Bacon's Rebellion

  • Why the Need to Slant Stonewall Jackson’s Legacy?

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    James A. Bacon

    Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s mixed legacy — slaveholder, educator of slaves, rebel against the United States, and one of the greatest military commanders in U.S. history.

    by Donald Smith

    If you were asked to describe Stonewall Jackson in just a few words, what would you say? Apparently the Washington Post would say — an enslaver of six people.

    Ian Shapira, a member of the Washington Post’s Metro section, is the paper’s most prolific writer on the ongoing controversy at VMI over allegations of systemic racism and controversies over Confederate symbols at the school. The Post’s biography of Shapira credits his work for having “prompted,” among other things, “the removal of the campus’ 108-year-old statue of Confederate statue Gen. Stonewall Jackson.”

    Shapira has mentioned Jackson frequently. But, if you relied on his reporting to give you the information that you’d use to develop your perception of Jackson and his legacy, you’d end up with a shallow, one-sided view. What’s worse — and actually more troubling — your knowledge of the general would be missing some of the most important aspects of his life and legacy. (more…)

  • W&L Board Keeps Lee in University Name

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    In a 22-to-6 decision, the Washington & Lee Board of Trustees voted today to keep the Lee in its name. There is no consensus in the W&L community regarding the name change, said the board in a statement. But the board explicitly repudiated racism, apologized for the university’s past veneration of the Confederacy and the “Lost Cause” narrative, and expressed regret for the fact that the university once owned slaves.

    The statement also expressed the Board’s commitment to “free and critical inquiry, civil discourse, and developing students with honor and integrity.”

    The private university has been sharply divided on policies relating to race. A movement to delete the last name of Robert E. Lee from the university was especially polarizing. Some members of the W&L community denounced the Confederate military commander as a slave holder and a traitor to the United States. Others defended retaining the name on the grounds that Lee was widely admired for his character, he played a critical role in reunifying the country after the Civil War, and he rescued the institution, named after George Washington, University from oblivion. (more…)

  • An Expanded View of the Extraordinary Chesapeake Schools

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Yesterday I wrote about the six school districts in South Hampton Roads. At the request of a reader, I expanded the data for Chesapeake.

    The data show a white minority (43%), multiracial school system that in 2018-19  (last year before COVID disruptions) exceed state SOL passing averages for every major racial grouping in both math and reading.

    The racial groups for which I examined SOL results were white (43.1% of students), Black (32.4%), Hispanic (10.9%), multi-racial (8.2%) and Asian-American (2.8%). That comes very close to matching the statewide school demographics.

    The results are amazing. (more…)

  • Zippy Strikes Again

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    by

    James A. Bacon

  • Independent Higher-Ed Governance in Virginia Is Dead

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    A special review board appointed by Board of Visitors President John Boland will study the recommendations contained in the Barnes & Thornburg investigation into racism and sexism at the Virginia Military Institute. The reviewers will report back to the Board of Visitors before its next meeting scheduled in September.

    Among its 40 or so recommendations, Barnes & Thornburg, which was appointed by Governor Ralph Northam, says VMI needs to address racial equity by making high-level governance changes such as crafting a strategic plan around Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and submitting quarterly reports on its progress to the General Assembly. Then it proceeds to itemize specific items the Institute needs to tackle.

    The report admonishes VMI to set goals for recruiting and promoting minority and female faculty and staff, alter its athlete-oriented scholarship program to provide more scholarships for minority non-athletes, re-engineer its Honor Code, implement “sensitivity and bystander training,” and re-evaluate the Institute’s participation in Division I athletics. The report dives so deep into the weeds that it even recommends VMI change its policy on permissible hair styles.

    In theory, VMI is free to accept or reject these recommendations — in the same way that a bank teller with a gun to his head is free to not tell the robber where the money is stashed. But the reality is that the Board must make substantial concessions or put itself at risk of political blowback in the General Assembly, which controls state appropriations to VMI and other public universities.

