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
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A Redneck Boy And His Stuffed Tiger
Posted on 02.21.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 1:18 pm

I loved the comic strip “Calvin & Hobbes.” It’s the one strip I rushed to read in the daily newspaper, and I purchased several of the compilations creator Bill Watterson sold in book form.

I still remember the strip that hooked me as a Calvin fan for life. Calvin burped, prompting the typical adult reply from his mother: “Calvin! What do we say after that?” Here’s how the conversation went next:

Calvin: Must be a barge coming through!
Mom: WHAT do you say?!
Calvin: That sure tasted better going down than coming up!
Mom: Three strikes and you’re history, kiddo.
Calvin, sheepishly: Excuse me.

Classic! Calvin was a redneck through and through. So was his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, who came to life in Calvin’s imagination and the strip. But their creator is an enlightened redneck.

Readers may have never thought about Watterson’s personal choices when they read the strip, but that strength of character echoed throughout his work. “Calvin and Hobbes” is complex, thoughtful and thought provoking. Calvin and Hobbes aren’t plastic and one-dimensional. …

[They are] a hyper-imaginative kid and his pet tiger who may or may not be real, depending on who’s looking at him. But that’s just the surface. That doesn’t really begin to explain Watterson’s unique storytelling device in which readers switch between the world as Calvin sees it — a fantastical place — and as adults see it — a cut ‘n’ dried conventional reality. You need to immerse yourself in “Calvin and Hobbes” to truly understand it. Sure, you could read one strip, get the gag and move on with your life, but you’d be missing out.

I sure do miss Watterson’s work, which ran for only a decade. So do millions of other fans.
(more…)


Filed under: Books and Entertainment and Human Interest and Just For Laughs and Media and People and Redneck Humor
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The World’s Strongest Redneck …
Posted on 02.20.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 1:28 pm

… is also an enlightened redneck who showcases his strength in ways designed to grab the attention of children for important messages. Steve McGranahan is the man, and he demonstrated his technique to a reporter for WNCT-TV in North Carolina.

“Well what I do is, basically, I take household objects and I destroy them with a life lesson behind them,” McGranahan said. “We don’t want the kids to quit school in the 10th grade, or let Jack come into their lives and influence them with drugs and alcohol because Jack wants to come into your life — and rip everything you have apart.”

You can learn more about McGranahan’s shtick at his Web site, which includes videos and pictures of him at work.


Filed under: Entertainment and Human Interest and People and Rednecks and Video
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Michelle Obama’s Fake Food
Posted on 01.14.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:34 am

Politicians — and apparently their wives, too — just can’t help themselves. They don’t know how to be genuine. When even their food is fake, you know everything is phony.

So it was with first lady Michelle Obama and her appearance on “Iron Chef of America,” a supposed “reality” series on the Food Network:

The produce used on the Food Network’s Jan. 3 Iron Chef of America two-hour special White House show was billed as being from the White House garden. But the show did not disclose that “stunt double vegetables” were used and not produce from the First Family’s garden.

… Viewers were not explicitly told that the vegetables in “Kitchen Stadium” were not the ones they had seen the chefs harvest. Various participants in the show misled viewers with references to “using radishes from the White House garden” and other similar mentions. Except for the honey, no food on the show came from the White House.

Mrs. Obama’s East Wing told me the vegetables picked at the White House garden that day in October were donated to a local food kitchen, so nothing went to waste. The week between the harvest the cook-off was due to “scheduling/technical” reasons.

OK, to be fair, Michelle Obama isn’t to blame for this episode of phoniness. All vegetable decisions were made by the network to fit its schedule. But the revelation (via Michelle Malkin) doesn’t make the first lady look good.


Filed under: Entertainment and Food and Human Interest and People
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Barack Obama As The Godfather
Posted on 01.05.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:34 pm

Glenn Reynolds spotted a surprisingly unflattering picture of President Obama on the White House Flickr page over the weekend and posted it to Instapundit. His post sparked a heated debate about the president’s body language and, predictably for the left, which sees every criticism of Obama in black and white, whether Reynolds was racist for posting it.

The blog fight was way too serious for me, so I held my tongue for once. This video, inspired by the picture that started it all, is more my speed:


Filed under: Entertainment and Just For Laughs and People and Photography and Video
Comments: 1 Comment

Elitist Of 2009: Stephen Fowler
Posted on 12.31.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 2:36 pm

Nothing says anti-American “elitism” like condescension with a British accent, and Stephen Fowler mastered it in his appearance on “Wife Swap.” His performance earns him the dishonor of “Elitist of the Year” for 2009.

By way of reminder, here are a few nuggets of bigoted wisdom from Fowler:

  • “I think the worst thing that James [Fowler's son] could do would [be to] tell me that he wanted to move to Missouri. What is wrong with the United States in the middle of the country is that people, frankly, are just like you [Gayla Long]. … Uneducated, simple and without a clue about what’s going on in the world. You are undereducated, over-opinionated, and you’re overweight.”
  • Speaking to his children: “From tomorrow, we have the pleasure of pretending we live in some podunk town in the middle of Missouri. … If you live in a podunk town, your worldview is going to be very restricted. I don’t see how someone could be offended by the term podunk town.”
  • Speaking to Gayla after she jumbled the word “agenda”: “Oh, agenda. OK, that’s a big word for you — given that your two languages appear to be bad English and redneck.”
  • Speaking to Gayla: “Look, you dumb redneck. I’ve already told you once.”
    Speaking to Alan Long: “You know, I just spent the worst week of my life with your wife. So if you expect me to bring enlightened joy into this meeting, you’re off your trolley path.”
  • Fowler and his wife — who definitely do not live in the same America as this year’s enlightened redneck winners, the tea party activists — put their California home on the market in September.


