Posted on 01.31.09 by Danny Glover @ 11:09 am
My friend Harris Reynolds, who considers himself “an aspiring health nut,” has started a new blog called Simple Health & Wellness. I find this development amusing because Harris mercilessly and openly ridiculed me a few years ago when I ordered a chicken and artichoke salad at a pizza place. Boy have we swapped roles! I’m 30 pounds heavier than I was then, and Harris is telling the world to eat whole grains, beans and fruit. Listen to Harris. A heart condition prompted him to change his diet. I take medication for recurring bouts of atrial fibrulation and need to drop those 30 lbs. or more again. But don’t you wait for your own heart to send you signals that it’s time for a more enlightened diet. Do it now. You’ll feel better. Harris even has tips for healthy snacking during tomorrow’s Super Bowl. Filed under: Food and Friends and Sports Comments: 1 Comment |
Posted on 01.30.09 by Danny Glover @ 11:24 pm
The politicians that West Virginians send to Washington know how to get the bacon back home — and they aren’t ashamed of it. Sen. Bobby Byrd, D-W.Va., fancies himself the “Big Daddy” of the state, and he celebrates critical awards like “Porker Of The Month” as badges of honor. Rep. Alan Mollohan is almost as effective as Byrd at funneling taxpayer bucks back to my home state. Unlike Byrd, however, Mollohan doesn’t have an otherwise squeaky clean ethical record. He was tainted by the House check-kiting scandal in the early 1990s, and more recently, his pork-barreling ways have generated new ethical scrutiny. The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call outlined the case against Mollohan in detail this week:
Mollohan has been in office 26 years now, and he replaced his father, who served 18 out of the 26 years before that. The kind of behavior on display from the son is a direct result of the comfort that comes from being in power so long. It’s past time for the Mollohan dynasty to end before Alan Mollohan further tarnishes the reputation of my beloved birthplace. Filed under: News & Politics and People and West Virginia Comments: None |
Posted on 01.30.09 by Danny Glover @ 4:42 pm
Filed under: Redneck Music and Redneck Musical Interlude and Video Comments: None |
Posted on 01.30.09 by Danny Glover @ 2:49 pm
I wish I could say I have lived my 42 years without uttering a nasty word, but I can’t. I remember with shame cussing out a friend on the playground in elementary school — and that was in a small town of rural West Virginia, in the 1970s, before the coarsening of American culture hastened by cable television and the Internet. I battled the bad language demon into high school, often caving to peer pressure. I wanted to be cool, so I talked like the “cool kids.” Then one day my youngest brother overheard me swear like a sailor while playing Pac-Man at the local recreational club. When I turned and saw the shock on his face, I found the conviction I needed to cleanse my salty tongue (save for occasional relapses). I was 15 at the time — about the same age as McKay Hatch, the founder of the No Cussing Club. Here’s how the club came to be:
Filed under: Culture and Entertainment and People and Religion and Video and West Virginia Comments: 2 Comments |
Posted on 01.30.09 by Danny Glover @ 12:15 am
Filed under: Just For Laughs and Video Comments: None |
Posted on 01.29.09 by Danny Glover @ 11:50 pm
Former President Bush and first lady Laura Bush were greeted by a standing ovation last night when they attended a ladies’ basketball game at Baylor University in Texas. Regardless of whether you agree with their politics and policies, the welcome was befitting for a couple that gave eight years of their life in sacrificial service to their country. Contrast the classy response to Bush’s arrival at a game in “flyover country” with the childish behavior aimed at him before, during and after Barack Obama’s inauguration inside the Beltway last week. Now you know why enlightened rednecks like me live as far outside the Beltway as possible even when we work inside it. The closer I am to West Virginia, the stronger my heartland mooring is. Filed under: An Enlightened Redneck ... and Business and Culture and Family and Just For Laughs and Media and News & Politics and People and Video and West Virginia Comments: None |
Posted on 01.29.09 by Danny Glover @ 11:11 pm
In Great Britain, you can be too old to raise your grandchildren by the time you hit age 46. But if you’re gay, you’re the perfect couple to raise the flesh and blood of those one-foot-in-the-grave grandparents.
The “mum” isn’t happy with the decision, either. “I did not under any circumstances want my children to be placed with gay men. I wanted them to have a mum and a dad.” I have a renewed appreciation for the American Revolution that separated us from the British — but sadly, America is headed in the same perverted direction on adoption. Filed under: Adoption and News & Politics Comments: None |
Posted on 01.29.09 by Danny Glover @ 7:46 pm
“We’re going to have to try to apply some flinty Chicago toughness to this town. I’m saying that when it comes to the weather, folks in Washington don’t seem to be able to handle things.” Chicago isn’t the only place that is flinty tough when it comes to snow and ice. When I was a kid in West Virginia, the home of innumerable country roads, schools put chains on the bus tires and hauled everyone to town unless there was a true blizzard or ice storm. Those of us who lived in town and had only a few blocks to walk to the nearest school were even less likely to get snow days. Now I live in the Washington area, where they cancel school on rainy days, just on the off chance that the rain will freeze or turn to snow. Bunch of wimps! We go easy on our own children, though. On most days when the public and private schools cancel classes for snow, we cancel classes at the Glover Home School, too. Here’s the photographic evidence from this week. Filed under: Culture and Family and Government and Home Schooling and Human Interest and Video Comments: None |
Posted on 01.29.09 by Danny Glover @ 5:01 pm
Because we want to teach our children to show their patriotism by pledging allegiance to the flag and the country, not to the president. More importantly, we want to teach our children to pledge allegiance to God before country. As part of their Classical Conversations home-schooling session each week, they join their classmates in reciting not only the “Pledge Of Allegiance” but also this pledge to the Bible: I pledge allegiance to the Bible,
God’s Holy Word. I will make it a lamp unto my feet, A light unto my path. I will hide its words in my heart So that I might not sin against God. I hadn’t heard that saying until our kids joined Classical Conversations, but I wrote something similar several years ago when the debate over the phrase “under God” in the pledge was raging. I call it the “Prayer Of Allegiance”: Filed under: Family and Home Schooling and News & Politics and Religion and Why We Home-School Comments: 1 Comment |
Posted on 01.29.09 by Danny Glover @ 12:39 pm
I am equally amused both by city dwellers who refuse to share their space with wildlife and by animal lovers who get all worked up when said city dwellers decide to annihilate the resident “pests.” The end result is a clash sure to catch the attention of the press.
They spent $170,000 to try to get rid of the birds without violence, but now they’ve had it. Woody Woodpecker must die! The Audubon Society, which has had no property damaged by the woodpeckers, is furious. The story reminded me of a piece I wrote more than a decade ago after a series of animal infestations that made news in Northern Virginia. Now is a good time to reprint it (with minor edits). Buzzards and Blackbirds and Deer, Oh My! By K. Daniel Glover The metro region is being overrun with creatures large, small and ugly — a sure sign that Armageddon is upon us — and there is no escape. If the vultures in Leesburg don’t get you, the blackbirds in Prince William County will. And I don’t even want to think about what all those deer in Fairfax County and Montgomery County, Md., will do if we don’t slaughter them first. You think all of these animal invasions reported in the newspapers the past few months are mere coincidences? Think again. This is the strongest evidence yet of a vast conspiracy among our so-called friends in the animal kingdom to end millenniums of oppression at the hands of the despot they know as man. Filed under: Culture and Human Interest and Hunting & Guns Comments: None |
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