    The issue here is bigger than VMI. Using the cudgel of racism and sexism at VMI, Governor Ralph Northam is setting a precedent that will allow him to dictate specific policies at any public college or university in Virginia. (more…)

  • VA Employers Stuck in COVID Time Warp

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    by

    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

    Despite the stunning and rapid success of the vaccines in arresting the spread of COVID-19, if you enter a Virginia workplace you go back in time to the pre-vaccine era of doubt and fear.

    Virginia acted in haste in adopting permanent workplace rules related to COVID 19. Now that the Centers for Disease Control has relaxed many of its requirements and conceded that others were not backed up by evidence, the state’s employers are in limbo. The workplace regulations are now badly out of step.

    There was no allowance for vaccinations in the regulations, which became permanent in January just as the population was starting to get shots.

    Governor Ralph Northam was warned this would happen if the temporary COVID-19 rules were made permanent but barreled ahead to the applause of organized labor. The regulations carry the weight of law and can be enforced with severe sanctions, whether or not they are in direct conflict with the latest CDC guidance. (more…)

  • COVID-19 Killed the American Work Ethic

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Sometimes nothing will lift a kid’s mood like a McDonald’s Happy Meal.

    On Tuesday I was running a raft of errands with a 5-year-old strapped into the back seat. As it crept past lunchtime and she was clearly starving, I saw the blessed Golden Arches.

    While we idled in a long ribbon of cars at the Hilltop location we were entertained. The police were placing two suspects under arrest just inches from our windows.

    What luck!

    “What are they doing, Kerry?” asked my granddaughter,  transfixed by the drama.

    “They’re making the bad guys put their hands on the truck so they can pat them down and make sure they don’t have guns.” (more…)

  • The COVID Restrictions Have Been Lifted!

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    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    We now have been a week without state-imposed COVID restrictions. No social distancing. No restrictions on venues opening. I can go to my grandson’s graduation tonight. Kerry can go to the beach without a mask on. We all can go to Flying Squirrels’ games.

    As of May 28, the Governor lifted all social distancing and venue restrictions, two weeks sooner than last promised. But, you would not know that from Bacon’s Rebellion, on which folks have been quick to criticize the Governor. What about all those predictions that “King Ralph” would find some pretense to continue with the restrictions?

    By the way, after a rocky start, Virginia is among the top states in the country in the COVID vaccination rate.

  • First Get Kids in School, Then Offer Educational Theories, Then Pilot Them, and We Might Believe You

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    The wisdom of Occam’s razor has seldom been more fully realized than in modern educational theory.

    Friar William of Ockham in the 13th century proposed that simpler theories are preferable to more complex ones because they tend to be more testable. And usually more accurate  It has been true a long time.

    The left hates that.

    I have wondered for years why educational theory has avoided pilot studies. I think I have figured it out. Educational theories are the least scientific of disciplines. Education schools are historically the least disciplined of researchers, and favor full immersion instead of field trials.

    They cannot stand pilot tests that will not only possibly, but likely disprove their theories.

    One example close to all of us is that the ed school prescriptions for drastic overhauls of educational policy do not seem ever to reference the enormous amount of data that we have on Virginia schools. (more…)

  • Progressives’ Justice: Criminalize Small Business, Descriminalize Theft

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Worth prosecuting anymore?

    by Hans Bader

    Progressive “reform” prosecutors want more criminal prosecutions of businesses for red-tape violations and so-called “wage theft,” and fewer felony prosecutions of criminals for stealing from businesses and homeowners (such as shoplifting, which some progressive prosecutors have essentially stopped prosecuting, resulting in an explosion of shoplifting).

    Prosecuting “wage theft” was one of the campaign planks of Arlington, Va., Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, a progressive Democrat who unseated a moderate Democrat incumbent in the 2019 primary election. In her campaign, she said she wanted to prioritize prosecuting “wage theft,” even while complaining that Arlington prosecuted felonies at a much higher rate than neighboring jurisdictions like Alexandria. She also called for more use of “restorative justice” as a response to crimes committed by people with social or economic disadvantages. (more…)

  • The Fix Was In: Burying the Athlete Issue

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    VMI heroes. (Photo credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch)

    by James A. Bacon

    Ascertaining the state of race relations is a tricky task in these politically polarized times. The job is made all the more difficult at the Virginia Military Institute by a factor that exists few other places: tension between athletes and other students. Athletes enjoy exemptions from participation in parades, inspections and the rigors of the infamous Rat Line that other cadets do not. As it happens, 60% of all African American cadets at VMI are athletes. Does the animus that athletes sometimes feel from their peers stem from racism, a resentment of their privileged status, their perceived lack of commitment to the VMI system, or perhaps all of the above?

    VMI rats

    The difficulty of disentangling race and athletics emerged as a key issue in the Barnes & Thornburg investigation into racism at VMI. A cadet quoted in the Final Report explained the tension this way: “There is a divide in this school. However, it is not a race divide but a divide between athletes and nonathletes. The athletes do not experience the ratline the way we do, and they get special treatment throughout their cadetship. This leads to them never really becoming a true part of the corp[s] unless they actively seek to do so.” (more…)

  • Clean Virginia Dissed Again, Dem Takes Dom Cash

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    An image of Hala Alaya’s answer to a question on Clean Virginia’s candidate questionnaire, released by it in response to her breaking of that pledge.

    by Steve Haner

    Prince William Democrat Hala Ayala, who had pledged not to accept campaign contributions from Dominion Energy Virginia and took money instead from its opponents, has now accepted $100,000 from the regulated monopoly. Heads are exploding.

    Del. Haya Ayala, D-Prince William

    The anti-Dominion activist group Clean Virginia had given her $25,000 in her bid for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor.  Now is has announced it will dump $125,000 into a last-ditch digital campaign to defeat her in the June 8 primary. Early voting in the primary has been underway for weeks, however. Early voters upset by this cannot call their ballots back.

    Final pre-primary finance reports were released early in the week and word of the contribution quickly hit the Twitterverse, then sparked stories in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch and Virginia Mercury. (more…)

  • North Carolina AG takes on Hospitals That Fail to Publish Shoppable Prices

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Attorney General Josh Stein of North Carolina, fresh off killing the Sentara-Cone merger, on his very busy day yesterday had an Assistant AG send a letter to North Carolina hospitals.

    It demanded that hospitals comply with federal hospital pricing transparency regulations that require that hospitals make publicly available a machine-readable file containing a list of prices for all items and services as well as a consumer-friendly list with prices for shoppable services.

    He told them that he looked forward to their cooperation — by the end of the month.

    This is the second time today I have wished Virginia had an Attorney General.

  • North Carolina AG Investigation Quashes Sentara/Cone Health Merger

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    In the big merger equivalent of “spend more time with our families,” Cone and Sentara issued a joint statement on June 2 that they “have jointly decided not to move forward” with their planned merger.

    “As this work progressed, we realized that each of our communities and key stakeholders require support and commitments from our respective organizations that are better served by remaining independent.

    “The decision was a difficult one, but both organizations remain committed to advancing our common goal of providing outstanding care for our respective communities.”

    There was that.

    But then we discovered that North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein — unlike Virginia, North Carolina actually has an AG — clearly threatened to sue to stop it. (more…)

  • Vicky Manning: Tuesday’s School Board Meeting Was Illegal

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Victoria Manning

    by Kerry Dougherty

    There was an empty chair at Tuesday’s Virginia Beach School Board meeting.

    Not that the public could see. It appears the meeting wasn’t televised.

    That seat should have been occupied by Vicky Manning, one of a handful of good government types on that alarmingly woke body.

    Manning refused to attend because she believed the meeting was illegal.

    In fact, Manning is so incensed by what she says was a violation of Virginia’s open meeting laws that she’s filed court papers asking that the actions taken on Tuesday be nullified. Those actions include a last-minute schedule change for next week’s meeting when a resolution banning Critical Race Theory is expected to be debated.

    Manning’s attorney, Tim Anderson, told me that a hearing is scheduled on the matter in General District Court on Monday morning. (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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