Tag: James A. Bacon
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Uh, Oh, Fairfax Schools Are Updating Grading Standards
by James A. Bacon Fairfax County Public Schools, the largest school system in Virginia, has updated its grading standards in an effort to make them fairer and more consistent, reports The Washington Post. Among the more prominent features of the new system, students will be allowed to retake tests for full credit. In theory, the…
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Ryan’s Testimony All Over the Map
by James A. Bacon Testifying under oath several days ago in a Daily Progress lawsuit to pry open a report into the slaying of three UVA football players, University of Virginia President Jim Ryan elaborated upon his official explanation of why he decided to withhold the report until after the trial of the alleged shooter…
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Youngkin Appointees Now a Majority in Virginia University Boards
by James A. Bacon With the announcement of his third round of appointees to the governing boards of Virginia’s public universities, Governor Glenn Youngkin has ushered in a new era for higher education in Virginia. For the first time in his two-and-a-half years in office, he will enjoy board majorities to back his priorities of…
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Governor, Pick Fighters for the UVA Board
Note: The Jefferson Council released this open letter to Governor Youngkin today. He released his nominations for university board seats shortly after. — JAB 28 June 2024Glenn YoungkinGovernor of the Commonwealth of Virginia Dear Governor Youngkin, You are getting close to the June 30 deadline for announcing five new nominees to the University of Virginia…
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Lies, Damn Lies, and Presidential Debates
by James A. Bacon Virginia played prominently in the disinformation spewed by President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump in their first 2024 presidential debate last night. Biden brought up the seemingly unkillable canard that Trump referred to the White supremacists in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville as “good people.” Meanwhile,…
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Some Homeless Deserve Compassion, Others Don’t
by James A. Bacon The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this week on a case that will determine if local governments can criminalize the homeless for sleeping in public, even when shelters are unavailable, reports The Virginian-Pilot. Citing National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) figures, the newspaper notes that there were nearly 6,000…
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Youngkin Tackles Maternal Health Disparities the Right Way
by James A. Bacon Governor Glenn Youngkin has launched an initiative to address disparities in maternal healthcare outcomes, and he’s doing it right. Rather than presupposing what the problem is and what the solutions are, he is resurrecting the Task Force on Maternal Health Data Quality Measures to do a deep dive into the data…
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Venture Global: Virginia’s Unknown Energy Giant
by James A. Bacon An Arlington-based company that most Virginians have never heard of could well alter the global energy balance of power — if the Biden administration doesn’t get in the way. In 2023 and 2024 alone Venture Global LNG., Inc., has announced long-term deals to supply 3 million tons of LNG to the…
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Honey, I Shrunk the Newspaper
Newspapers are dying slow deaths of a thousand small cuts. Here’s the latest from the Richmond Times-Dispatch… According to Executive Editor Chris Coates, beginning July 4, the RTD will switch to a “digital-only format” on the following holidays: Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’…
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Cao Sweeps the GOP Primary… Almost
by James A. Bacon Hung Cao won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate yesterday by an overwhelming margin, collecting nearly 62% of the votes in a five-man race. Scott Parkinson trailed in the No. 2 position at 11%. Cao could almost claim a sweep. He reaped a majority of votes in every locality but one.…
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Fissures in the Education-Industrial Complex
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s public-school districts are fracturing along the same lines of the culture war as the rest of American society. Four school districts have pulled out of the Virginia School Board Association (VSBA) on the grounds that the training and advocacy supplied by the 118-year-old organization does not reflect their values. The…
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Note to Readers: BR Website Upgrade
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…
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Keeping Up with Wokeness: “Indigiqueer”
by James A. Bacon In the thought bubble of intersectional oppression, language mutates faster than COVID-19. It’s almost impossible for us normies to keep up. I consider it a point of professional pride to stay up to speed, but even I find it astonishing at how rapidly the woke mind virus is evolving. Delving into…
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EOCR: the Enforcement Arm of DEI
by James A. Bacon How many Diversity, Equity & Inclusion employees work at the University of Virginia, and how much do they cost? Those are important questions, but they miss the big picture. Employees classified as “DEI” are only part of a large bureaucratic apparatus designed to transform the University in line with a social-justice…
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Maybe We Should Discuss the Political Determinants of Health
by James A. Bacon As it takes up the issue of “social determinants of health,” the Joint Commission on Health Care is probing the social and economic origins of unequal health outcomes for different population groups in Virginia, according to Radio IQ. By defining the issue as social determinants of health, as opposed to social…