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Posted on 02.28.09 by Danny Glover @ 9:31 pm
When I lived in Tampa, Fla., for a year in the late 1980s, I found and fell in love with the PoFolks restaurant chain. The food and atmosphere are much like what you’ll find at Bob Evans, Cracker Barrel or similar chains — simple country cookin’ for a reasonable price, served in a place that feels like home. It’s the kind of place where the “poor folks” used to eat on special occasions, if they had some disposable income. I loved PoFolks so much that I chose it as my dining spot a few years ago in Greensboro, N.C., even though I was there for work and could have used my expense account to eat much higher on the hog. My mind drifted to PoFolks just now as I read a story at National Public Radio that mentioned swamp cabbage. It’s one of those dishes, like mudbugs in my wife’s home state of Louisiana, that poor Americans ate to survive but that the rich lately have embraced as their own. The rich just give their foods highfalutin names like hearts of palm or arugula, which is a fancy word for the leafy green dish most Southerners used to know as rocket. To hear NPR tell it, we all may be rocket eaters again soon. Floridians are leading the way with a return to their swamp-cabbage roots. Filed under: Entertainment and Family and Food and Human Interest and Rednecks and Technology Comments: 4 Comments |
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Posted on 02.28.09 by Danny Glover @ 8:16 pm
I’m no fan of Sen. Bobby Byrd. I voted against the West Virginia Democrat the one chance I had after turning 18 and while still living in our home state. I simply can’t bring myself to support him in word or in vote because of his pork-barreling ways. Even though the money he funnels back home helps West Virginia, and literally has created jobs for people I know, I oppose pet projects on principle because they corrupt the appropriations process and because they are bad for the country as a whole. Byrd obviously doesn’t agree with me on that point; he has different principles. But no one can deny that he is a principled man, and he proves it time and again. The latest example (hat tip to Quin Hilyer at AmSpecBlog):
For that kind of integrity, Bobby Byrd long ago won my admiration even though he will never win my vote. He was right to challenge the Bush administration on the same grounds. Filed under: News & Politics and People and West Virginia Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 02.28.09 by Danny Glover @ 6:03 pm
As hard as it is for me to believe now, I had no interest in a career tied to politics until I took my first class in political science at West Virginia University. The introductory course, taught by the renowned professorial duo of Robert DiClerico and Allan Hammock, was required, but I did not expect it to point me toward becoming a political writer. I wanted to write human-interest features for magazines (and still do). But two weeks into their class, I was hooked; I chose political science as my minor. Two years later, I decided I wanted to be a statehouse reporter in Charleston, W.Va. During my senior year, another of my political science professors, David Hedge, suggested that I apply to become a Frasure-Singleton legislative intern. I did, and in the winter of 1990, I was one of several people in Professor Hedge’s class who won an internship.
Now I’ll tell you a dirty little secret about reporters: When we choose our own profile subjects, it’s because we either love ‘em or hate ‘em — and it’s usually because we love ‘em. (Just ask all of the reporters who have written glowing features about Barack Obama.) I wanted to profile Manchin because I admired his reputation as a Democrat in a heavily Democratic state who wasn’t afraid to buck his party. He practiced the kind of post-partisanship Obama only preaches. Filed under: Hatin' On Rednecks and Human Interest and People and Rednecks and West Virginia Comments: None |
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Posted on 02.25.09 by Danny Glover @ 1:16 pm
The password for access in this scene from “The Family Guy” is the worst first name for a male in the English language. It’s my name, doncha know. An acquaintance who shares the name sent the clip to me. Now he knows why I use the nickname Danny, which is based on my middle name. Filed under: Family and Just For Laughs and Video Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 02.25.09 by Danny Glover @ 9:31 am
I’ll wait for local banks to get a supply of the new pennies rather than pay a huge premium for a coin that isn’t even worth the metal used to make it, but I am eager to see it in circulation. As for the fate of the penny, count me among those who wish the government would take it out of circulation. The penny long ago lost its value as a useful tool of commerce. Filed under: Coin Collecting Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 02.24.09 by Danny Glover @ 12:15 pm
My wife pointed me to a version of this clip on Facebook, so I found a copy of it via AmSpecBlog to share here. The spoiled mindset that comedian Louis CK captures beautifully in this skit is precisely why my wife has been saying for years that America needs another depression. After having suffered two layoffs in a year, we’re not wishing worse economic times on anyone. But if they come, we may be the better for it as a country, and “the crappiest generation” (also known as “Generation We“) may begin to appreciate why we came to know their great-grandparents as “the greatest generation.” Filed under: Entertainment and News & Politics and People and Video Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 02.24.09 by Danny Glover @ 10:51 am
This woman in San Antonio, Texas, is a vandal and should be punished for her crime.
