About
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.Fund the Rebellion
Shake up the status quo!
Your contributions will be used to pay for faster download speeds and grow readership. Make a one-time donation by credit card or contribute a small sum monthly.
Can't wait until tomorrow for your Bacon's Rebellion fix?
Search Bacon’s Rebellion
Content Categories
Archives
The Jefferson Council: Protecting Thomas Jefferson’s Legacy at the University of Virginia
Want More Unfiltered News?
Check out the Bacon’s Rebellion News Feed, linking to raw and unexpurgated news and commentary from Virginia blogs, governments, trade associations, and advocacy groups.
Submit op-eds
We welcome a broad spectrum of views. If you would like to submit an op-ed for publication in Bacon’s Rebellion, contact editor/publisher Jim Bacon at jabacon[at]baconsrebellion.com (substituting “@” for “at”).
Forgot Your Password?
Shoot me an email and I'll generate a new password for you.-
Recent Posts
- Bacon Meme of the Week
- Ready for Taxes on Netflix, NFL Sunday Ticket?
- Keffiyehs, Yarmulkes and “Belonging” at UVA
- Public School Enrollments Still Declining
- The Incredibly Shrinking Newspaper
- Diamonds Aren’t Forever
- Will Democrats Shut Down State Over Tax Hike?
- Fairfax Spends More, Teaches Less
- Jeanine’s Memes
- Bacon Meme of the Week
- What the School-Discipline Meltdown Looked like in Newport News
- UVA Report Finds No Pay Inequity for Black, Hispanic Profs
- Utilities Will Gamble on Nukes With Your $$$
- Are Nonchalant Adults Responsible For School Shootings?
- Fighting Over the Check at the Green Power Cafe
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Nooses, Masks and Double Standards
by James A. Bacon
In the fall of 2022 a furtive figure was caught on videotape draping a noose around the Homer statue on the Grounds of the University of Virginia. The university administration immediately declared the act a hate crime. University police launched an investigation, enlisting the FBI to help in the search for the perpetrator. A $10,000 award was offered to anyone who could provide more information.
“The facts available indicate that this was an act intended to intimidate members of this community,” said President Jim Ryan in a letter to the community. “A noose is a recognizable and well-known symbol of violence, most closely associated with the racially motivated lynching of African Americans.”
A noose hung from a tree branch is indeed a recognizable symbol of lynching. The meaning when hung around the neck of a statue of an ancient Greek poet, however, was not self-evident (as we noted at the time). Indeed, when the offender was discovered, it turned out he hadn’t been targeting African Americans at all. Irate at how the Homer statue placed a hand on the head of a naked youth, the Albemarle County man declared that it “glorified pedophilia.” Local authorities charged him with intimidation anyway.
That was then.
The day after Hamas’ October 7 terrorist assault on Israel, the Students for Justice in Palestine at UVA issued a statement declaring that “colonized people” had the right to resist oppression “by whatever means they deem necessary.” A poster promoting the October 12 march showed a Hamas bulldozer plowing through an Israeli security fence. “Decolonization is not a metaphor,” the poster said. Later that month, SJP held two rallies on the Grounds. Marchers waved Palestinian flags and chanted, “Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea.” Some insisted that the slogan was just a call for solidarity with oppressed Palestinians, but many Jews interpreted it as advocating the eradication of the Israeli state and, in the context of the Hamas massacres, the slaughter of the Jewish population.
Continue reading
Posted in Culture wars, Education (higher ed), Uncategorized
Tagged James A. Bacon, University of Virginia
Musical Chairs
by Dick Hall-Sizemore
One of the most potent powers of the Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates is the assigning of members to committees and designating the chair of each committee. He has sole prerogative over this important function.
Speaker-designate Don Scott (D-Portsmouth) has broken a little with tradition (in addition to the other ways he is a “first”). In the past, a Speaker would wait until a day or two after the Session had convened to release the committee appointments list. In recent days, Scott has been releasing the names of committee chairs, one by one. Perhaps he is hoping to get some publicity for the new chairs, but, so far, the press has taken notice of only one, Sam Rasoul of Roanoke.
