Death By Texting
Posted on 02.02.12 by Danny Glover @ 8:31 pm

We have a 12-year-old son, so we know this look:


But euthanasia isn’t the answer. Divine parental intervention works just fine.

For those who may not be familiar with The Onion, it’s a satire publication. No actual children were harmed in the making of this fake news report.

Many of the stories at The Onion are laced with vulgarity, so I won’t link to it. But I do enjoy some of their videos and stories. This satire poking fun at The Huffington Post today has less mainstream appeal than the video about a young girl’s texting-induced coma, but media junkies like me got a kick out of it:

NEW YORK — Shocked and saddened witnesses at The Huffington Post’s news-aggregation facility have confirmed that employee Henry Evers, 25, died Wednesday after being sucked into the website’s powerful news-repurposing turbine, where his body was immediately torn to pieces.

The 200-ton content-compiling device, developed by Greek multimillionaire and site co-founder Ari­anna Huffington, sucks up original articles from around the web with its massive rotor assembly, re-brands them with the Huffington Post name, and then spits them back out on the company’s home page. …

Since The Huffington Post was founded in 2005, its headquarters has consisted of two rooms: Arianna Huffington’s spacious, lav­ishly appointed office overlooking New York City, and the windowless 10,000-square-foot subterranean warehouse that houses the turbine. More than 700 low-wage workers, known as writers, clock in every day, and, dressed in their Huffington Post hard hats and coveralls, work in dark, unsafe conditions to ensure the machine runs smoothly and constantly churns out content.

That’s an exaggerated portrait of how many “news” organizations work these days.


Filed under: Business and Culture and Entertainment and Just For Laughs and Media and Technology and Video
Comments: None

Punxsutawney Phil On A Platter
Posted on 02.02.12 by Danny Glover @ 1:52 pm

Yes, the day we all dread every winter — Groundhog Day — is here, and the world’s most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, saw his shadow. According to rural legend, that means we should expect six more weeks of winter.

That might not sound so bad during this winter of balmy weather, especially to skiers. But spring-loving rednecks who want revenge against the prophetic Phil and his Phamily of rodents should go here, where you’ll find a recipe for roasting your neighborhood groundhog, literally.

Why would you want to eat a groundhog? Every redneck knows the answer:
(more…)


Filed under: Culture and Food and Hunting & Guns and Rednecks and West Virginia and Wildlife
Comments: None

Zapped By The Zappos Invasion
Posted on 01.16.12 by Danny Glover @ 6:26 pm

Somehow, despite having made my living online for more than a decade, I’ve managed to make it this far into the Internet age without having been the victim of a mass security breach — at least so far as I know. That lucky streak ended today when I received this email from Zappos.

First, the bad news:

We are writing to let you know that there may have been illegal and unauthorized access to some of your customer account information on Zappos.com, including one or more of the following: your name, e-mail address, billing and shipping addresses, phone number, the last four digits of your credit card number (the standard information you find on receipts), and/or your cryptographically scrambled password (but not your actual password).

THE BETTER NEWS:
The database that stores your critical credit card and other payment data was NOT affected or accessed.

SECURITY PRECAUTIONS:
For your protection and to prevent unauthorized access, we have expired and reset your password so you can create a new password. Please follow the instructions below to create a new password.

We also recommend that you change your password on any other web site where you use the same or a similar password. As always, please remember that Zappos.com will never ask you for personal or account information in an e-mail. Please exercise caution if you receive any emails or phone calls that ask for personal information or direct you to a web site where you are asked to provide personal information.

PLEASE CREATE A NEW PASSWORD:
We have expired and reset your password so you can create a new password. Please create a new password by visiting Zappos.com and clicking on the “Create a New Password” link in the upper right corner of the web site and follow the steps from there.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any additional questions about this process, please email us at passwordchange@zappos.com.

I had never heard of Zappos until last year and had never ordered anything from the online shoe and clothing retailer until a few months ago. It figures that the first hit to my online security would come as the result of trying something new.

