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Posted on 08.24.09 by Danny Glover @ 8:28 pm
The word on Elite Street is that rednecks can’t do no cipherin’ and don’t know nothin’ ’bout nothin’, least of all the kind of higher math folks use in the big city. But the bigwigs in the big city of San Francisco could learn a thing or two from the rednecks in my home state of West Virginia. Don Surber of the Charleston Daily Mail did some basic math that puts the Bay Area’s budget woes in a most enlightened context:
If you really want to know how bad it is in San Francisco, click here to see how the city wastes all of that money. It sounds to me like they could use a few rednecks on the West Coast. Filed under: Government and News & Politics and West Virginia Comments: None |
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Posted on 08.23.09 by Danny Glover @ 9:42 pm
The saints at our congregation gathered a half-hour earlier than normal for worship this evening to have a special prayer service focused on praise and thanksgiving. Our ongoing class this summer on prayer life spurred the idea, and it was a most uplifting experience. When I learned that the subject of our prayers would be praise and thanksgiving, I immediately thought of King David and the many psalms he wrote. They are filled with acknowledgments of God’s power and His character. I spent the afternoon reading several of them and picked one as my focus. Rather than start a prayer from scratch, I tweaked the language and cadence of Psalm 103, which begins with the phrase “Bless the Lord, O my soul” (New King James Version), and read it as a prayer on behalf of the congregation as the brethren bowed. Here is the text I used: Filed under: Family and Friends and Religion Comments: None |
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Posted on 08.23.09 by Danny Glover @ 9:03 pm
I returned to my redneck roots for one week this summer, serving as a counselor at Camp Appalachia in West Virginia, near my hometown. It’s not a “church camp,” but it is run by Christians and emphasizes wholesome living and wholesome fun. We have daily Bible classes and devotionals, in addition to sports activities and recreational classes that run the gamut from crafts and chorus to archery and riflery. I attended Camp Appalachia in the late 1970s and early 1980s during its first few years. I loved the experience then and even more this year as an adult. I taught two fishing classes and a session on photography. The highlight of the fishing classes was forcing the students, girls and boys alike, to make “stink bait” so we could try to catch some catfish. I figured that was less of a liability than making them go “noodling.” The highlight of the photography class was seeing my students put the simple lessons we studied into action as we wandered around the campground each day. They took some truly artistic shots, which I plan to post here eventually. I knew the campers and other counselors had as much fun as I did, so on the final morning of camp, I asked them to explain why, for the benefit of future campers and counselors. This is a video montage of their answers: I loved Camp Appalachia because the campers chose me as “the counselor who was the most fun to be around.” For a man who was called a curmudgeon by a colleague at the ripe, young age of 25, that award was an utter shock to me. I’m sure the stink bait put me over the top. Filed under: Family and Friends and People and Religion and Sports and The Redneck Report and Video and West Virginia Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 08.20.09 by Danny Glover @ 8:32 pm
Any man who wins a famous award for being the elitist of the year really should just keep his mouth shut when it comes to subjects like professional racing. But President Obama decided to go there this week and lodged his foot squarely in his mouth. Obama goofed when recounting NASCAR’s connection to moonshiners. Ed Morrissey gave Obama a much-needed everyman history lesson at Hot Air, where he tracks the many “Obamateurisms” of a president who can’t survive without his TelePrompter:
Please stick to Urdu poetry and arugula, Mr. President, and leave NASCAR and swamp cabbage to all of us rednecks you so despise. Filed under: News & Politics and People and Rednecks and Sports Comments: None |
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Posted on 08.18.09 by Danny Glover @ 8:18 pm
When I decided to become a newspaperman, everyone tried to talk me out of it. My Dad was at the top of the list. He wanted me to be an engineer so I could earn a good living. Even j-school professors warned my classmates and me that we had better be passionate about the profession because journalism in general and newspapers in particular are no place to make money. They were right. I never could have afforded the rent in Morgantown, W.Va., on my first full-time salary. Thankfully, my two brothers were in college and we shared a one-bedroom apartment. Dad paid the rent, and I paid the utilities. I was reminded of the vow of poverty I had to take in the early days of my career when I saw an ad on JournalismJobs.com for a reporter in Sandusky, Ohio, which is near Cleveland. The paper wants someone “with enthusiasm, energy, a good sense of humor and the ability to report and write a range of stories” — but it’s only willing to pay $20,000 to $25,000 a year for that person. Just out of curiosity, I checked the median income in Sandusky. It’s $34,085. The average house in the city costs $110,000. No reporter could ever afford one. You might think that would make me second guess my career choice, but it doesn’t. I knew the financial realities when I got into this business, but I also believed I had the passion to succeed — and with God’s help I have. Filed under: Blogging and Business and Media and West Virginia Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 08.18.09 by Danny Glover @ 6:00 pm
Maybe the country isn’t going to the dogs after all. Well, at least this dog has enough sense to realize that a treat from President Obama is sure to come with (tax) strings attached. Filed under: Human Interest and News & Politics and People and Pets and Video Comments: None |
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Posted on 08.16.09 by Danny Glover @ 7:52 am
