Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Bacon Bits: River Preservation, Truth in Tuition, and Election Interference

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James A. Bacon
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Goat Island

Good deed of the day. Riverside Outfitters, which provides guided kayak, raft, tube, and paddleboard trips, has paid $11,000 to purchase Goat Island, a one-acre islet in the James River. The outfitting company will make the island openly available for public use as a destination for canoers and paddleboarders, reports Richmond BizSense. The company plans to rid non-native plants from the islet and, if legal, bring back some goats, but has no plans to develop it. The James River may not be as big and powerful as other rivers, but it is more beautiful than most. While other metropolitan develop their riverfronts, the Richmond region has moved to preserve the James as an environmental and recreational treasure. Smart move!

Truth in tuition. Randolph College has slashed its list price for tuition, room, and board from $54,101 to $36,000. Pursuing a high-tuition, high-discount model, the small liberal arts college near Lynchburg had been discounting heavily from that price. But administrators concluded that the high sticker price was scaring away potential applicants, reports the News & Advance. Not realizing that the average discount rate for freshmen at private colleges averages more than 50%, many families don’t even bother applying to schools with high list prices. Randolph College, which has 620 students enrolled, hopes to increase the entering class by 5% yearly over the next five years.

Dodge Challenger has become a verb. Daniel McMahon of Brandon, Fla., has been arrested for charges relating to cyber-stalking and threats that led to an African-American activist, Don Gathers, dropping out of a race for Charlottesville City Council. McMahon, a white supremacist, “was motivated by racial animus and used his social-media accounts to threaten and intimidate a potential candidate for elective office,” said U.S. Attorney Thomas T. Cullen, in a statement. “Hey Antifa, it’s simple,” McMahon wrote online, reports the Washington Post. “Wanna know how to not get Dodge Challenged or shot? Don’t attack Right Wingers ever.” James Fields, the white supremacist who killed Heather Heyer during the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville two years ago, drove a Dodge Challenger. Disgusting.

— JAB

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2 responses to “Bacon Bits: River Preservation, Truth in Tuition, and Election Interference”

  1. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Smaller colleges are more and more “niche” with customers who prefer the small college experience to the bigger colleges that offer a much wider array of academics and college life. Smaller colleges often charged a premium price over the bigger schools but fewer and fewer kids actually want to go to a smalller, more cloistered institution and they cost more than the bigger colleges – they are not going to appeal and that’s what’s going on in my view. It’s not the first indication that folks are fed up with higher costs especially when a good percentage of that higher cost is the room and board which I wonder if both small and large institutions are actually making a profit on given that students are stuffed several to a room – shared bathrooms and buffet style food.

    Maybe a good table to generate is the cost of room & board at the various institutions.

  2. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    I suspect that Riverside is also setting up an overnight camp spot for their canoe camping clients – as opposed to them buying the island then donating it to the Nature Conservancy to preserve.

    It’s not a bad thing – probably a win-win but these islands are fairly numerous on a lot of rivers and they are enclaves and refuges for critters… and some – depending on how the land meets the water – good camp spots for canoe camping.

    We have, for many years, taken an annual trip on blackwater rivers down south – that’s rivers with current but not rapids and most tend to have sandbars which are easy to pull a canoe up on and set up tents and dinner tarp.

    Islands tend to be harder to camp unless there actually is some kind of sand bar to dock on – and even then – camping in the open with a breeze to keep the biting things away is better than
    camping “in the woods” where biting things rein and rule.

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