Thankfully, this breach didn’t involve financial details.


Filed under: Business and News & Politics and Technology
Comments: None

How To Make A Slingshot Crossbow
Posted on 01.12.12 by Danny Glover @ 12:43 pm

Remarkable redneck ingenuity is on display in this video, which demonstrates how you can turn your Christmas tree into a deadly slingshot crossbow:


Filed under: Holidays and Human Interest and Hunting & Guns and Rednecks and Sports and Video
Comments: None

The Vulgar ‘Modern Family’
Posted on 01.11.12 by Danny Glover @ 12:30 pm

Hollywood plans to send a sad but true statement next week about the vulgar realities of today’s modern family. ABC will air an episode of “Modern Family” about a 2-1/2-year-old toddler who says the dirtiest of dirty words.

“We thought it was a very natural story since, as parents, we’ve all been through this,” the show’s creator, Steve Levitan, said in defending the storyline.

Levitan’s explanation stretches credibility. His latest envelope-pushing plot is more a case of crude Hollywood social engineers trying to shove society further down the road of immorality than “entertainment” reflecting a norm. But he’s not too far ahead of the reality curve.

I’ve documented America’s seemingly perpetual slide into the pit of profanity on this blog:

Too many people think it’s cool, creative and comical to cuss. There is almost no circumstance where uttering a bad word is considered a bad thing. In that atmosphere, it is inevitable that men like Levitan will see how far they can go to make their black mark on society.

I wish Simon Cowell’s attitude held more sway in Hollywood and reality. He is determined to produce family entertainment free of swearing.

But when it comes to language, George Carlin is the hero. His admirers won’t rest until everyone from toddlers to grannies utter all seven of his dirty words (and then some) with reckless abandon at home, in school, on the job and across the airwaves.


Filed under: Culture and Entertainment and Parenting and People and Religion
Comments: 2 Comments

Jay Leno’s West Virginia Jokes
Posted on 01.06.12 by Danny Glover @ 9:17 pm

I remember going to a Jay Leno performance in Morgantown, W.Va., back in 1990. I enjoyed the show immensely, and so did thousands of other fans. Somehow I doubt Leno would be welcomed back with open arms to the home of West Virginia University now after his joke last night at the expense of WVU and West Virginians.

About six minutes into his monologue, Leno took this potshot at me and my peeps:

And West Virginia beat Clemson in the Orange Bowl last night by a score of 70-33. West Virginia scored 70 points? Huh, West Virginia? They don’t score that high on their SATs. That’s unbelievable. That’s amazing; that’s amazing.

The ignorant and stereotypical wisecrack drove many West Virginians to Leno’s Facebook page and to Twitter, where they have been voicing complaints about his attack on the people of the great Mountain State. Here’s a sampling of the responses: (more…)


Filed under: Entertainment and Hatin' On Rednecks and Just For Laughs and Sports and Video and West Virginia
Comments: 7 Comments

Sticking It To The HOA Man
Posted on 12.24.11 by Danny Glover @ 6:27 pm

I decided long ago never to buy a home on property controlled by an association of nib-noses who love to impose elitist rules on others. As an enlightened being, I don’t decorate our property with tire planters or cars jacked up on blocks, but the redneck in me cherishes the freedom to do so.

That’s why I like to see people who do choose to live within developments managed by homeowners associations stick it to the HOA man when he goes on a ridiculous and unjustifiable power trip. Overbearing rules usually have loopholes that are ripe for exploitation.

A Facebook friend found just such a loophole during the holidays when her HOA decided to play Grinch. Her understated Christmas decorations — two red bows on the porch pillars and lanterns in the lawn — apparently violated the letter of the association’s lame laws about “seasonal decorations.” The HOA ordered her to remove them.

She didn’t face any fines for the alleged breach, so she decided to keep the decorations in place. But the warning letter from the HOA irritated her and her husband so much that they decided to protest by also decorating their car in Christmas lights. “There is NOTHING in the rules prohibiting decorating your car with Christmas lights,” she said.