These are the chairs named so far:
- Sam Rasoul (Roanoke)–Education
- Vivian Watts (Fairfax)–Finance
- Patrick Hope (Arlington)–Courts of Justice
- Jeion Ward (Hampton)–Labor and Commerce
- Mark Sickles (Fairfax)–Health and Human Services
- Luke Torian (Prince William)–Appropriations
With one exception, none of these appointments is a surprise. Continue reading
Most ‘Diverse’ General Assembly in Virginia History Takes Over in January
The new post-redistricting Virginia General Assembly that will take control in January, probably with a Democrat majority, will be the most ethnically, racially and religiously diverse group of legislators in Richmond in history, and about ¼ will be female.
In addition, some 52 of the 140 members of the General Assembly will be totally new to the State Capitol – most never having served in any elected office before.
This make-up is largely due to the huge number of retirements from the last GA, which was primarily forced by bipartisan redistricting in 2021, where a number of incumbents were placed in the same district and chose not to run against each other for re-election.
Whites will be the minority in the Democrat Caucus in each house, which also could be a first. The House of Delegates as a whole will be 67% white, down from 78% after the 2017 “Blue wave” elections, when Republicans maintained control by a coin toss – and that’s because the overwhelming number of Republicans are white.
In the State Senate, 30 of the 40 senators will be white in 2024, largely due to the Republican presence.
This analysis, based on examining the biographies of the new GA members on Ballotpedia, shows the following breakdown, though one race (the 82nd house race between incumbent Republican Kim Taylor and Democrat challenger Kim Adams) is headed to a recount with Taylor ahead by 78 votes Continue reading
Another Local Newspaper Shuts Down
by Dick Hall-Sizemore
A local newspaper closing down is not really news these days. However, the circumstances surrounding the News & Record in South Boston in Southside Virginia and its shutting down are unusual. In addition, the news is personal to me.
For as long as I can remember, the South Boston/Halifax County area has had two newspapers. The Halifax Gazette, later known as the Gazette-Virginian, was the dominant paper in terms of circulation. The South Boston News and the Halifax County Record-Advertiser were essentially the same newspaper, published by the same folks and put out on two different days of the week.
For about a year, I delivered the News and the Record-Advertiser to houses in about half the town of Halifax on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. It was the first regular-paying job I had. I have a lot of fond memories of delivering those papers, although being regularly chased by a large German shepherd is not one of them. I knew the family that bought the paper after I had gotten married and moved away. The current editor is too young for me to have known him, but I knew his older brother; his father was my midget football coach; I remember his unbelievably calm mother coming into the grocery store accompanied with a rowdy bunch of four or more kids; my wife taught one of the boys in seventh grade. Continue reading
Miyares Calls for Moral Clarity Regarding Pro-Hamas Demonstrators
by James A. Bacon
On the evening of Aug. 11, 2017, more than 300 torch-bearing white supremacists marched down the Lawn at the University of Virginia chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” The phrase is not self-explanatory, but the marchers were widely thought to be proclaiming that Jews would not displace Christian Whites as the dominant element of society. The white supremacists were not calling for the slaughter of Jews. Rather, embracing the rhetoric of victimhood and grievance that has so saturated 21st-century America, they were expressing a yearning for the good-old-days when Christian Whites ran the show.
Fast forward to Oct. 24, 2023. Hundreds of demonstrators marched down the Lawn waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea.” Their meaning was crystal clear. They weren’t merely vilifying Jews. Just days after the horrific Hamas attacks on Israel, the protesters were demanding the eradication of the Israeli state, and they were endorsing terror against Jewish civilians as a means of achieving it. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, they were advocating genocide.
In 2017 University officials quickly, forcefully, and quite correctly condemned the antisemitism of the Unite the Right rally. In 2023, the response to the Palestinians has been muted. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized