Bacon’s Rebellion

is in the midst of a website upgrade, and some issues are cropping up that didn’t appear on our test site. Please bear with us as we work through them.

WordPress is no longer supporting the design/layout theme we were using, Coraline, with the result that functionality and security are expected to degrade over time. Additionally, years of accumulated dreck in the back end of WordPress have been slowing down page download times. I decided to kill two birds with one stone and upgrade to a new theme and clear out the dreck. The look and feel is similar to the old Bacon’s Rebellion. Hopefully, download speeds will improve. Comments, which reside on a Disqus platform, should not be affected.

Let me know if you spot any issues.

Thanks to modest advertising and a loyal corps of readers who contribute through the donation button, Bacon’s Rebellion covers its ongoing expenses for web hosting, registrations, security, and a variety of web-related subscriptions. However, the cost of making a major overhaul to the website comes out of my own pocket. I don’t make a dime from the blog, and neither do our regular contributors (Steve Haner and Dick Hall-Sizemore), proofreader (Janice Stewart), or comments monitor (Carol Bova). We all volunteer our time to bring the blog to you.

I have rarely, if ever, asked readers to donate to the blog. Having nearly drained the Bacon’s Rebellion bank account dry, I’m making an exception this year. I would like to continue making upgrades to improve the reader experience. Advertisers offer to pay us to post content on Bacon’s Rebellion, but I refuse to lower our editorial standards. Unlike some Virginia news sites, we don’t tap into wealthy foundations for funding. We are beholden to no one but you. Please support independent journalism and commentary in Virginia by chipping in a few bucks. The donate button is in the upper left-hand corner of the blog.

Many thanks. Jim Bacon