Bacon's Rebellion

  • Educators Play Semantic Games to Befuddle Voters

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    James A. Bacon

    Scott Ziegler: It depends on what the meaning of “is” is.

    by James A. Bacon

    Under assault from irate parents, Northern Virginia educators have been at pains to say that they do not teach Critical Race Theory to students.

    At a school board meeting earlier this month, interim Superintendent Scott A. Ziegler repeatedly denied instructing students in the controversial theory, which posits among other things that all Whites are racist (although some can strive to be “allies”) and that society’s institutions, designed by Whites for Whites, constitute a form of systemic or structural racism.

    According to The Washington Post, School Board Chair Brenda Sheridan asked Zeigler point blank: “When you are asked, ‘Is Loudoun County Public Schools teaching critical race theory?’ what is the answer?”

    “The short answer is that we are not teaching critical race theory to our students,” Ziegler said, calling the theory “a subject for academics.” (more…)

  • Pharrell to Fund a Micro-School in Norfolk

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    James A. Bacon

    Pharrell Williams

    by James A. Bacon

    Music superstar and Virginia Beach native Pharrell Williams is not satisfied  with the education provided by public schools today. But instead of signaling his virtue through Tweets, he’s doing something about it. His philanthropy YELLOW is funding the launch of a micro-school in Norfolk’s Ghent neighborhood that will deliver a personalized, hands-on alternative to traditional learning for lower-income children.

    The school, YELLOWHAB, will provide a tuition-free education to an estimated 40 to 50 kids in its inaugural year. The philosophy behind the schools rejects the traditional classroom setting and standard grade systems, and will introduce a problem-solving-based curriculum tailored to students’ individualized strengths and differences.

    “There are lesson plans. When we say ‘non-traditional’ it doesn’t mean we’re throwing everything out. Some things work,” YELLOW Executive Director Mike McGalliard told said WVEC News. “The best educational examples that we’re borrowing from are examples of project-based learning.” (more…)

  • Stop Asian Hate? What Hate?

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    James A. Bacon

    Mark Herring: “The rise in violence and hate against Asian-Americans has to stop.”

    by James A. Bacon

    Asian Americans living in Virginia have been able to rest easier since March knowing that Virginia’s Attorney General Mark Herring has entered the the battle against anti-Asian hate crimes. Not only did he set up a website, NoHateVa, in which he proclaimed, “The rise in violence and hate against Asian Americans has to stop,” he even led a discussion with attorneys general from other states on how to halt the epidemic.

    Asian Americans might derive even more comfort from the fact that the Stop-Asian-Hate meme is a figment of Herring’s fevered imagination.

    The Crime in Virginia 2020 report, published by the Virginia State Police, indicates that Virginians of Asian ancestry are far less likely to be crime victims than Whites or Blacks. Only six Asians were victims of hate crimes based on their race last year in Virginia — out of a population of roughly 440,000. I suppose Herring could claim that that represents a 20% increase!!!! from 2019, when there were only five such victims, but when the odds of being the victim of a hate crime are one out of 70,000, an increase of one additional incident won’t keep many Asians hiding in their basements. (Five other Asians were victims of hate crimes, but not because of their race.) (more…)

  • Throwing Kids into the Volcano to Appease the COVID Gods

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Am I the only one who noticed that once Joe Biden became president news outlets lost interest in the COVID scorecards they featured prominently during the pandemic?

    Remember those screaming headlines about cases and deaths that ginned up the hysteria daily?

    Just a memory now.

    But guess what? I’ve been quietly keeping track of the stats ever since May 2020 and there’s very good news.

    In all of Virginia yesterday there were only 90 new positive COVID tests. (more…)

  • Virginia Murders Surged in 2020, Mostly Black Victims

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    James A. Bacon

    Violent crime victims by race, 2020

    by James A. Bacon

    Against the backdrop of COVID-19 shut-ins and anti-police protests last year, violent crime in Virginia declined 1.9%, but homicides increased by 23.4%, according to the Crime in Virginia 2020 reported released by the Virginia State Police today. The spike in killings was mainly, though not exclusively, an African-American phenomenon.

    The annual crime report is a compilation of statistics reported by all city, county and town police departments across Virginia. The report provides no analysis, so citizens are on their own to make sense of the data arising from one of the most tumultuous years of the 21st century.

    My working hypothesis before the Crime in Virginia 2020 report came out was that two things were going on: (1) the COVID-19 shutdown acted to reduce the overall level of criminality as people restricted activity outside their homes, and (2) the anti-police protests and rollback of tough-on-crime measures — the George Floyd effect — have acted to increase crime, especially violent crime, and especially in African-American communities.

