Bacon's Rebellion

  • Where’s the Vaccine Outreach to Southwest Virginia?

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    It turns out that blacks and Hispanics are not the only population sub-groups in Virginia who are resisting the idea of getting vaccinated against COVID-19. So are rural, non-college-educated whites in Appalachia, reports the Roanoke Times.

    Hesitancy has dropped among blacks and Hispanics, but concerns among rural whites have increased that the vaccine was rushed to market and has widespread side effects. The problem has gotten so pronounced that a team of Virginia Tech researchers is working to determine if social media-driven misinformation fuels the resistance.

    The Northam administration moved aggressively to address vaccine hesitancy among blacks and Hispanics by hiring marketing firms to push the pro-vaccine message in minority communities and setting up mobile and pop-up clinics in minority communities were vaccination rates were low. In Danville, the administration went so far as to ban out-of-towners from utilizing a pop-up clinic that was meant to serve local minorities even though it was administering only a fraction of the number of vaccines it had the capacity for.

    So far, Southwest Virginia has seen no comparable demographically targeted initiatives from the Virginia Department of Health. (more…)

  • Comrades of Convenience

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Opportunists? Or bosom buddies? You decide.

    On Thursday morning, Gov. Ralph Northam and former Gov. Terry McAuliffe were palling around town — Norfolk — together.

    Best of friends. Comrades, really.

    Shoot, Northam passed up the historic opportunity to endorse one of the two black women — State Sen. Jennifer McClellan and former Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy — to support McAuliffe for the Democratic nomination for governor. You know, the guy who violated Virginia’s constitution by issuing blanket restoration of rights to 206,000 felons in a shameless attempt to get more criminals on the 2016 voter rolls in time to vote for his old crony, Hillary Clinton.

    The Virginia Supreme Court slapped McAuliffe for his illegal acts and he was forced to restore rights the legal way: One at a time. (more…)

  • A Cautionary Tale of Rural Healthcare and a Peek Inside a Health System Board Meeting

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Revised 12 April at 1:34 PM

    I ran across a fascinating story buried deep in a massive Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services (CMS) database on Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) inspection reports.

    The report I will share with you is a cautionary tale both of rural healthcare and of the way hospitals view and treat ASCs, even when they own them. The ASC in this case is in Virginia, the hospital that owns it is in West Virginia.

    Nobody told the Virginia Department of Health or Medicare, which license and certify it respectively. This is the story of a VDH surprise inspection at the end of November 2020.  It was indeed a surprise – to the inspectors.  The ASC was closed, and had been closed a long time.

    But it revealed a great deal about rural hospitals, ASCs and the business calculations of integrated health systems.

    It also revealed that antitrust law is not always in the forefront of the decision trees of the boards of non-profit health systems.

    (more…)

  • Maybe VMI Needs to Close on Our Terms

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    James A. Bacon

    A modest proposal

    by Shaun Kenney

    The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is a hallowed institution to many. VMI men have a certain command presence that is rooted in realism yet rarely if ever accepts impossible as a status quo.

    The things that make VMI such an institution are the intangibles. VMI’s storied Honor Code, her graduates such as General George S. Patton, the 1864 Battle of New Market, and the gallows humor that seems to prevail among most alumni. “They can’t kill you and they can’t send you back to the rat line” is a common refrain

    This thicket of intangibles — honor and tradition — are what makes institutions such as VMI unique and truly Virginian. (more…)

  • COPN Drives Richmond’s Tuckahoe Orthopedics to Be Acquired to Survive

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    sherlockj

    Bon Secours’ St. Mary’s Hospital, in the same medical complex as Tuckahoe Orthopaedics.

    by James C. Sherlock

    This is pretty straightforward.

    COPN is driving a physician shortage in Virginia because doctors are not granted the independence to practice the way they want to with the facilities and equipment they need and that in turn is depressing their incomes. Reversing Robin Hood, COPN takes from the physicians and gives to the hospitals.

    I offer in this essay a direct example.

    Pre-COVID projection physician shortages in Virginia

    The Medical Society of Virginia is of the opinion that: 

    “Virginia’s COPN has failed to improve access, control costs, and ensure quality. … COPN laws prevent private health care providers from competing with larger providers to bring patients the same service at a lower cost in a more convenient location.”

    A story yesterday in the Richmond Times Dispatch announced that Richmond-based Tuckahoe Orthopedics is getting a new owner, Bon Secours. Bon Secours operates five hospitals in the Richmond area.

    (more…)

  • Driving While Black

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Photo credit: Pope County Tribune

    By Dick Hall-Sizemore

    If anyone ever doubted there was a need for society to address the problem of police officers stopping Black drivers, a recent event in the town of Windsor should dispel those doubts.

