‘Fiscal Child Abuse’ In America
Posted on 09.01.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 8:01 am

About six weeks from now, Americans will get a fiscal wake-up call in the form of a new documentary titled “I Want Your Money.” I love that it’s being released just before the election — the perfect time to remind taxpayers how Washington has robbed them over the past two years — and I hope it’s enough to make voters take a throw-the-spending-bums-out stand at the ballot box.

Here’s the trailer to the movie. Spread it far and wide, and invite your friends to go see it:


Filed under: Entertainment and Government and News & Politics and Video
Comments: None

The War Of Redneck Aggression
Posted on 08.23.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:58 pm

Earlier this year, I earned my 15 seconds of fame in the international spotlight when BBC interviewed me about the meaning of the word redneck. I owe it all to comedian Robin Williams, whose jab at Australia as the home of English rednecks triggered an Australian attack on Alabama.

Now Williams is set to tour Australia, and he wants to make sure the Aussies and everyone else involved knows he was just doing his job — telling jokes and making people laugh. “That was pretty bizarre. I was like: ‘Wow! I’ve started an international incident! I don’t want to cause a war between Alabama and Australia — please no!’”


Filed under: Entertainment and Hatin' On Rednecks and Just For Laughs and Redneck Humor and Rednecks
Comments: None

A Tiger Riding A Horse
Posted on 08.13.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 12:19 pm

I have no particular reason for posting this video other than the obvious — it’s a tiger riding a horse! You just don’t see that every day, so enjoy seeing it today on this blog:


Filed under: Entertainment and Human Interest and Video and Wildlife
Comments: None

Tim Hawkins: ‘Somebody Broke Wind’
Posted on 07.12.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 9:54 pm

Sheer genius. I wish our minivan had a DVD player just so I could play this video repeatedly on our next road trip when one of the kids “breaks wind” and forces us to roll down the windows for fresh air. It’s the only sure-fire way to get me to stop so the culprit can take a bathroom break.


Filed under: Entertainment and Family and Just For Laughs and Music and Redneck Humor and Video
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Dad Life
Posted on 07.09.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 7:31 am

Only bits and pieces of this video (and the lyrics) resemble my “Dad Life” — there’s not a laptop, recliner or iPhone to be found — but I like it anyway.

I do know this: I’d like to have a yard big enough to justify buying an awesome riding mower like the one in the video. I hate cutting the grass with my puttering push mower, but if I had a sweet, more-power ride like that, I’d be all into manicuring my “man-scape.”


Filed under: Entertainment and Just For Laughs and Parenting and Video
Comments: None

Why We Home-School, Lesson #30
Posted on 07.07.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 11:22 pm

We want our children to get an education without being subjected to all the stressful and counterproductive pressures of a system created by the government and run by bureaucrats.

Watch the trailer for the documentary “Race to Nowhere: The Dark Side of America’s Achievement Culture” for a glimpse of what formal education has become:

To be fair, part of me wonders, after watching the video, whether the bigger problem is that we have reared a generation of whiny kids who cry “Woe is me!” because they have to do homework to get ahead. But I also think this is a valid point:

[W]hat’s documented here is that everyone from the federal government to state and local governments, to teachers unions, to school districts, to administrators, to teachers, and yes, parents have contrived — not conspired because the “good intentions” thing is definitely present — to royally screw kids up, steal their very childhoods, stress them out to the max and generally do them the double disservice of both wreaking havoc in their lives, and for most of them, not really educating them. It’s all downside, or mostly so.

Teaching done right will make children love to learn, and loving parents focused on educating just a few children can do the job better than most “trained” teachers in today’s schools.

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


Filed under: Entertainment and News & Politics and Parenting and Video and Why We Home-School
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Violent Musical Fantasies That Make You Smile
Posted on 06.26.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 12:23 pm

Country musicians have a twisted knack for making violence seem amusing. The latest entry in this niche music genre is the song “Pray For You,” by Jaron and the Long Road to Love.

Here are the deadly wishes for a wife scorned from the chorus alone: “I pray your brakes go out runnin’ down a hill. I pray a flowerpot falls from a window sill and knocks you in the head like I’d like to. I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls. I pray you’re flyin’ high when your engine stalls. I pray all your dreams never come true. Just know wherever you are, honey, I pray for you.”

I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but smile, especially when I watch the video.

I unsuccessfully fought the same urge — being entertained by violent, sometimes deadly fantasies set to catchy music rather than offended by them — when The Dixie Chicks released “Goodbye Earl” and when Carrie Underwood’s tune “Before He Cheats” rose to the top of the charts. The latter is still one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite singers. Enjoy these online encore performances:


Filed under: Entertainment and Just For Laughs and Music and Redneck Music and Video
Comments: 1 Comment

A Super Big Gulp Of Farmville
Posted on 06.23.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 8:01 pm

It wasn’t long ago, maybe six months, that I incessantly teased my wife for playing Farmville on Facebook. The game looked lame. Who wants to waste time plowing digitally, planting and harvesting virtual crops, and collecting electronic feathers from chickens and milk from cows?