    The evidence largely supports my hypothesis. (more…)

  • Contrary to Report, Women Are Safer from Sexual Assault at VMI

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    James A. Bacon

    Kasey Meredith became VMI’s first Cadet Commander this year. Photo credit: AP

    by James A. Bacon

    Not only is the Virginia Military Institute a cauldron of racism, according to the recently published Barnes & Thornburg report, it is a bastion of sexism. As the executive summary puts it: “On gender, many respondents — including men — stated that VMI’s gender-equity issues are worse than its racial-equity issues.”

    As evidence of the culture of sexism, the report cites from a survey in which 81 female cadets participated. Fourteen percent of those who responded reported having been sexually assaulted. Concludes the executive summary: “Sexual assault is prevalent at VMI yet it is inadequately addressed by the Institute.”

    Here’s what Barnes & Thornburg never mentioned: According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women are “sexually assaulted” while attending college nationally. According to the 2019 AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Misconduct, 25.9% of women undergraduates are subject to “nonconsensual sexual contact by force or inability to consent.”

    In other words, using Barnes & Thornburg’s own metric, women are significantly safer at VMI than other four-year colleges. (more…)

  • Removal of Cops on Richmond School Board Agenda

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    The City of Richmond School Board tonight has as an agenda item its strategic plan “Priority 3 – Safe and Loving School Cultures” tonight at 6 PM.

    Meeting Jun 07, 2021 – Richmond City School Board Meeting – 6:00 p.m. Category New Business Subject New Business. Type Procedural Goals
    Priority 1 – Exciting and Rigorous Teaching And Learning
    Priority 2 – Skilled and Supported Staff
    Priority 3 – Safe and Loving School Cultures
    Priority 4 – Deep Partnership with Families and Community
    Priority 5 – Modern Systems and Infrastructure

    That is where Superintendent Jason Kamras’ proposal last summer to remove school resource officers (SRO) from the schools in which they currently provide security is the biggest issue.

    Some teachers in those schools are concerned about their safety and the safety of the children if Kamras’ proposal is adopted. So inevitably are some of the parents. Other parents and teachers support the change. Non-profit lawyers of course support it. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

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    James A. Bacon


    Jeanine’s Sunday Memes at the Bull Elephant

  • Beach School Board’s Clown Show

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    It’s tempting to call the latest shenanigans by the Virginia Beach School Board a clown show.

    I probably shouldn’t, though, since that insults the proud tradition of clowning and implies that there is something humorous about the board’s ham-handed attempts to circumvent open meeting laws and its quiet determination to infect the schools with Critical Race Theory. 

    The Beach School Board is not funny. It’s behaving in a way that is profoundly undemocratic.

    We wrote last week about the board’s suspicious “special meeting” held June 1.

    Despite being set weeks earlier, it was held without the usual public notice and was not broadcast.

    At 8:30 this morning in General District court, a judge will decide if — as School Board member Victoria Manning claims — this was an illegal meeting. (Then again, there may not be a decision. On Sunday afternoon Manning told me that it appeared the Board was spending tax dollars on outside counsel to represent the body and might ask for the case to be continued.) (more…)

  • Some Thoughts on Local Government Finance

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    The recent posts and comments concerning the reversion of the city of Martinsville to town status (see here, here, and here) provide a good opportunity to discuss the complexity of local government finance and the limitations of using simplistic measures to compare governments.

    Jim Sherlock referred to the “wreckage” of Martinsville, which he attributed to “decades of Democratic control.” When asked to define “wreckage,” he referred to the city government overspending to a “negative ROI” and declared that “the first job of any government in Virginia is to live within its means.” The obvious implication is that Martinsville spent more than it took in.

    The only specific evidence offered to support the Martinsville “wreckage” charge was the higher spending per person by Martinsville and the higher tax rate in the city.

    Local government finances is a fairly complex subject, but there is a good amount of data online for anyone who wants to dig. The website of the Virginia Auditor of Public Accounts serves as the base for most of this data. Its annual Comparative Report of Local Government Revenue and Expenditures is the basic document. It contains a great deal of data, but it has its limitations, as will become clear later in this discussion. The website also has the annual financial report of each local jurisdiction, which can provide even more insight for those experienced at reading and understanding financial reports (which I am not). (more…)

  • Virginia Local Ability-to-Pay Calculation and State Contributions to Public Schools — Some Surprises

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Some things are very important that the average citizen knows little to nothing about.

    For example, a complex state computation, the Composite Index of Local Ability to Pay, determines how much state money per student goes to your school district to maintain an overall state ratio of 55% state and 45% local.

    The lower your district composite index of ability to pay, the more money per student your district gets.