    The incident is reported in today’s on-line Virginian-Pilot. Like incidents at Virginia institutions of higher education that have been recently discussed on this blog, the narrative is based on side’s story. In this case, the description comes from a lawsuit filed in federal court by the Black driver. Unlike those other incidents, however, there is graphic police body camera footage that backs up the Black driver’s story.

    For those who do not have access to the Virginian-Pilot with the accompanying body cam footage, I will summarize the incident: (more…)

  • Kings Dominion Stays a Step Ahead of the Minimum Wage

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    James A. Bacon

    Bridgett Bywater, the new GM at Kings Dominion.

    by James A. Bacon

    Virginia’s $9.50-per-hour minimum wage will go into effect May 1, but it won’t have much impact on King’s Dominion, which expects to hire more than 2,000 seasonal workers, mostly young people, this season. The Hanover County amusement park plans to boost its minimum wage to $13 per hour, reports Virginia Business. The enterprise also is hiring 80 new full-time positions with wages and benefits starting at $16 an hour in culinary and operations roles.

    Hopefully, the flap over the minimum wage in Virginia will prove to be much ado about nothing, as market forces in a fast-recovering economy push up wages faster than the General Assembly can jack up the minimum. In 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 70,000 of Virginia’s 1,978,000 workers were paid the $7.50 minimum wage. Presumably, a significant number more were paid less than $9.50 and will benefit from the wage increase. That’s the up-side of the mandated wage boost.

    What we don’t know is how many workers will lose their jobs as employers decide they don’t add enough value to the enterprise to justify the higher wage, or, in the longer run, invest in automation. Bacon’s Rebellion will stay alert for signs of how the minimum is impacting “marginalized” employees, such as minorities, teenagers, and rural workers. (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

    Photo credit: Washington Post

    The Washington Post has redeemed itself (if only ever-so-briefly). Writer Aaron Hutcherson describes the best way to cook crispy bacon. He truly gets what bacon is all about: “For me, the epitome of this cured pork product is audible crispiness. You might be a fan of some chew or tenderness, which is fine by me because that’s your business, but I want there to be a snap and a crunch each time a strip passes my lips.”

    — JAB

  • When “Words Are Violence,” Only One Side Gets to Speak

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    James A. Bacon

    If you’re not woke, you’re a fascist.

    by James A. Bacon

    Victoria Spiotto was brought up in a conservative, religious family of Italian descent in Loudoun County.  It was at the University of Virginia where she found her political identity as a conservative. One day in her third year, she was walking the grounds when she came across a Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) table displaying a 9/11 memorial. She found the club appealing, and started learning about thinkers to whom she’d never been exposed to before — the philosophers and thought leaders of conservatism. By her fourth year, she was leader of the club, determined to grow the organization.

    Conservatives are mostly invisible at UVa, and they have few means of connecting. Spiotto wanted to let people know the group was out there, that YAF was a club where students of a conservative/libertarian stripe could find like-minded people and make friends. So, she began organizing a series of initiatives to get noticed. “It wasn’t a call to fight.” The idea, she says, was to “stand your ground. Don’t compromise on the truth you believe in.”

    YAF now may be the most vilified student organization at UVa. The hostility is unrelenting. Spiotto and her buddies don’t worry for their physical safety. But left-wing students take down their signs and rain down vitriol on social media. Student Council leaders stifle dissent. (more…)

  • Et Tu, Tech?

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    I have long thought of Virginia Tech as the most tolerant of free speech and expression among Virginia’s larger universities. There have been minor eruptions of cancel culture, but nothing as debilitating as the examples we’ve documented elsewhere. Looks like I was wrong.

    Speech First, a nonprofit group working to combat free speech restrictions in higher-ed, has filed a lawsuit in the Roanoke federal district court, charging that the administration has created a series of “content-restricting policies and processes that allow the university to police and censor speech they deem ‘biased’ or ‘unwanted.’”

    According to the Speech First press release, the lawsuit challenges four specific policies that chill student speech: the University’s discriminatory-harassment policy, its bias-related incidents, its computer policy, and a requirement that students obtain administrative approval to distribute flyers. (more…)

  • Cronyism Is Back in Virginia Beach

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    You know what they say, it’s easier to say you’re sorry than ask permission.

    That’s especially true in Virginia Beach. If you’re a well-connected developer, that is.

    Some of us had such high hopes that city officials would stop acting like poodles for the developers now that elections had given us a new mayor and knocked a couple of cronies off city council. They, in turn, had hired a city manager from Ohio with no local connections.