Take that, HOA!


Filed under: An Enlightened Redneck ... and Business and Culture and Family and Features and Holidays and Parenting and Photoshop Stop
Comments: None

How To Make A RedNek Fortune
Posted on 12.20.11 by Danny Glover @ 11:43 pm

Today I had one of those “Why didn’t I think of that?” moments — the kind you experience when you realize you could have made millions of dollars if only you had thought of that oh-so-obvious creation before someone else created it and made millions.

I’m talking about the Original RedNek Wine Glass, the kind of novelty item that would have been a perfect gimmick for a blog written by an enlightened redneck. A best seller on Amazon.com this holiday season, the Bell Mason jar glued to a Libby candlestick holder has generated $5 million in sales in just 10 months.

Okie Morris of Newport News, Va., got the idea after seeing the two separate items in a thrift store. She thought it would be neat to forge them together and later sold the rights to a family-owned business in Pennsylvania. The rest is online marketing history.

The uppity folks at Village Voice mocked the RedNek Wine Glass as “tackiness” and said it is “for country bumpkins with class,” but like me, they’re just jealous they didn’t have a multimillion-dollar stroke of redneck genius.


Filed under: Business and Culture and Holidays and Rednecks
Comments: None

MeatEater: Red Meat For Rednecks
Posted on 12.15.11 by Danny Glover @ 5:31 pm

Finally, some enlightened entertainment for rednecks! MeatEater, a new series that premieres Jan. 1 on the Sportsman Channel, will unabashedly celebrate the carnivorous lifestyle combined with the sheer joy of hunting and bagging your own game.

[The hunts will] introduce you to some of the wildest tasting foods that you’ve ever seen. I’m talking about coues deer heart wrapped in the animal’s own abdominal lining and cooked in the field over a stone hearth; cubed black bear meat deep-fried in rendered bear oil; mallard ducks, spatchcocked and spit-roasted over a fire of black spruce; mule deer stew simmered in melted snow; and scalded and scraped javelina cooked through an ingenous method that I learned from Amerindian hunters in the South American jungle.

The bad news: We have Comcast, and a colleague of mine just noted on Facebook that Comcast doesn’t offer the Sportsman Channel. How unenlightened!


Filed under: Entertainment and Hunting & Guns and Rednecks
Comments: None

‘The Pride Of West Virginia’ … And America
Posted on 12.10.11 by Danny Glover @ 2:57 pm

I didn’t know until moments ago, when a colleague forwarded a video, that the West Virginia University band, known to all Mountaineers as “The Pride of West Virginia,” is a viral hit on YouTube.

The video, viewed more than 1.1 million times so far is from the band’s performance at a game played this year just before Sept. 11 memorials. The show, a tribute to the U.S. armed forces, features a medley of songs from all U.S. military branches and amazing choreography that matches each song.

At one point, band members form into airplane to recognize the U.S. Air Force, and as they march forward, smoke billows from the area where engines would be on the plane.

I have family connections to the band. My brother marched with “The Pride” as a trombone player during college and still returns regularly to march as part of the alumni band on homecoming weekends in the fall. Even better, we’re related to WVU band director Jay Drury. His grandmother (my grandmother’s oldest sister) was my favorite great aunt during my childhood. I looked forward to visits with Aunt Kate during her weeks-long stays at my grandmother’s house.

If you appreciate WVU’s tribute to the military, donate a few bucks toward the band’s travel fund to reward the directors and performers who created the show.

UPDATE, Dec. 10: Fans of WVU and of the band’s tribute to the military are trying to get the National Football League to invite the band to perform the show again at the Super Bowl. Join the Facebook group if you like the idea.

Correction: An earlier version of this article said the show was performed before Memorial Day.


