Author: sherlockj
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Primary Care Shortages in Virginia and an HEZ solution
by James C. Sherlock I have written here and in newspapers across the state with a recommendation that Virginia emulate Maryland in the establishment of Health Enterprise Zones (HEZs) to bring primary care to Virginia communities that lack sufficient access to treat people before their conditions require hospitalization. Here I will provide data on Virginia…
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JMU, Social Justice and the Office of Student Accountability and Restorative Practices (OSARP)
by James C. Sherlock Yesterday I wrote of the pressures on Tim Miller, Vice President of Student Affairs at JMU, to balance competing views on masking. Mr. Miller has had plenty of practice. If he walked a tightrope on masks, he tried and fell flat on his face on diversity training. He also oversees something…
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University Managers Deserve Our Empathy on Mask Policy Decisions
by James C. Sherlock JMU student newspaper The Breeze posted a story about strong differences of opinion on lifting the mask mandate across campus. These types of situations put university officials between a rock and a hard place. While they understand that comes with the job, it is impossible not to feel some empathy. Tim…
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National Security, West Virginia Natural Gas and Hampton Roads – A Proposed Federal Law
by James C. Sherlock This is the fourth in a series of columns recommending bringing West Virginia natural gas to Virginia and from there to our allies. The only way to do get that done with any assurance and speed under the energy emergency in which we find ourselves and the world is for…
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Virginia’s Greens Need an Epiphany
by James C. Sherlock Headlines from the war in Ukraine have raised exponentially the interest in natural gas and the extreme price volatility caused by supply constraints. It is perhaps useful to understand the uses of natural gas, the prices Virginians pay relative to West Virginians, the decline of production in Virginia, and the costs…
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Taking One More Brick from the Green Wall
by James C. Sherlock The green wall preventing businesses from operating at some level of certainty when and if their development proposals will be approved is missing a brick today. The days of a Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board and State Water Control Board overruling the findings of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality…
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New York Governor Removes Mask Requirement for School Kids – Virginia Mask Advocates Confused
by James C. Sherlock Headline: “New York City says it will end the school mask mandate and indoor vaccination requirements.” And “New York indoor school mask mandate to be lifted this week.” Progressive Virginians have been stabbed in the back. Et tu, New York? So, imagine you have filed a law suit against Governor Youngkin…
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Virginia’s Natural Gas Pipelines, Virginia’s Economy and the World
by James C. Sherlock God looks after the United States of America. The fracking revolution tripled our recoverable natural gas volumes. America is the world king of natural gas. In 2008, the wellhead price of natural gas reached $8 per thousand cubic feet in the United States. By 2012, it was $2.66. It fueled a…
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Flushing the Sewer at VDOE
by James C. Sherlock I have reported for four years on the unrelentingly woke and destructive Board of Education (VDOE) and Superintendent of Public Instruction (SOPI) memorandums, instructions, guidance, model policies and reading lists. I do not exaggerate, the last SOPI published his personal reading lists to an audience he clearly thought hungry for them.…
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School Threat Assessment Teams Revisited
by James C. Sherlock I wrote on February 12 of this year about what I consider an indicator of a potential overreach by the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). FCPS security has published an RFP for corporate support for web search to support its threat assessment team. Since that article, I have conducted extensive email…
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A Time for Conservatives to Speak Out
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes in life we come to a major fork in deciding who we are and who we are going to be going forward. Donald Trump was quoted in the New York Times as having on Tuesday “praised Mr. Putin’s aggression as “genius” and called the Russian leader “very savvy” for describing…
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Causes of the School Funding “Crisis”
by James C. Sherlock Read the story, “House and Senate lay out dueling visions for education funding in Virginia,” in the Virginia Mercury this morning by the reliably thorough Kate Masters. If you follow it, you, like everyone else in Virginia, can pick a side or pick provisions from both houses that you prefer. What you…
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Patient Safety and You
by James C. Sherlock In my career in private industry, I worked for a time with the testing and implementation of a hospital operational management system. My work there was shaped in considerable part by the 2000 report of the National Academy of Sciences, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System. I came…
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“Frozen” Property Taxes
by James C. Sherlock I admit my fascination with how newspapers present various issues. It is an important window into the information their readers are getting. City manager and county executive proclamations that property tax rates are “frozen” are meant to sound like fiscal constraint. Consider this headline from The Washington Post: “Fairfax County executive…
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Everybody Wins – Nurse Practitioners for Underserved Communities
by James C. Sherlock The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing has instituted a terrific program thanks to a wealthy alum who gave $125 million to recruit and train nurse practitioners to practice in underserved communities. The Leonard A. Louder Community Care Nurse Practitioner Fellows program will be tuition-free and students who still need help…