If you want health care that costs three times as much as what you currently pay and are willing to wait almost five times as long for treatment as you do now, then the Lego health-care system Barack Obama wants to build is for you. Personally, I’d prefer to keep all my Lego parts intact a while longer, so I’ll take the flawed but superior private health-care system America has, thank you very much. Hands off my health care! Filed under: Government and News & Politics and Video Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 08.09.09 by Danny Glover @ 8:56 pm
Mary Lou Retton, the 16-year-old girl whose athletic exploits enthralled the nation at the 1984 Summer Olympics, is headed back home. This is the kind of news I love to report because her home is my home — West Virginia. Almost everyone born and raised in the great Mountain State dreams of returning there someday. Retton is moving back to her hometown of Fairmont because her husband, Shannon Kelley, landed a job as the assistant football coach and the director of the athletic fundraising association at Fairmont State University. But Retton has her own reason for wanting to go home: “I’m ready for a small town.” After almost three decades in Houston, she’s had enough big city enlightenment. Now Retton is ready to reconnect with her redneck roots. I hope to follow her someday. A side note: As a child, I thought Fairmont was a long drive from my hometown because of the barf-inducing country roads. Now, after two decades of driving back and forth between West Virginia and the Washington, D.C., area, the stretch from Paden City to Fairmont is a breeze. I commute that far (or longer) one way every day that I head into the big city! Country roads, take me home soon … please. (Hat tip to my favorite West Virginia columnist, Don Surber of the Charleston Daily Mail) Filed under: People and Sports and West Virginia Comments: None |
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Posted on 08.09.09 by Danny Glover @ 6:48 pm
Persistent fear-mongering about global warming has a way of making even normally rational people think irrationally. The proof: U.S. military and intelligence analysts are now imagining war scenarios that could be triggered by “climate change.” This summary from a New York Times article a few days ago makes it sound like Al Gore is in charge of the Pentagon:
“Here we have alarmists starting to sound like neo-conservatives,” Australian blogger Jennifer Marohasy wrote. “Is this the sort of the thing The New York Times would normally advocate or even condone?” The article predictably ignores the evidence that that globe has been much warmer than it is now and that it has been cooling for several years. But that hasn’t stopped the government from spending taxpayers’ money on exercises that imagine worst-case scenarios from global warming. It also hasn’t stopped wily politicians like Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., from trying to capitalize on the moment. Alarmists in Congress forced the Defense Department to study the potential security implications of presumed global warming, and now Kerry is embracing that new fear-mongering tactic to try to win votes for emissions regulations that would cripple the U.S. economy. Don’t buy into the hysteria. It’s just another dirty, deceptive trick of the environmental movement. Filed under: Government and News & Politics and People Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 08.06.09 by Danny Glover @ 8:47 pm
Nothing is more aggravating in policy circles than when someone takes a hard line on an issue and then refuses to defend it when challenged. The AARP has taken a pro-government position on healthcare policy that is arguably a detriment to its members. Some members of AARP want answers; AARP doesn’t want to give them. The group says it is ready to “listen” to what other people have to say, but it’s only interested in the kind of one-way “conversation” Hillary Clinton conducted as a presidential candidate. That’s obvious from video of an AARP town-hall meeting in Dallas this week. The AARP woman running the show clearly wasn’t interested in hearing what anyone had to say from the get-go, and when pressed, she childishly took her microphone and went home. When it comes to health-care policy, I don’t think AARP’s current stance represents the long-term interests of seniors, retirees and the increasingly younger market it is targeting, and its hostility toward paying members who disagree with that stance is offensive. Were I old enough to join AARP, the video would make me think twice before doing so. Filed under: Culture and Government and News & Politics and Video Comments: None |
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Posted on 08.01.09 by Danny Glover @ 11:42 am
Extortion has found its way into the blogosphere — and all for a pair of Crocs. A greedy “mommy blogger” at the recent BlogHer conference threatened to write something bad about the maker of Crocs if its representative didn’t find her a free pair of the comfy sandals. No doubt about it, that’s low. As I see it, there would have been nothing wrong with said mommy blogger bemoaning her missed opportunity to get good swag at the conference. But threatening to go negative as a way to get a gift she clearly didn’t deserve is completely unethical. The same is true for anyone who uses social media as a weapon. The blogosphere is an effective check against bad customer service, but customers who abuse it are as bad, or worse, than the companies who mistreat them. The temptation to threaten bad press is strong. I’ve fought it myself many times, and even blogosphere bigwigs like Amanda Congdon of Sometimesdaily have fallen prey to the urge: It’s also not a new temptation or exclusive to the new media world. There’s a reason that people remember Mark Twain for saying, “Never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel.” Publishers have been getting even with their enemies in print for centuries. But the use of social media as a weapon — an utterly unsociable practice — is a potentially greater threat because anyone can be a publisher these days. Bloggers should roundly condemn such behavior whenever it surfaces because it will make all of them look bad. Filed under: Blogging and Culture and Media Comments: 2 Comments |
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