Then, amidst the tedious hours of unemployment, I started playing Farmville because I had way too much time to waste. I was hooked, even worse than my wife (and our young children, who began playing the role of hired farm hands when Mommy grew bored with the game). I’ve been gainfully employed for several months now, and I’m still playing Farmville!

My addiction is so strong that my wife has been feeding it by buying new Farmville goodies at 7-Eleven, including this Super Big Gulp cup that won me a pool-diving cow for my farm:

Fortunately, my boss, David All, is a big believer in the potential of social gaming to boost corporate and political brands. PR Week recently published his essay on the subject, and I am now one of the team members at the David All Group brainstorming ways to use social gaming as a promotional tool.

So Farmville is now both work and entertainment. It’s a sweet assignment.


Filed under: Business and Culture and Entertainment and Technology
Comments: None

America’s Spiritual Heyday
Posted on 04.16.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 2:21 pm

Like most of America’s official recognitions of God, the National Day of Prayer now at the center of a legal dispute is rooted in the spiritual heyday of the post-World War II era. The day was first celebrated in 1952.

I revisited the history of such “ceremonial deism” (the Supreme Court’s term) in my 1999 “Congress Back Then” column for IntellectualCapital.com, and I am reprinting it here to offer some context for the current debate about the National Day of Prayer.

Congress Back Then: America’s Spiritual Heyday
July 29, 1999
By K. Daniel Glover

Earlier this year, policymakers, pundits and people on the street reopened a uniquely American (and seemingly infinite) debate. In the wake of another incident of school violence, this time a mass murder at a high school in Littleton, Colo., they pondered a familiar question: Just how far should our nation go in trying to maintain a clear separation between church and state?

Congress debated the question in mid-June and decided that perhaps we had gone too far. More specifically, House lawmakers saw a need for a greater religious presence in the public schools, so they cast a series of votes designed to give new spiritual direction to the nation’s youth. The most-publicized decision: They sanctioned the posting of the Bible’s Ten Commandments on school walls.

The primarily symbolic votes topped the news of the week, not at all surprising in an era when Americans are sharply divided on the relationship between religion and government. But four decades back, the votes might have gone unnoticed, an unremarkable act at a time when Congress added the phrase “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, and made the phrase “In God We Trust” the national motto and a mandatory slogan on all U.S. coins and currency.

All of that religious posturing, and more, happened during the presidency of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower and in the early days of a Cold War that most patriotic Americans apparently saw as a battle between Christian America and the godless, communist Soviet Union.
(more…)


Filed under: Books and Culture and Entertainment and History and News & Politics and People and Religion
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High Standards For ‘Fat Rednecks’
Posted on 04.08.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 1:06 am

Michael Steele ruffled Republican feathers with his recent politically correct suggestion on “Good Morning America” that he has a “slimmer margin” for error as chairman of the GOP because he is a black man.

John King of CNN asked Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who once held the post Steele now does at the Republican National Committee, whether Steele is held to a “different standard” because of the color of his skin. Barbour answered by reminding King of his own political handicap:

Look — you know — when you’re a fat redneck like me and got an accent like mine, you can say, “Well, they’re going to hold me to a higher standard.” In fact, I don’t think anybody ever held me to a higher standard than I held myself. That’s the way I was raised. That’s what I was brought up to do. That’s the way it ought to be.

Ain’t that the truth! Oops, I forgot I ain’t s’posed to say “ain’t.” They taught us that in the Redneck School of Higher Standards.


Filed under: Entertainment and News & Politics and People and Rednecks
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‘You Picked A Fine Time To Lead Us, Barack’
Posted on 04.07.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 11:53 pm

You might be an enlightened redneck … if you appreciate a parody song that meshes the music of country legend Kenny Rogers with the political messaging of the tea party movement.


Filed under: Entertainment and News & Politics and Redneck Music and Video
Comments: 4 Comments

The Global War On Rednecks
Posted on 04.05.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 7:04 am

American comedian Robin Williams sparked an international redneck incident last week, and BBC called little ol’ me to help set the world straight on all this fuss about rednecks.

First the back story: In a March 30 appearance on David Letterman’s show, Williams mocked Australians as “English rednecks.” “You down there, ‘How are ya? Good to see you. Hello.’” he said in his worst Aussie accent. “I realized that if Darwin had landed in Australia, he would have gone: ‘I’m wrong.’”

The jab didn’t set well with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who threw the redneck charge back at America. “I think Robin Williams should go and spend a bit of time in Alabama before he frames comments about anyone being particularly redneck,” he said in a radio interview.

At that point, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley entered the rhetorical fray. “I’m not sure if Prime Minister Rudd has ever been to Alabama. If he has, he would know that Alabamians are decent, hard-working, creative people.”

