Bacon's Rebellion

  • Who Does UVa’s Alumni Association Serve?

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    As the anti-Vietnam War protests were peaking in May 1970, board members of the University of Virginia Alumni Association were alarmed by student unrest at their alma mater. They took the unprecedented step of sending a telegram to the parents of every undergraduate student and urged them to speak to their sons (almost all UVa students then were male) and call upon them to “act thoughtfully and responsibly.” The language couldn’t have been milder, but it prompted a backlash against the alumni association that lingers to this day.

    The current edition of Virginia, the alumni association magazine, devotes eight full pages to the episode. Other articles dwell on the travails of UVa’s first Black students, the administration’s response to the COVID epidemic, and the activities of two committees: one to reassess names and memorials on the grounds, and one to craft a statement on free speech and expression.

    Any one of these topics is a legitimate subject of inquiry. The Vietnam war was a tumultuous time. The first Blacks at UVa did encounter hardships. COVID policy is a pressing concern. And other universities are reviewing names and memorials. What’s the big deal if UVa does, too? (more…)

  • Martinsville and the Reversion – Part 2

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Dick Hall-Sizemore yesterday gave us a rather bloodless, bureaucratic, and relatively positive description of the upcoming shotgun marriage between Martinsville and Henry County. He could not seem to understand the angst on the part of Henry County.

    I’ll try to help him out.

    It was good to have the historical perspective that Dick always brings, but I am going to take the opportunity to offer a bit of the human side of that merger.

    First, these are two profoundly poor areas. The people, white and black, are also much less healthy than the rest of the state. The tale, however, doesn’t stop there.

    Selected differences

    Martinsville

    • The 2020 population of Martinsville was 13,821. The median age was 42.7 compared to the state average of 37.8. The population was 53.5% female. Percentage in civilian workforce 54.9%.
    • The median household income in Martinsville, VA in 2019 was $35,405, which was 115.9% less than the median annual income of $76,456 across the entire state of Virginia.
    • The FY 2021 budget for Martinsville was $103 million, of which $27.6 million is school-related for 1,881 pupils. Totals: $7,452 per citizen, $14,673 per pupil. Black student 2019 SOL pass rates: Math, 74%, Reading, 59%.
    • Persons under 18 years: 25.4%
    • Persons over 65 years: 18.1% because of much lower life expectancy
    • Building permits 2020: 1

    (more…)

  • Rude and Deluded

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    James A. Bacon

    Rudeness in America, as ranked by Zippia.com.

    by James A. Bacon

    The jokers at Zippia.com, the self-described career experts, are at it again. Following the ranking they published last week that declared Virginia to be the “grossest” state in the union, they have devised a ranking of the “rudest” states. I have news for those of you who thought of Virginians as courteous and genteel, you’re deluding yourself. Virginia ranked No. 3 among the rudest states — ahead of New York!

    As anyone with a lick of sense knows, it’s all due to Northern Virginia. It is obvious to me what has occurred — the rudest residents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut moved to Nova, thus lowering the rudeness quotients of those states and elevating the quotient for Virginia!

    I have irrefutable proof of this proposition, as I shall explain below. (more…)

  • More on the Martinsville Reversion

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Uptown Martinsville

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Like Jim Sherlock, the decision of the city of Martinsville to revert to town status caught my interest.

    There are several  clarifications, as well as context, needed in response to his post on this subject, which would be too long for a comment. Therefore, I have decided to use a separate article.

    To begin with, Martinsville has not led the way in its decision to revert to a town. As noted by several commentators,  the City of South Boston, now the town of South Boston in Halifax County, was the first city to revert to town status. The reversion was effective in 1995. The city of Clifton Forge (Alleghany County) followed in 2001 and lastly, there was the city of Bedford (Bedford County) in 2013. All three former cities are now towns. Here is the list of reversions, along with the reports of the Commission on Local Government regarding these reversions.

    For detailed analyses of the reversion process in Virginia and how it works, see here and here. (more…)

  • Yeah, That Apology Was Called For

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    James A. Bacon

    Sam Rasoul. Photo Credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch

    by James A. Bacon

    I have zero respect for people who grovel with apologies to perpetually offended snowflakes. But every once in a while, a statement of regret for words poorly chosen is fully warranted.

    During a recent debate of Democratic Party candidates for lieutenant governor, anchor Dave Lucas with Washington-area TV station ABC7-WJLA addressed a question to Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, whose fundraising has called upon out-of-state donors with ties to Muslim advocacy groups.

    Asked Lucas: “Can you assure Virginians, if you’re elected, you’ll represent all of them regardless of faith or beliefs?” (more…)

  • The One-Sided Decision in the Reversion of Martinsville – the Start of a Trend?

