Tag: Guest contributors
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The Robert E. Lee of Appomattox
by Kenneth G. Everett Adversity is the first path to truth. Lord Byron, DON JUAN, Canto XII, Stanza 50 Few things in life reveal more clearly the true character of a man than his response to the circumstances of defeat and failure. The deepest impulses of the soul emerge when cherished hopes collapse and undertakings…
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Addressing the Spiral Effect in Learning Loss
by Dr. Kathleen Smith During the COVID-19 pandemic educators did what they had to do in a short amount of time (five months in the case of Virginia) with little resources (extra funding came long after September of 2020) to keep kids learning through the 2020-2021 school year. A wholesale shift to remote and hybrid…
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Dominion is Keeping Whale Data Secret, Too
by David Wojick Secrecy abounds around the monster offshore wind (OSW) project proposed by Dominion Energy. In this case the hidden data is about the threat to the severely endangered North Atlantic Right Whales. I earlier reported on the big hidden whale study done by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is doing…
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Next Virginia Tax Reform: Index for Inflation
by Barbara Hollingsworth Most Virginians are painfully aware that it’s becoming much more difficult to make ends meet. Prices for food, housing, gasoline and other necessities have soared. Inflation hit a 40-year high of 9.1 percent in June, the largest yearly increase since January 1982. And a recent study from the University of Iowa found…
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School Board Races: The Next Best Hope for Our Children
by Craig DiSesa and Nancy Smith “I’m just gonna have to step in. You need to stop saying, as a Board member, we are giving pornography to minors. … It does not happen!” That was the reaction of Virginia Beach City Public Schools Superintendent Aaron Spence to School Board member Vicky Manning’s assertion that there…
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Division Ends Today at the Virginia Military Institute
by The Cadet Editorial Staff To the families of matriculants: This is a difficult day for you. As you leave your daughters and sons to face the struggles and challenges that they are about to meet, take heart in the fact that you, too, are about to become a part of the VMI family. Today…
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Solar Development Continues to Erode VA Farmland
by Barbara Hollingsworth First published by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Virginia lost about 2,000 acres of productive farmland per week in 2021, according to data released in February by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There are many reasons why farmers sell off their land, including development pressures, lack of interest by younger members…
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Wojick on Whales II: Missing BOEM Report?
by David Wojick In my previous article I raised this question: what is the potential adverse impact of Virginia’s massive offshore wind project on the severely endangered North Atlantic Right Whales? Answering this basic question should be a central feature of the upcoming Environmental Impact Analysis (EIA) required for the wind project by the National…
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Jefferson Fought Slavery Throughout His Life
by Robert F. Turner Thomas Jefferson famously declared that “all men are created equal,” yet he owned hundreds of human beings during his lifetime. Does he deserve our respect? Slavery was obviously a heinous institution and Thomas Jefferson did own slaves. That has led some very decent people to denounce him as a hypocrite and…
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The Detrimental Effect of Cell Phones in Public Schools
by Robert L. Maronic I read a sad commentary three days ago entitled, “At This School, the Cellphones Rule,” written by James A. Bacon of Bacon’s Rebellion in Richmond. His commentary, which conceals both the name of the teacher and “high-poverty high school,” truly has to be read in order to be believed, but as a former…
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A Virginia-Centric History of the Honor System
This essay about the evolution of the honor system at Washington & Lee University was published by The General’s Redoubt and is republished here with permission. — JAB by M. Neely Young Honor systems in higher education are difficult to trace as they are usually unwritten and based upon tradition. The concept of honor, itself,…
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Youngkin Signs Donor-Privacy Bill
In recent years, “cancel culture” has targeted many individuals, businesses, and organizations with the intention of silencing them into submission. In one tactic, political activists target or hack donor lists of groups they disagree with and publicly shame or intimidate donors and/or their businesses who expected that their gifts would be kept private. For example,…
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Key Victories for Virginians in 2022 Legislative Session, But Work Remains
by JC Hernandez This past legislative session, the Virginia General Assembly set the stage to unleash opportunities for all Virginians by passing several key measures. One of the most significant victories came in the form of a “regulatory sandbox” for health care authorized in the new budget. In simple terms, this sandbox creates space for…
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Commanders, Punt the Name and Try Again
By Tom Blau For almost a century the local pro football team has been the Washington Redskins. When the Redskins name became politically incorrect, the team temporarily became “The Washington Football Team” (WFT). Two years later, the WFT is “The Commanders.” Few Washingtonians like the new name. Competing cities think it looks good – on…
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Richmond’s Reaganesque Time for Choosing
by Chris Braunlich Richmond, like Washington, has always been a place where an “insider’s game” is played – not in a pejorative sense, but simply as the way things are done. Relationships are paramount, people speak in the arcane language of lawmaking, agendas are confusing for outsiders, and the activities of a subcommittee for an…