At risk of foreclosure, she had her brother deface a home that she doesn’t own. The house doesn’t look like it’s worth much as is, but are we supposed to feel sympathy for a woman who undermined the value not only of the property her bank is about to legally repossess but also of the other homes in the neighborhood? No one should give Mary Ann Herrera a penny to help her stay in that house. Her selfish, callous and destructive behavior should not be rewarded. These kinds of crimes, along with former homeowners who are illegally breaking and entering the properties they lost for failure to pay their debts, are becoming commonplace. The Wall Street Journal reported on the disturbing trend a year ago. Filed under: Business and Culture and News & Politics Comments: 2 Comments |
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Posted on 02.23.09 by Danny Glover @ 8:36 pm
My column, which ran in a local newspaper for a few months, was dedicated to the proposition that all thinkers are not created equally — and that those who think outside the box more often than not make foolish decisions. Thinking outside the box “has something to do with eating McPizza, drinking New Coke and dating the office intern,” I wrote in my first essay. I was reminded of that column today when I read this blurb on the blog PRNewser:
So to recap, Tropicana blew $35 million for a new box when its customers loved the old box. That was an expensive way to learn that thinking outside the box — or doing something different just for the sake of being different — isn’t as enlightened as the “outsiders” would have you think. Filed under: Business Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 02.23.09 by Danny Glover @ 10:38 am
Filed under: Business and Just For Laughs and News & Politics and Video Comments: None |
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Posted on 02.21.09 by Danny Glover @ 11:14 pm
I’ve been a critic of Pajamas TV lately, particularly for its bizarre decision to invest its money, brand and reputation in Joe (The Plumber) Wurzelbacher as both a war correspondent and congressional reporter. Here’s one excerpt of a discussion I joined on Facebook recently:
Having taken such a critical interest in PJTV myself, I figured it’s worth continuing to link to what others are saying about the venture, so here are more insights, most of them from an ongoing discussion over at AmSpecBlog: Filed under: Media and Video Comments: None |
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Posted on 02.21.09 by Danny Glover @ 11:03 pm
Allahpundit at Hot Air wonders, “Does anyone really care?” that George Mason University elected cross-dresser Ryan Allen (aka, “Reann Ballslee”) as its homecoming queen. The cheers prove that plenty of “tolerant” people at George Mason don’t, and the MSNBC host who interviewed Reann couldn’t muster an ounce of outrage. But yes, many of us Americans do care that our country has sunk so deeply into the moral muck. We live in a sick society. Filed under: Culture and Religion and Video Comments: None |
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Posted on 02.21.09 by Danny Glover @ 8:05 pm
In my younger and less enlightened days, I was a huge fan of professional wrestling. I never saw it as anything more than redneck entertainment, even before the World Wrestling Federation renamed itself World Wrestling Entertainment, but it was entertaining in a twisted way. Ric Flair was one of the guys we all loved to hate back in the day, so when I saw that CBS Evening News had done an interview with him, I couldn’t help but watch all 12 minutes. He talked about the toll the sport took on his body over 35 years, including the scar tissue on his forehead from cutting it thousands of times to make it bleed for dramatic effect. But he has no regrets. “Red is green,” Flair said with a laugh as the cash register in his mind no doubt rang with memories of all the championship matches he won. Watch the whole interview: And now for a flashback to the days when professional wrestlers denied the fakery of their work. Filed under: Media and Sports and Video Comments: None |
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Posted on 02.20.09 by Danny Glover @ 8:28 am
Everyone is talking about this video of CNBC business commentator Rick Santelli blasting the Obama administration’s plans for a mortgage bailout. His rant occurred on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange. I would join the “Chicago Tea Party.” How about you? Filed under: Business and News & Politics and Video Comments: None |
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Posted on 02.19.09 by Danny Glover @ 4:33 pm
We don’t want our children educated in a system that has bred a generation of students who expect A’s for effort. Granted the story I linked to is about college students, and the professors quoted in the story scoff at their students’ expectations. But those expectations are a product of the formative educational years. Good grades are a reward for getting it right, not for getting it wrong but trying really hard. But kids these days think they’re entitled to everything, including high grades for mediocre work. That’s not the way it works in the Glover Home School. Our kids get A’s when they get most, if not all, of the answers right — and we use the tougher grading scale that educators used in my day, meaning that scores of 93 to 100 get you an A and anything below 70 is an F. The next generation of Glovers will have to wait until they get to college for the easier grading scale, where the B doesn’t kick in until 89 and students can pass with a score as low as 60. If it was good enough for me in redneck West Virginia, it’s good enough for my son and daughters. P.S. Yes, I used the phrase “kids these days,” so I’m now officially old. Filed under: Culture and West Virginia and Why We Home-School Comments: None |
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Posted on 02.18.09 by Danny Glover @ 11:15 pm
Eric Holder, the nation’s first black attorney general, today blasted America as “a nation of cowards” because her people purposefully avoid “frank discussions” about race. On the same day, infamous race-baiter Al Sharpton decried the following editorial cartoon in the New York Post as racist because it features a monkey:
The media blog FishbowlNY added its liberal voice to the conversation by saying the cartoon has “unmistakable racial undertones.” That strange confluence of events may help explain the exasperation of folks like Jim Geraghty, a former co-worker of mine, and his boss, Jonah Goldberg. “[W]hatever ‘cowardice’ or reluctance [Holder] diagnoses would appear to be justified,” Geraghty wrote, “as ‘frank conversations’ usually result in accusations of racism, and pretty severe repercussions for those deemed by society at large as racist.” Filed under: Culture and Media and News & Politics and People Comments: 2 Comments |
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