Tag: Social breakdown
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A Life of Low-Level Crime
by James A. Bacon Meet Chelsea Eileen Steiniger, a 31-year-old Buckingham County woman who, according to The Daily Progress, may have accomplished the feat of having been arrested more often — 63 times — than anyone else in Central Virginia. One reason she has been arrested so frequently, it appears, is the leniency of judges…
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Things Fall Apart: Loudoun County Edition
Loudoun County is not Appalachia. Loudoun County is not the inner city. It is, in fact, one of the most affluent counties — sometimes the most affluent county — in the country. But something is very, very wrong, and you can’t blame it on poverty. From Loudoun Now: In a statement emailed to division parents…
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Bacon Bits: Ungovernable Virginia
It’s not just the big stuff we need to worry about — broken borders, riots, crime waves, school shootings — we need to pay attention to the little stuff, too: small things that betray the fraying of the social fabric. Some instances in today’s headlines: From WAVY-TV: “Video shows man choking county attorney at Gloucester…
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Poking the Woke, and Human Waste in Charlottesville
California comes to Charlottesville: urine, feces, hypodermic needles, trash, and all. by Jock Yellott “What happened to the First Amendment in this country . . . ?” demanded somebody calling himself ‘Rudy Hess.’ Charlottesville Mayor Lloyd Snook cut the audio. This was late in the City Council meeting, about 10 p.m. during public comments mostly…
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Is K-12 Absenteeism Too Complex a Problem for an Administrative Fix?
by James A. Bacon In releasing the 2023 Standards of Learning (SOL) scores, which showed marginal overall improvement from the disastrous 2022 results, Team Youngkin added a bit of useful analysis — it drew a connection between poor educational performance and school absenteeism. The Virginia Department of Education press release noted that students in 3rd…
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Bacon Bits: Plumbing New Depths of Depravity
“I shot that bitch dead!” Those are the words of the six-year-old student at Richneck Elementary School in January shortly after he shot his teacher Abigail Zwerner, according to recently unveiled court documents reported by The Virginian-Pilot. One has to ask: in what kind of world does a six-year-old child think that way? In what…
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Bacon Bits: Social Breakdown Update
Every so often you might read some uplifting story in the news — a woman is rescued from a burning car, a charity raises money to buy Christmas toys for homeless tots — that makes you feel better about the world. Don’t be gulled. We live in the wealthiest society with the highest level of…
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So Crazy That You Can’t Make This Stuff Up
by James A. Bacon I’ve just returned from a week in Costa Rica. The country is beautiful and the people are friendly. More than that, they’re sane. I saw none of the zaniness that is routinely on display in Los Estados Unidos. By contrast, here at home the lunacy is so loco that it could…
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About That 6-Year-Old’s “Acute Disability”…
by James A. Bacon Kudos to The Washington Post for continuing to dig into the particulars of the shooting by a 6-year-old student of a Newport News elementary school teacher. The latest revelations raise urgent questions about the causes of the breakdown of discipline at Richneck Elementary School and other schools across the commonwealth. As the…
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Tech Complexity and the New Dark Age
by James A. Bacon There are numerous existential threats to Western Civilization — reckless fiscal and monetary policies leading to government collapse, the rush toward a zero-carbon economy supported by a shaky electric grid, and, least appreciated, the increasing complexity of technology and information systems. We have brought the first two dangers upon ourselves, and…
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Conservatives Are Exaggerating Violence In Schools: Newport News Edition
Hot off the wires from The Virginian-Pilot: A teacher was injured in a shooting Friday afternoon at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, according to police and school officials. No students were injured but an adult was taken to the hospital. Police believe they have the person responsible in custody and said there is no…
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Inmates Running the Asylum
by James A. Bacon Inmates in the City of Richmond jail have cell phones, we are learning. They’re not supposed to, but they do. When a deputy attempted to confiscate one not long ago, he (or she) was surrounded by inmates with knives, according to WRIC. Deputies have been physically assaulted, too. Many fear for…
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“Violence Is Spinning Out of Control”
by Jon Baliles On Wednesday, CBS6 Crime Insider Jon Burkett gave an interview to John Reid on WRVA about the rising and scary number of shootings happening all over the region, most of them in the city. He noted that as of Wednesday morning there had been 12 shootings in the previous 7 days, and 10…
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When There Are No Consequences for Bad Behavior, the Consequence Is Bad Behavior
by James A. Bacon At some public schools across the state last year, educators relaxed standards for everything from classroom attendance to cell phone usage out of a sense that children who had spent a year doing remote learning needed to ease back into learning at school. Adults effectively relinquished control, and anarchy followed. (See…
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Bacon Bits: Special Societal Dysfunction Edition
Parents can’t be trusted. Childhood gender dysphoria diagnoses leaped 70% from 2020 to 2021. More than 40,000 children received the diagnosis nationally in 2021, up from 15,000 in 2017, reports Reuters, citing a Komodo Health Inc. analysis. The number of children on puberty blockers more than doubled between 2017 to 2021 to more than 5,000…