Tag: Social breakdown
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Hoax Epidemic
by James A. Bacon In the latest sign of spreading social disorder, Virginia underwent a plague of school hoaxes yesterday. According to media reports, incidents included: The Loudoun County sheriff’s office and Leesburg police were notified of acts of violence at Loudoun Valley and Loudoun County high schools. The reports were false. In Arlington County,…
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There Is No Socially Engineered Solution to Drive-by Killings
by James A. Bacon In a protest that will never make the national news, an estimated 75 people turned out for a weekend march in Richmond to denounce the latest killing of a child in a drive-by shooting. Fifteen-year-old Tynashia Humphrey was walking to the store from her grandmother’s home near the infamous Gilpin Court…
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Meanwhile, the Homicide Rate Keeps Climbing
From January to June this year, the seven largest localities of Hampton Roads have seen 115 homicides — up from 88 the same time last year, a 30% increase. Newport News and Hampton experienced a dip, but homicides have surged in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Virginia Beach and Suffolk, reports The Virginian-Pilot. — JAB
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Where Does the Buck Stop?
by Jon Baliles The rise in crime across the region and especially the City is naturally a cause of concern. A rise in crimes against deputies and other inmates in the Richmond Jail is flat-out disturbing. The Free Press went to the City Council Public Safety Committee meeting — that was attended only by Councilwoman…
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Is D.C.’s Loss Virginia’s Gain?
by Bruce Majors Mayor Muriel Bowser — elected to a third term in a June 21 primary where only 27% of registered voters voted, and only 14% voted for her — is lamenting the bus loads of illegal immigrants that Texas politicians are shipping to D.C. Apparently DC homeless shelters are full. Maybe she should…
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Let’s Hope This Kid Isn’t Going Back to School Next year
School days, school days Dear old golden rule days. Readin’ and ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmetic Taught to the tune of the hickory stick –– Gus Edwards and Will D. Cobb (1907) Virginia schools don’t use hickory sticks to impart discipline anymore, but they do have jail. And that’s where 18-year-old Elijah Schneider is heading…
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Crime, Asians, and “Whiteness”
by James A. Bacon In his classic treatise on race in America, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Thomas Sowell advanced the argument that African-Americans inherited a cultural propensity to violence from the rural Southern, White-dominated culture in which they were immersed. When Blacks migrated to northern cities to escape Jim Crow and pursue jobs in…
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The Mental Mismatches of Modern Society
by James A. Bacon In his book, The Story of the Human Body, Daniel E. Lieberman, chair of the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard, recounts how the human body evolved over six million years from its rain forest-dwelling ancestors in adaptation to changing evolutionary pressures like climate change, and then explores how human…
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Toxic Brew
by Chris Saxman Okay. Buckle up. I am sharing with you several graphics that should lead, hopefully, to some serious discussions about the toxic blend of violence in movies, marijuana, smart phones and social media use in our youth — especially young men. First this article from the WSJ on how the use of widely…
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Richmond Politicos Getting Serious About Crime
by James A. Bacon Virginia recorded its highest murder rate in two decades in 2021, reports WTVR. Other than noting that homicides hit the murder mark of 90, however, the article reported no specifics. I don’t know how the Richmond television station came by those particular data points. The Virginia State Police has not yet…
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Bacon Bits: Murder and Mayhem Update
Little Chicago. Three people were killed and one critically injured in a shooting in Portsmouth this morning, reports The Virginian-Pilot. No details are yet available. The incident follows a day of mayhem in which four people were shot, one fatally, last week. Refund the police. Also from The Virginian-Pilot: “Norfolk is set to receive $1…
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Discipline Meltdown in Prince William Schools
by James A. Bacon The adults are losing control of Prince William County public schools. Fighting and alcohol/drug-related violations increased 20% during the first three quarters of the current school year compared to the same period in the pre-COVID year of 2019-20. In the third quarter alone, middle and high schools recorded 515 alcohol/drug-related violations,…
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Lord-of-the-Flies Crimes
by James A. Bacon Mass shootings have become so common in the United States that incidents with only five or six victims warrant no national attention and are soon forgotten even in local media. A barrage of gunfire Friday night at a graduation party in Chesterfield County, which left one dead and five others injured,…
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Reminiscent of the Crack Epidemic… But Without the Crack
Quite the lively time in Little Chicago, er, Portsmouth, yesterday. According to WCEV: A woman was shot on Seventh Street Thursday morning, two men were shot near The Connelly apartments sometime in the afternoon, a woman was shot on Staunton Avenue around 9 p.m., and lastly, a man sustained a life-threatening injury after a shooting…
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Plundering ORCs
by James A. Bacon Is California-style organized retail theft coming to Virginia? I have been making the argument, based upon admittedly anecdotal evidence, that it might be. While one must be careful extrapolating from individual incidents, which might be outliers, it struck me that the type of retail crime being reported in Virginia was undergoing…