Author: James A. Bacon
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Where Learning Meets Exercise
Incorporating daily physical activity into classroom routines delivers a public policy twofer: It promotes learning and it helps combat obesity. Says Science Daily, citing recent classroom studies: “Physical education and academic instruction need not be mutually exclusive.” As part of its commitment to combating childhood obesity in Central Virginia, Bon Secours Virginia Health System will…
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Short Lines Draw the Short Stick
by James A. Bacon Pity Virginia’s short-line railroads. There are nine of them, they serve 150 industrial customers and they operate 500 miles of track, hauling products from peanuts and lumber to stone and steel. But they are no match for the big hogs on the farm when it comes to grubbing for state and…
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Union Executive Resigns from MWAA
Slowly but surely, Governor Bob McDonnell is establishing more authority over the unruly Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority board of directors. Dennis L. Martire, a thorn in McDonnell’s side for more than a year, has announced his resignation from board effective October 17 in a deal reached with the administration. Said McDonnell in a press release:…
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Bacon Bits from the September CTB Meeting
Reporting from the Commonwealth Transportation Board meeting in Winchester: Quote of the day: Think the McDonnell administration isn’t doing enough to address Northern Virginia’s transportation needs? Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton has this response: “Eighty percent of the construction work going on in the Washington region is occurring in Northern Virginia.” Oddity of the day: We’re all familiar, or…
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The Great Re-Migration and the Coming Realignment of African-American Voters
In a reversal of the Jim Crow-era “great migration,” African-Americans are leaving failed cities in the north and returning to the South, writes Daniel Disalvo in a recent City Journal essay. But they’re not moving back to the poor, rural counties their ancestors hailed from, nor are they moving back to the inner city. The…
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Ballot Referenda: Virginia Could Do Better
Periodically, Virginians are called upon to vote on proposed constitutional amendment on topics ranging from taxes to eminent domain. Sometimes the proposals are clear, sometimes the amendments are so obscure and the language so tortured that I have no idea what I’m voting on. As someone who blogs about Virginia public policy for a living,…
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Talking the Talk, Walking the WalkUp
Momentum is shifting decisively from the traditional model of auto-centric development associated with “suburban sprawl” to WalkUps, the term that urbanist Christopher B. Leinberger has coined for Walkable Urban Places. Not only that, contends Leinberger in a new paper, “D.C.: The WalkUP Wake-Up Call,” but the Washington region stands at the vanguard of the national…
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A Small Victory for Virginia in the Space Race
Awesome! The Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (VCSFA) has inked a deal with Dulles-based Orbital Sciences Corporation under which the state of Virginia will fund completion of improvements to the Wallops Island space-launch facility and Orbital will launch 10 Antares rocket missions from it. The rocket launches include one test flight, one demonstration flight and…
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Eating the World’s Most Delicious Philly Cheesesteak at the Reading Terminal Market
by James A. Bacon When the Bacon family visited Philadelphia this weekend to watch the Eagles play the Baltimore Ravens, there was only one thing I wanted out of the trip. I had to chow down on an authentic Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwich. I’d tasted ersatz cheesesteak hoagies in Virginia but that was like ordering grits……
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Decline of White Patriarchal Privilege at UVa?
by James A. Bacon The privilege enjoyed by middle-aged white males in American society is a source of great consternation to liberals and progressives everywhere. Ironically, the places where middle-aged white male privilege runs the deepest is in the very set of institutions that decries middle-aged white privilege the loudest, those centers of liberal and…
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How Team Obama-Bernanke Oppresses the Poor
If you’re truly a defender of the “1%” and indifferent to the plight of the poor in American society, don’t waste your vote on Mitt Romney. Barack Obama is your man. While the president proposes addressing society’s unequal distribution of income by raising tax rates on the wealthy, his administration stealthily enriches the rich and…
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Laboring in the Garden of the Lord
A church in Richmond’s inner city does more than minister to the homeless and hungry. Volunteers tend an urban garden to feed them fresh, healthy food.
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Immigration Fuels Virginia’s Population Growth
Immigration from other states and from abroad continues to boost Virginia’s population growth, and the Demographics & Workforce Group of the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service has the details in a new analysis. Between 2005 and 2009, an estimated 283,000 people moved into the state from other parts of the U.S. while 253,000 left,…
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More Proof that K-12 Education Is Broken
Read the title of a new study by State Budget Solutions, “Throwing Money at Education Isn’t Working,” and you’ve read the main conclusion: Higher spending does not guarantee better student performance. In 2010, the United States spent $809 billion on K-12 education, which represented twice as much per pupil as the nation spent in 1970.…
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The Most Dysfunctional Board in the Country?
by James A. Bacon Talk about a crazy situation… After months of delay, the Washington, D.C., City Council is scheduled October 2 to approve amendments to a bi-state compact with Virginia that would expand the board of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), giving the Old Dominion greater representation. The amendments were based upon legislation…