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    The Martinsville Bulletin, perhaps the best remaining newspaper in the state for local coverage, published a must-read article on the reversion of Martinsville from city to town and joining Henry County.

    Overview

    Martinsville’s current city logo, above, was perhaps prescient. Martinsville has been hemorrhaging population, losing more than 18% in the past 10 years, and was financially stressed before that loss.

    Reversion in Virginia is a one-handed game. The small cities hold all of the cards.

    Henry County is vocally opposed but feels helpless to stop it. The Henry County Supervisors voted to skip the legal process to avoid the costs. They called the reversion MOU “the best we could hope for and voted for it to avoid years of court battles”.

    They are right  What they avoided was the special court that would have overseen the reversion under Virginia law had they not come to an agreement. The county would have been a defendant in a trial.

    The rules for that court specified in that law give the small cities every advantage in a trial. That same special court would have overseen the transition for a decade. Every decision.

    The changes reversion portends for city and county residents are massive. Now that his has happened, does anyone think this will be the last reversion? (more…)

  • Citizen Oversight of Police Off to Poor Start

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    James A. Bacon

    Richmond Police Chief Gerald Smith

    by James A. Bacon

    Setting up a citizen review board to provide oversight of the police is one of those ideas that sounds better in theory than it works in practice.

    Police officers are human. Like anyone else they can make mistakes. Also, being human, they look out for one another. When a policeman kills someone in the line of duty, can citizens count on the internal police department review to be objective? Surely it makes sense to create a mechanism to review the reviewers. Checks and balances — that’s part of the American way.

    But in in the real world, there must be a modicum of trust and good will for a review board to work. And the process of creating such a board in the City of Richmond is off to a rocky start.

    In late March, the city set up a nine-person task force to set up a Civil Review Board empowered to investigate allegations of police misconduct. The task force will recommend who should serve on the board, how it would function, and how much it would cost. As described by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the board would function independently, with its own budget and its own investigators to complete probes outside the police department’s chain of command. (more…)

  • John Warner’s Verse of Manner and Deed

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    James A. Bacon

    by Chris Saxman

    It’s not so much what you do, but the manner in which you do it.

    John Warner has shown us, once again, that we really are better than we let on. The praise of Warner’s tenure as our United States Senator has been universal and consistent – John Warner was a great politician.

    A statesman.

    Virginia’s gentle man.

    There have been many wonderful remembrances of him. Read them all.

    After the news broke yesterday, I recounted my own with fondness, many smiles, and several laughs. That was a great trip down Memory Lane, but it wasn’t sad.

    Then I remembered that I was having lunch with Frank Atkinson in just a few hours and that we would be nerding out on the life and times of John Warner. I mean Atkinson literally wrote the books about modern Virginia politics. (more…)

  • Drive-By Shooter Needs a Long Spell in a Cell

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Call me an idealist if you will, but I believe a mother and her daughter ought to be able to go to Lynnhaven Mall on a Monday afternoon in September and drive away without taking a bullet to the neck.

    And if someone is convicted of the September 14th shooing of a 33-year-old Beach woman while her 10-year-old daughter watched in horror, I believe that freak ought to spend many years in prison. The second he pulled the trigger he sacrificed his right to live among us.

    Heartless, I know.

    Perhaps you saw the story in The Virginian-Pilot online edition Thursday. At a hearing in Virginia Beach General District Court that day, the shooting victim identified a 21-year-old man — a known gang member, according to prosecutors — of reaching out of a car window and pointing a gun in her direction. (more…)

  • Democrats Fight Back as Boss Bills Cracks Whip

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    Steve Haner

    Michael Bills

    by Steve Haner

    Two Virginia Democrats who have been loyal soldiers in the army to turn Virginia green as well as blue are under attack in the June 8 primary for the sin of accepting campaign donations from Dominion Energy. It doesn’t matter to the attacker – our old friend Clean Virginia — that Dominion is moving in lockstep with the Democrats to undermine Virginia’s reliable generation mix and replace it with expensive and unreliable renewable power.

    The House Democratic Caucus is responding by attacking the “dark money billionaires” who are going after their colleagues. Who? By that they would have to mean that same Clean Virginia, funded mainly by the personal fortune of hedge fund mogul Michael Bills and his wife. The same two people who did more than anybody to give Democrats that majority in the first place.

    More proof, in case you needed it, that it is not your enemies you need to watch in politics but your friends. The Democrats started to lose their grip on this state 20-30 years ago because in their lust for power they fell out among themselves, and here we go again. Bring popcorn.