    We were naive.

    Looks like the owners of the Cavalier Hotel are once again enjoying Favored Developer Status. (more…)

  • The New Normal

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    We are used to hearing and seeing weather temperatures reported as being some number of degrees above or below normal. The definition of “normal” has changed this year.

    The National Weather Service defines “normal” climate conditions as a 30-year average. New Climate Normals are calculated every 10 years. Before this year, the 30-year time frame was 1981-2010. Now, the “normal” time frame is 1991-2020. As a result, “normal” temperatures have shifted upwards.

    Because we are in an era in which climate conditions are shifting, the National Weather Service is adjusting its reporting by providing alternative definitions of “normal.” In response to user groups, it is releasing monthly “Supplemental Temperature Normals.” These reports show averages over 5-, 10-,15-, and 20-year periods, in addition to the traditional 30-year normal. They also show “normal” calculated differently from a straight average. These alternative methods are called “Optional Climate Normal” and the “Hinge Fit.”

    Therefore, when it gets hot in the coming months and some folks on this blog, who are not overly concerned about climate change, say that temperatures are not that different from the norm, just remember that normal ain’t what it used to be.

  • Sentara CEO Kern Among 10 Highest Paid Nonprofit Executives in America

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Sentara CEO Howard Kern

    by James C. Sherlock

    Sentara CEO Howard Kern is well paid. We will compare his compensation to those of the highest paid non-profit CEOs in the nation and to the CEO of the largest for-profit healthcare system in the country. Turns out he is extremely well paid.  

    We should all have his agent.  

    Many are unlikely to have thought about it, but non-profits have no stockholders and their boards officially work for the public. As citizens, we may wish for a better board at Sentara, but there is no mechanism for removing them except by government action.  

    That is worthy of consideration by the government of Virginia.

    Nonprofit CEO compensation comparisons. I examined a survey that listed the ten highest paid nonprofit CEOs of 2019.  Seven of those ten were healthcare CEO’s. The compensation packages of those seven ranged between almost $26 million and $8.3 million. 

    Mr. Kern’s compensation package was reported as $8,053,745 on Sentara Healthcare’s IRS Form 990. But Mr. Kern’s 2019 compensation did not really miss the cut overall.If they had known the numbers when it was conducted, that survey team would have listed him as the tenth highest paid non-profit executive in America.  (more…)

  • The Bureaucratic Banality of Academic Oppression

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Two-and-a-half years ago, Kieran Ravi Bhattacharya, a medical school student at the University of Virginia, attended a session on “microaggressions” in which psychology professor Beverly Colwell Adams gave a presentation about her research. In what he thought to be a collegial manner, Bhattacharya challenged her analysis.

    The challenge was not well received. Indeed, other participants in the session deemed his questions disrespectful. There followed a sequence of events in which Bhattacharya was investigated by the Academic Standards and Achievement Committee for unprofessional behavior, was told to submit to psychological evaluation, was suspended, was branded as a threat to the university community, was banned from the university grounds, and ultimately was expelled.

    Bhattacharya has detailed his side of the story in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Charlottesville against the University of Virginia and various university officials. The defendants filed for a motion to dismiss, but Judge Norman K. Moon ruled that the case should proceed. I base the account that follows upon the details contained in Moon’s ruling.

    That ruling presents only one side of the story, Bhattacharya’s, and has to be considered in that light. But Bhattacharya version is well documented with emails and audio recordings. If substantially correct, the implications for freedom of thought and expression at the University of Virginia are extremely troubling. The lawsuit opens a window into the internal workings of Virginia’s flagship university. Free thought and expression are stifled not only by the widely recognized phenomena of doctrinaire faculty and Twitter Outrage Mobs, but by administrators acting through the university’s clunky bureaucratic machinery. (more…)

  • Virginia’s Lt. Gov. and Emmett Till

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Justin Fairfax

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Justin Fairfax is a deeply unserious man with an inflated sense of his own importance.

    On Tuesday night, as he shared a Virginia State University stage with four other Democrats who are competing for the nomination for governor, Fairfax demonstrated that he has no sense of proportion and little understanding of history, and will say almost anything to boost his chances of becoming Virginia’s next governor.

    Fairfax is apparently still smarting over the fact that most of his fellow Democrats demanded his resignation after two women — one a Duke classmate of his, another a political science professor — accused him of sexual assault.

    Following Democratic tradition begun by Ralph Northam and continued by Andrew Cuomo, Fairfax proclaimed his innocence and stubbornly stayed in office.

    But on the debate stage he lashed out at all of his opponents, especially Terry McAuliffe. (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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