Tag: Guest contributors
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Violence and Tolerance
Leftists couldn’t raise a finger to object to political violence all summer, but feel they are in a moral position to do so now? Blame Herbert Marcuse… by Shaun Kenney Herbert Marcuse is a name you might vaguely know. Marcuse was the darling of violent leftist radicals during the 1960s who found new currency and…
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Reimagining Monticello after Jefferson’s Fall
by Kenneth W. Gatten III Among the American founders, Thomas Jefferson is most enduring: as historian Jon Meacham writes, “With… his sense of taste and love of beautiful things – of silver and art and architecture and gardening and food and wine – Jefferson is more alive, convivial.” On display at his home and museum…
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When I Was “Canceled” at UVa
by Matthew Cameron Cancel culture has been a hot topic in 2020. Most recently, it’s become a discussion point among those concerned about the state of academic freedom and intellectual diversity at my own alma mater, the University of Virginia. The strongest critique of cancel culture at UVA emerged in October when alumnus Joel Gardner…
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Virginia Voting “Reform” Makes Fraud Easier
by Chris Adams In a Restonnow.com opinion piece last month, Delegate Ken Plum, D-Reston, listed several accomplishments of the General Assembly in 2020. Several speak positively to the Commonwealth. One, however, is noteworthy for degrading election integrity. “Non-discrimination legislation passed with the Virginia Values Act being one of the most comprehensive in the nation,” wrote…
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Reopen Public Schools or Provide Education Choice
by Vicky Manning When I was elected to serve on the Virginia Beach School Board in 2016, I never imagined there would be a time when I would have to fight to keep our school doors open. However, that is what I have been doing for the last 6 months. The last day of in-person…
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How to Promote Ideological Diversity at Washington & Lee
by Neely Young It is well known by now that the professoriate at many colleges and universities, particularly the more elite ones, is dominated by politically liberal faculty. American higher education needs ideological diversity in classrooms, particularly in those that touch on political and social issues. Disciplines like sociology, history, political science, literature, and philosophy…
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Fairfax School Board Should Focus on Schools, Not Environmental Policy
by Emilio Jaksetic Not content with running the county’s public school system, the Fairfax County School Board now is involved with developing strategies and recommendations for county environmental policy. The results can be seen in the Final Report of the Oct. 1, 2020, Fairfax County Joint Environmental Task Force (JET). In April 2019, the JET…
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StoryCorps Seeks to Pierce “Culture of Contempt”
by Dave Isay We are in the throes of what has been called a “culture of contempt,” a nation so divided that some families may not be able to endure another Thanksgiving around the same table. Passing the yams might well come with an earful… or more. Comity has given way to scorn. Division is…
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Virginia K-12 School Re-Openings: Now Is Not the Time
by Ryan Chou and Rajesh Balkrishnan In the weeks and months preceding Virginia school re-openings, parents, teachers, and students speculated about what distance learning would be like. Following the onset of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, many districts had hastily shut down schools to protect students and teachers from the virus and had implemented…
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Big Tax-Hike Push Coming
by Chris Saxman Earlier today I was asked by Virginia Business Magazine what the business community could expect in the 2021 General Assembly Regular Session. I talked about the construct of the short session with a gubernatorial election, House of Delegates staving off primary challenges, bills that were not passed last session, and the prospects…
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UVa Needs to Shut Down the Echo Chamber
The following passage is the second excerpt from a letter written by Joel Gardner, author of “From Rebel Yell to Revolution,” to University of Virginia President Jim Ryan. We published the first excerpt yesterday. — JAB Without being able to accurately substantiate the following with specific facts and figures … I believe there are virtually…
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The Greatest Threat to Academic Freedom and Integrity in UVa’s History
The following passage is excerpted from a letter written by Joel Gardner, author of “From Rebel Yell to Revolution,” to University of Virginia President Jim Ryan. — JAB Our University community is more divided than at any time since the anti-war turbulence of 1969-70. I lived through that period on Grounds and chronicled in my…
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VDH Has a New K-12 “Outbreaks” Dashboard
by Carol J. Bova The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) published a new dashboard on October 23 that lists K-12 Outbreaks of COVID-19 by locality (county, town or city) and facility. As the VDH website explains: “Transmission must occur within the school facility or at a school-sponsored event among students, faculty, staff, or visitors to…
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Senator Warner’s Odd Silence on Violence
by Emilio Jaksetic Since the tragic death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 at the hands of a police officer, there have been thousands of (mostly peaceful) demonstrations and hundreds of riots and civil disturbances in towns and cities across the United States. Some took place in Richmond, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Fredericksburg and other…
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Election Board Embraces Humpty Dumpty Logic
by Emilio Jaksetic Despite receiving more than 700 public comments, most of them negative, Virginia’s State Board of Elections has adopted a regulation eliminating the statutory requirement that absentee ballots received after election day be postmarked by no later than election day. The regulation is effective October 23, 2020. Information about the Board’s action is…