technically on his own unless someone joins the suit or decides to represent him for free. JMU on the other hand can send its staff attorney or, in a pinch, call in the state Attorney General’s office. (more…)

  • The New Normal: COVID Ain’t Going Away

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Number of COVID deaths in Virginia. Source: Virginia Department of Health

    by James A. Bacon

    The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases is surging in Virginia, driving continued controversy over mask and vaccination mandates. As has been the case throughout the 18 months of the epidemic here, the media is focusing on the number of cases, which undeniably has increased sharply. The seven-day moving average is up to 1,850, a third of the December-January peak.

    Hospitalizations have risen, too, with the seven-day moving average now exceeding 40 per day and showing no sign of leveling off. The good news (so far) is that, as seen in the graph above, deaths have nudged only a little higher. Perhaps the greatest under-reported story of the pandemic is how good hospitals and doctors have gotten at treating the virus.

    Here’s what we’re not measuring on a daily basis: suicides, drug overdoses and other tragedies stemming from the shutdowns in response to COVID. Life is full of tradeoffs, and so is public health policy. (more…)

  • Complexity and Single-Party Rule in the Modern University

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Allan Stam

    Bacon’s Rebellion publishes here a thought piece by University Professor Allan C. Stam, a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Virginia. Although the column describes research universities generally, Stam says that his critique applies to Virginia research universities and the University of Virginia. JAB

    by Allan C. Stam

    Large research universities have evolved into amalgamations of housing complexes, food service industries, semi-pro sports franchises, health systems, research enterprises, vocational training centers, and education systems. The administrative design of complex universities is such that they are nearly incapable of being efficiently managed. Running a modern research university is a bit like running a small city absent democratic accountability. Both jobs are growing more complex with layers of byzantine regulations often overwhelming their leaders.

    Both types of organizations, universities and city management, are also inherently political which today means increasing polarization and conflict. Political systems distribute resources and services not by market means, but instead by power-based mechanisms. At the same time as the administrative burdens in our universities rises, they have, like most large cities, become single-party systems.

    The combination of these two challenges: single-party rule combined with unmanageable complexity is leading universities down an unfortunate road. So-called administrative bloat is a direct consequence of excessive administrative complexity. Ideological intolerance and the stifling of free speech and thought is the consequence of universities’ emergent political monoculture. The combination of these two factors has created tremendous risks for the future of the American research university. (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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