    The basics: Delegates Steve Heretick, D-Portsmouth and Candi Mundon King, D-Prince William, face primary challengers. The primary challengers have received major funding from something new called Commonwealth Forward PAC. But as The Virginia Star reported this morning, its money actually comes from Bills and Clean Virginia.  (more…)

  • John Warner, Virginian

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    John Warner, who died Tuesday at the age of 94, was an accidental senator.

    Had it not been for the plane crash that killed Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate Richard Obenshain in August of 1978, Warner would have simply been a former Secretary of the Navy who came in second in a bid to get the GOP nomination that year.

    When the small plane went down with the candidate on board, Warner found himself the party’s nominee.

    He was an outsider. But it turned out the man from Middleburg held a trump card:

    Elizabeth Taylor. (more…)

  • No Vaccination Mandates for Community Colleges

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    James A. Bacon

    Glenn Dubois

    by James A. Bacon

    In stark contrast to the University of Virginia, James Madison University, and the College of William & Mary, the Virginia Community College System board has decided not to require students to be vaccinated in order to attend classes in the fall.

    “I believe it is in the best interests of our faculty, staff, and students to encourage everyone to get their COVID-19 vaccine,” said Chancellor Glenn Dubois in a prepared statement today. “However, we will not require an individual to be vaccinated to attend or to work at one of our colleges.”

    Community colleges find themselves in a different situation than the four-year residential colleges. First, as Dubois said, community colleges don’t have residence halls. Second, they lack the public health infrastructure such as hospitals and clinics that make it feasible to support densely populated on-campus living arrangements, including the creation and protection of personal student health data like vaccination records. Third, Dubois said that mandating proof of vaccination might create an “unintended barrier” to student enrollment. 

    Still, the community colleges’ decision could be seen as an implicit rebuke to four-year colleges that are mandating vaccinations. (more…)

  • Educate Leaders, Not Snowflakes

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    James A. Bacon

    by Donald Smith

    “My generation just had thicker skin. These young kids today are getting caught in the moment. They take it more personally,”

    Those are the comments of Ron Carter, the first Black battalion commander at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). Carter was a star basketball player for the Keydets. He was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers, and eventually VMI retired his jersey. He later served as an administrator with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That’s the resume of an adult with accomplishments.

    Those are not the comments you want to hear, if the commenter (Carter, in this case) is commenting on your behavior, judgements and temperament. They are especially not the comments you want to hear if you’re the graduate of an institution that prides itself on training future leaders. A place like VMI.

    I am not a VMI man  I’m a Virginia man; I graduated from the University of Virginia. But for much of my professional career, I’ve either been an Army officer or taught them. For much of the past 20 years, I’ve taught Army lieutenants and captains. And, if I were an VMI graduate, or prospective Keydet, I’d be really concerned about the impact of this past year’s hysteria on my school’s reputation. (more…)

  • Great Moments in Virginia Jurisprudence

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    James A. Bacon

    Arenda Wright Allen

    by Hans Bader

    Shouldn’t a judge at least know what’s in the Constitution, before getting a promotion? Left-wing trial judge Arenda Wright Allen confused the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution in her ruling striking down Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban, noted ABC News. Yet now she is being recommended for a promotion to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, by Virginia Senators Mark Warner (D) and Tim Kaine (D).

    The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that in “a letter Monday the senators recommended U.S. District Court judges Arenda Wright Allen and M. Hannah Lauck and Virginia Solicitor General Toby J. Heytens” for elevation to the Fourth Circuit.

    In 2014, ABC’s Erin Dooley wrote about how Judge Allen attributed a phrase to the Constitution that it doesn’t contain: (more…)

  • Mayor Stoney and His Left-Wing Critics

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    James A. Bacon

    Photo credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch

    by James A. Bacon

    Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney published an op-ed in the New York Times a few days ago defending his actions last summer during the tumultuous protests and riots  following the George Floyd killing. I was thinking of writing a post this morning critiquing the piece from a conservative perspective. But then I read an analysis in the Richmond Times-Dispatch blasting Stoney from a left-wing perspective, and I found that more interesting.

    While Stoney has adopted social-justice rhetoric the past year, by the standard of City of Richmond electoral politics, he is a centrist. During his mayoral re-election campaign last year, he had strong, credible challengers from both the right and left, and he threaded a narrow needle between backing the protesters’ social justice causes while also trying to maintain a semblance of public order. In his NY Times editorial, he focused on his role in removing 14 pieces of Confederate “iconography” from city property and working for racial justice, while apologizing for the “unintentional” release of tear gas during one of the demonstrations.

    The mayor has been criticized from the right for allowing protesters to gather unmolested for months in a virtual police-free zone around the Lee Statue on Monument Avenue even as they harassed and terrified nearby residents. But that was never a consideration for RTD reporters Ali Rockett and Chris Suarez in their take-down of the Stoney column. (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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