Tag: James A. Bacon
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Where Is the VEA on School Safety?
by James A. Bacon Greetings from sunny Costa Rica, the well-run Central American nation that bears less resemblance these days to a banana republic than to the United States! Costa Rica dedicates some 7% of its GDP to education, according to Wikipedia, and its population is 97% literate, which, if you think about it, might…
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Youngkin Wins Culture-War Skirmish Over History Standards
by James A. Bacon The State Board of Education (SBOE) voted 5 to 3 yesterday to accept the revised history and social science standards for the Standards of Learning, representing a victory for the Youngkin administration in a contentious debate over what Virginia students should be taught in K-12 schools. Various advocacy groups have criticized…
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What the Heck Did Norfolk’s Planning Director Say?
by James A. Bacon Norfolk’s planning director, George Homewood, has left his post, and city officials aren’t saying whether he resigned or was fired. But The Virginian-Pilot says the parting of the ways occurred after the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) Ethics Committee suspended him for violating the group’s ethics code. Reading the headline…
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Virginia Is for Lovers… Er, Lawyers
From a study by federal-lawyer.com: There are 21.23 applicants to law school per 100,000 population in Virginia — the ninth highest ratio for any state in the country. Leading the tally is our next-door neighbor, Washington, D.C., with 129.4 applicants, far exceeding the 29.15 per 100,000 ratio of runner-up New York. According to the American…
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Cavalier Daily Reveals Real Motive for Vilifying Bert Ellis
by James A. Bacon As a critical vote approaches in the Virginia state senate, The Cavalier Daily has doubled down on its denunciation of Bert Ellis, and in so doing has revealed its real motive for campaigning to block his appointment to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors: Ellis represents a threat to Business…
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As Much As We Want to Support the Boys in Blue…
…sometimes we end up with cases like this one. Richmond Police Officer David Edward Stone, a Louisa County resident, was arrested last week on 50 child pornography charges. Stone has served on the Richmond police force since 2006, reports The Daily Progress. Society needs police to protect against criminals. And the Richmond police have been…
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The Violent-Child Problem
by James A. Bacon The story of the six-year-old school shooter in Newport News generates endless attention. It seems indicative of so much that is wrong with our society today. Law-enforcement authorities are rightly focused on the question of how a six-year-old child (a) managed to lay hands on a gun that his parents claimed…
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Look Who’s Using Encrypted, Self-Deleting Emails
Speaking of corruption (see previous post), this press release from Virginians for Safe Communities just arrived in my email inbox: Fairfax, Virginia – Yesterday, Virginians for Safe Communities filed a formal complaint [read here] with the Virginia State Bar, the professional standards body for licensed attorneys in the Commonwealth, against the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax…
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Not a Good Look, Virginia
Not to give our friend Don the Ripper more ammo in his assertion that Virginia is the most corrupt state in the country, but… These numbers regarding federal public corruption convictions in Virginia’s Eastern District, published in a 2022 University of Illinois at Chicago study, “Anti-Corruption Report #14,” speak for themselves. I’d like to see…
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Bacon Bits: More Mad-As-Hell Stories
Ditch the name, keep the money. The University of Richmond recently removed the name of T.C. Williams from its law school because he owned slaves, even though, his descendants say, he contributed to the demise of slavery. Now the same descendants are arguing that the university should refund the money Williams donated to the institution…
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Hokies, Join the Resistance!
From Campus Reform: Virginia Tech prof accuses student of spreading misinformation, threatens to delete discussion board posts A pro-life student at Virginia Tech was publicly accused of spreading misinformation by her professor after submitting a discussion board assignment expressing pro-life views. After being admonished publicly, student Alyssa Jones met with her professor and recorded the…
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Graduating Snowflakes into the Workforce
by James A. Bacon More than half (51%) of young professionals in the United States report emotional or mental-health issues, according to a survey just released by the Mary Christie Institute, American Association of Colleges and Universities, and allied organizations. Sixty-eight percent of men reported good or excellent mental health compared to 45% for women.…
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Spotsylvania Pandemonium
Posted for the benefit of readers who are still in denial about the meltdown in discipline and the epidemic of violence in Virginia schools: There have always been fights in schools. It’s never been like this.