American Atrocity: Remembering the Shenandoah Burning by James Bovard, September 30, 2024 George Orwell wrote in 1945 that “the nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” This week is the 160th anniversary of one of the worst […]
Fifty years ago today, I received the Eagle badge in Boy Scouts. If I had a dollar for every person in subsequent decades who was shocked or appalled that someone like me could have reached Eagle, I could buy several kegs of the best beer in Maryland. Likewise, it would be fun to know how […]
Libertarian Institute My Convict Road Gang Summer by Jim Bovard | Feb 17, 2020 I may have been a rube, but I knew enough not to startle the gargantuan glowering prison guard with that double-barreled shotgun propped on his beer belly. As a sixteen-year-old toiling in the hot sun in 1973 alongside convicts on a […]
My old hometown Front Royal made the front page of the Washington Post website today. There’s a scandal in the Economic Development Authority (EDA) – a busload of folks got indicted – lots of embezzlement charges flying around. EDA’s tend to be political slush funds and have been motherlodes of scandal forever. One news report […]
A friend in Front Royal sent me a notice of a special celebration this coming Saturday to mark the 120th birthday of Dr. Elizabeth Sherman, a legendary pediatrician who served Warren County for 55 years. Dr. Sherman patched me up more times than I can recall. She also delivered more than 2000 babies – not […]
This is national Cow Appreciation Day. I salute my late father, Ken Bovard, an animal geneticist who spent his career researching beef cattle breeding. The 1958 photo below is from the Beef Cattle Research Station near Front Royal, Virginia. It was one of his all-time favorite photos and hung on the wall forever in our […]
I was rummaging through old files tonight and stumbled across this profile from 30 years ago. Charles Clark did a kindly write-up which I much appreciated. The World Bank hated me back then so National Journal photographer Richard Bloom and I tromped there for a cigar photo in front of their entrance on a bitter cold […]