    You will find some big surprises in the list of school division indexes, or at least I did.

    My home division of Virginia Beach did not make the top 20 highest indexes, while the City of Richmond did. Fredericksburg is a top-20 division. Stafford County is in the lower middle group. Bath County has the third highest index out of 133. (more…)

  • Yes, Virginia, There May Be Alien UFOs — Off Your Coast!

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    James A. Bacon

    Image captured by Virginia Beach naval aviators. Image credit: 60 Minutes

    by Bruce Majors

    If you spend any time on the internet, you will almost daily see geographical rankings: the best colleges, the best small towns, the best places to retire, the cities with the worst drivers, the states with the worst tippers or the rudest residents.

    Apparently whoever or whatever is behind the UAPs (the acronym for the new bureaucratese “unidentified aerial phenomena,” what we used to call UFOs) that the Senate Intelligence Committee will soon tell us about also seem to have a list of where they prefer to visit. Former national intelligence director John Ratcliffe hinted that the report will be surprising, telling FOX News anchor Maria Bartiroma, “We are talking about objects that have been seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery, that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain, movements that are hard to replicate, that we don’t have the technology for or are traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.”

    The National UFO Reporting Center maintains a database of reports of UFO sightings and it organizes them by state, as well as by shape of the UFO and other categories. Virginia is 35th on the list. (more…)

  • Craven UVa Board Cancels More History

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    James A. Bacon


    by James A. Bacon

    The University of Virginia Board of Visitors took another big step in purging its “white supremacist” past by voting Friday to take down the statue to George Rogers Clark. The Clark statue, critics say, perpetuates “the myth of brave white men conquering a supposedly unknown and unclaimed land.”

    The cost of removing, relocating and storing the statue is estimated to cost $400,000. University officials expect the statue to be removed by the end of the summer. Then the university will start talking to students and the Indigenous community about what should replace it, reports The Daily Progress.

    The removal, initially recommended by the UVa’s Racial Equity Task Force, advances the systematic extirpation of any names, memorials or statues that can be tangentially connected to “white supremacy.” The dismantling of the Clark statue is part of a larger set of recommendations to “repair relationships with Indigenous communities” by establishing a “tribal liaison position,” found a Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies, recruit Native and Indigenous faculty. And, of course, it is consistent with the denigration of anyone associated with the slave-holding era. (more…)

  • UVa Affirms Commitment to Free Speech… at Least in Theory

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The University of Virginia Board of Trustees has voted to approve a statement affirming the university’s commitment to free expression and free inquiry.

    “All views, beliefs and perspective deserve to be articulated and heard free from interference,” states the Statement of the Committee on Free Expression and Free Inquiry. “Free and open inquiry … is at the heart of the principles of academic freedom. … Likewise, the educational endeavor for students requires the freedom to speak, write, inquire, listen, challenge and learn.”

    President James Ryan appointed the committee and asked it to craft a set of principles to guide the university. The committee heard testimony from students and faculty attesting to the widespread sentiment that certain views should not be expressed in or out of the classroom for fear of triggering intense social media backlash or punitive measures by administrators (many incidents of which have been documented in Bacon’s Rebellion and The Jefferson Council website).

    It remains to be seen how the Ryan administration will interpret and apply these principles. The committee’s Statement genuflected to the fact that the university has not always fulfilled its aspirations — “exploiting enslaved laborers and excluding Black Americans, women, and groups and viewpoints disfavored by the majority.” It made no explicit mention of the suppression of conservative views antithetical to a core of radical students or the failure of the Ryan administration to stand up for them — things that are happening now, not a hundred years ago. (more…)

  • Southwest Virginians Rebel Against “Defund the Police” Rhetoric

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Sheriff Shuler. Photo credit: Guns.com

    by James A. Bacon

    Southwest Virginia, long the most consistently “red” in its voting patterns, has become downright scarlet over the past year with the switch of three county sheriffs from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

    The most recent of the three defectors, Sheriff Chip Shuler of Smyth County, filed a formal membership application two weeks ago with the Smyth County Republican Committee, reports The Center Square. He followed the lead of Buchanan County Sheriff John McClanahan and Tazewell County Sheriff Brian Hieatt, both of whom jumped from Dem to GOP last year.

    “I am changing to the Republican Party because of the relentless attack on law enforcement by Democrats in Richmond and Washington,” said Shuler in a press release. “My deputies work hard to serve and protect the citizens of Smyth County.”

    The big question: Do these defections signal widespread voter wariness of criminal justice reforms whipped by by the “defund the police” movement in Virginia’s major population centers, or are they unique to the peculiarly conservative small-town political culture of Southwest Virginia? (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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