Filed under: Family and Human Interest and Music and Video and West Virginia
Comments: None

One-minute Christmas Tree
Posted on 12.09.11 by Danny Glover @ 9:31 pm

If it were physically possible to install and decorate a Christmas tree this quickly, I wouldn’t be so reluctant to join the annual family ritual:


Filed under: Family and Holidays and Video
Comments: None

The ‘Mindless Exhibitionism’ Of The NFL
Posted on 11.28.11 by Danny Glover @ 8:42 pm

I loved the National Football League as a child. Each Sunday between morning and evening worship services, I flopped onto the couch or sprawled across the floor in front of the TV to watch as much football as possible, especially my beloved Dallas Cowboys.

I’m still a diehard football fan, but I all but abandoned the NFL long ago. The “mindless exhibitionism” on display in this video commentary by Bob Costas is the reason:

I’m not the least bit entertained by grown men engaged in “calculated displays of obnoxious self-indulgence.” I’ve even lost interest in watching NFL games on Thanksgiving Day and watching the Super Bowl, the two times when I’ve typically made exceptions and endured the “buffoonery” of players and permissiveness of coaches who have no sense of sportsmanship.

These days I focus on college football — and sadly, I can see the day coming when it, too, will become intolerable to watch because of the oversize children who occupy today’s gridiron.


Filed under: Culture and People and Sports and Video
Comments: None

Deep Fryers: The Turkeys’ Revenge
Posted on 11.22.11 by Danny Glover @ 4:18 pm

At my wife’s behest, we bought an outdoor deep fryer several years ago for two special meals — catfish and turkey. Kimberly laughs to this day as she remembers the sight of my mother and me lighting the fryer flame for our first deep-fried Thanksgiving feast.

Mom had done a bit too much Internet research beforehand and had both of us terrified of torching the house or taking out the whole family in a massive explosion. We stretched the hose connecting the propane tank to the frier stand as far as we could, and if we had a 10-foot pole, I’m sure we would have used it to ignite the gas from a distance.

If handheld video cameras and YouTube had existed back then, we may well have become a viral hit, albeit in Rebecca Black fashion.

Laugh if you will, but today, Mom and I were vindicated by none other than the Homeland Security Department, which tweeted warnings about the dangers of frying turkeys. The department shared this video to emphasize the warning:

How encouraging to see that the bureaucrats responsible for securing our nation are so committed to their jobs that they even issue an ominous warning about turkeys possessing our fryers in search of Thanksgiving Day revenge.


Filed under: Family and Food and Government and Holidays and Video
Comments: 1 Comment

Pizza Is A Vegetable
Posted on 11.18.11 by Danny Glover @ 10:55 am

And french fries are good for your health. These ideas, put forth by a Congress caving to the pressures applied by food companies, potato growers and the salt industry, are not likely to engender any protests from rednecks, enlightened or otherwise.

Sure, we’ll mock the government for accepting such ridiculous health conclusions because it’s such an easy target. But we all remember pizza Fridays and tolerably tasty fries in the school lunches of our youth, and we think all children should experience those simple pleasures of life.

Rest assured that we serve pizza, french fries and all manner of other unhealthy but convenient meals in the Glover Home School — and no bureaucrats can tell us to stop, even if they are so inclined.


Filed under: Food and Government and Home Schooling and Human Interest and News & Politics
Comments: None

Why We Home-School, Lesson #36
Posted on 11.18.11 by Danny Glover @ 10:37 am

We don’t want our children to be “forced to walk a gauntlet of screaming “Occupy Wall Street” protesters just to get to school.”

Granted, we live in the suburbs rather than a big city where the protesters are behaving like children. But by teaching our children at home, we’ll never have to worry about a protest of any kind threatening our children or interrupting the school day.

We’d rather not expose them in person to the ugly side of American democracy, when citizens forsake the “peaceably” part of the First Amendment’s “right to assemble.”

(Read previous “Why We Home-School” lessons.)


Filed under: Culture and History and News & Politics and Why We Home-School
Comments: None

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