Here’s where I enter the picture: The back-and-forth over who is and isn’t a redneck caught the attention of BBC, and someone there found this Web site. Last Thursday, Alex Last of “The World Today” sent me this e-mail:

We were thinking of doing a segment on the spat between Robin Williams/Kevin Rudd/governor of Alabama and why the term “redneck” has created such a storm. Let me know what you think.

The next day BBC’s Leila Touwen recorded a telephone interview with me, and my “expert” insights into the state of being redneck aired yesterday. You can listen to BBC’s redneck segment here, starting at about the 20-minute, 40-second mark, but here’s what I told the British broadcaster:
(more…)


Filed under: Entertainment and Hatin' On Rednecks and News & Politics and People and Rednecks and Video
Comments: 53 Comments

‘The Wrong Kind Of White People’
Posted on 04.03.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 7:45 pm

Rednecks are “the wrong kind of white people.” That’s why the “right kind” of white people — the elitists who look down their noses at rednecks — are trying their hardest to marginalize tea partiers as racist, extremist, downright scary people:

The wrong kind of white person is the one that “right kind” white people want to avoid when camping (the one in the RV); the one that watches Leno; the one who doesn’t like hummus or find Sarah Silverman funny. It’s the one who, when he goes to San Francisco, makes the Rocket Boat the highlight of the trip. It’s the white person who drives a truck, not to reject the political statement of driving a Prius but because he needs it for work. Sarah Palin, even though she’s a strong woman, in a Native American, union household with a disabled child, and an unwed, single-mother daughter is the wrong kind of white person.

Even a congressman who himself was unfairly attacked as a racist on the campaign trail played the race-baiting, tea-party-bashing game this week:

(more…)


Filed under: Culture and Entertainment and Hatin' On Rednecks and Media and News & Politics and People and Video
Comments: None

Dr. Seuss’ Message To Uncle Sam
Posted on 03.26.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 11:01 pm

This is going viral on Facebook. I don’t know who wrote it, but it captures the spirit of a solid majority of the country not only this week but for more than a year:

I do not like it Uncle Sam, I do not like it Sam I Am. I do not like these dirty crooks, I do not like how they cook books. I do not like when Congress steals, I do not like their secret deals. I do not like this Speaker Nan, I do not like this ‘YES WE CAN’. I do not like this kind of hope, I do not like it Nope! Nope! Nope!

I have to say that as a writer, I would hate it if I wrote something that clever and it traveled all over the Internet without my name on it. This is what reminded me of the “The Bill Of No Rights” more than a decade after I unraveled that Internet copyright mystery.


Filed under: Entertainment and Government and Health and News & Politics and Technology
Comments: 4 Comments

Broadband For Rednecks Everywhere!
Posted on 03.11.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 1:37 pm

In my new role as the editorial director of Digital Society, I’ve been focused like a laser on high-speed Internet the past few weeks. The FCC will be releasing its national broadband plan in six days, so leaders of the commission have been making the rounds on the speaking circuit to promote pieces of the plan.

The central message of the plan is that all Americans need broadband access — Commissioner Michael Copps this week even joined the chorus of people proclaiming it as a “right” — so the government must take steps to ensure that the poor, minorities, the elderly and, yes, rednecks in rural areas are enlightened by the Internet.

The FCC is so committed to selling its plan that Chairman Julius Genachowski spoke to the Country Music Association’s board of directors at its meeting in Washington yesterday.

Of course, country bumpkins are way too backward to understand the high-tech lingo of the FCC, so Genachowski’s staff translated his speech into “Nashvillese” that features country music titles:

When I think of those “Country Roads” and “Wide Open Spaces” without broadband, I “Fall to Pieces” and say that’s “Crazy.” We need to address these “Unanswered Prayers.”

As FCC chairman, I have friends in high places and “Friends in Low Places,” and I’m pulled to and fro on policy issues, but “I Walk the Line.” That’s because telecom politics is like a “Ring of Fire.” First I have Senator Rockefeller telling me about a “Coal Miner’s Daughter” who can’t get wireless service in some “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” Next, “I’m on the Road Again” to where “The Grass is Blue” and “A Boy Named Sue” stops me and says we need super-duper fast broadband all the way from “Boulder to Birmingham”” — and beyond, to “Galveston” and “El Paso.” He complains that his slow dial-up service can’t get to “Amarillo by Morning” and laments that America has gone round and round for years without a National Broadband Plan and plaintively asks, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”

I explain — to the “Boy Named Sue” — that this issue is “Always on my Mind” and the lack of a plan should not make him “Hurt” or a “Man of Constant Sorrow” with his “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.” Instead, I tell him to “Take it Easy” — “Don’t Rock the Jukebox” … just try to “Keep on the Sunny Side” and dream “Sweet Dreams” — because A National Broadband Plan is coming. Next week.”

Don’t you feel so much more enlightened about broadband now?


Filed under: Entertainment and Government and Music and News & Politics and Redneck Humor and Redneck Music and Rednecks and Technology
Comments: None

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