Filed under: Culture and Entertainment and Hatin' On Rednecks and News & Politics and Parenting and People
Comments: 1 Comment

Moammar Ghadafi As Lionel Richie
Posted on 12.18.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 3:08 am

Reality is depressing yet amusing when viewed through the empty minds of reality television stars, who don’t know Libyan leader Moammar Ghadafi from singer Lionel Richie, remember former Vice President Richard Cheney as the leader “who almost shot Bush,” and think some guy named Ernest invented the light bulb.

America, that is our future.


Filed under: Entertainment and Just For Laughs and News & Politics and People and Video
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Christmas Comedy
Posted on 12.11.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 6:28 pm

Yes, Minnesota, there is global warming — because alarmists used the politics of peer review to hide the decline in temperatures. And now Minnesotans for Global Warming has immortalized their dirty deeds in song just in time for the holidays:

And now comedian Tim Hawkins reminds everyone what Christmas is all about:


Filed under: Entertainment and Holidays and Just For Laughs and Music and People and Video
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Uncle Jay Explains ‘ClimateGate,’ Palin Mania
Posted on 12.07.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:49 pm

What do “The Three Stooges” and the ongoing international scare-fest on global warming in Copenhagen have in common? Watch the latest episode of “Uncle Jay Explains The News” for the answer. Here’s a hint: Think “peer review.”


Filed under: Entertainment and Government and Just For Laughs and News & Politics and People and Video
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‘Man Cleavage, 1970s Style, Is Back’
Posted on 12.06.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 8:00 pm

That’s the opening line in the video report that accompanies a front-page Wall Street Journal story about the plunging necklines of celebrity men.

Yes, you read that right. The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper of record for the fancy folks of American finance, assigned a reporter to a story about male cleavage, also known as “heavage” — because apparently it’s the hip new thing (or old thing resurrected) in male fashion.

Plenty of men, from regular Joes to “Dancing With the Stars” contestants, have loosened to the trend. On HBO’s hit series “True Blood,” 29-year-old ex-model Mehcad Brooks rarely went an episode without removing his shirt. Mr. Brooks also frequently displays his perfect pecs off-screen, wearing rib-hugging T’s with deep V-necks or shirts with the top buttons suggestively undone. … Other fans of the look include actors Jude Law and Ed Westwick

I’m all for getting rid of the tie that binds men’s necks, but come on guys, cover your chests and toss the pointy-toed shoes. This trend is further proof that all men have a little redneck in them — but not all of them are enlightened.

UPDATE, 12/6: Melissa Clouthier and I are on the same wavelength. She writes: “Real men need to fight the cultural scourge of swing fashion trends. Real men are not trendy. They’re classic. No one wants to see lithe and androgynous men. And no one wants to see a man’s chest hair, either.”


Filed under: Culture and Entertainment and Just For Laughs and People and Rednecks
Comments: 1 Comment

Mark Cuban Is An Enlightened Redneck
Posted on 12.05.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 4:18 pm

That’s the only explanation for the what-will-I-think-when-I’m-90 test that the technology industry entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner applies to decisions he faces in life:

Before I do any of the many things that I get asked to do, and that I think might be fun, I have one simple question I ask myself. When I hopefully turn 90 and look back at my life, would I regret having done it, or not having done it?

Only an enlightened man would think something so profound rather than acting impulsively. But only a redneck billionaire would accept an invitation to appear on World Wrestling Entertainment’s RAW after deep thought about the opportunity.

Cuban has been a guest character in WWE events before. His lifetime resume also includes his own short-lived reality show, “The Benefactor,” and an appearance on the reality show “Dancing With The Stars.”

(Hat tip to Outside the Beltway)


Filed under: Business and Entertainment and People and Rednecks and Sports and Technology
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Mike Huckabee: Unfit To Be President
Posted on 12.05.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 12:00 pm

Outrage and insights in a 140 characters or less (most of the time). This is a weekly recap of topics that capture my fancy. To get your fill of my rants on a daily basis, follow The Enlightened Redneck on Twitter.

Much to the chagrin of many fellow conservatives, I supported Mike Huckabee for president in the 2008 Republican presidential primary.

The news this week that he granted clemency to a man who years killed four police officers in Washington state, and Huckabee’s comments after the news broke, made me change my tune. I still like Huckabee, but I don’t believe he has the judgment to be president.

Here is what I had to say about the matter over a series of tweets: “Mike Huckabee freed a man now suspected of killing four cops. He no longer looks as presidential to me. … Huckabee dodges responsibility, blames “Arkansas” (and Washington) for freeing a man suspected of kiing four cops. What a cowardly statement from Huckabee. I expected better of him. He made a huge mistake and should own up to it. … ”

And here are some redneck rants on other topics:

  • Leave it to the perverts in Hollywood to pervert a classic children’s Christmas cartoon, “Frosty, The Snowman.”
  • Crashing a White House state dinner, and then bragging about it on Facebook, is really, really dumb.” Jail time?
  • Fact of the day, just heard on the news: Tiger Woods makes more in 60 seconds than he had to pay as a fine for his car accident.
  • Joy Behar thought Black Friday was racist until her black co-host, Whoopi Goldberg, enlightened her — for real. That reminds me of the “pot calling the kettle black” episode with Omarosa Manigault Stallworth on “The Apprentice.”
  • The U.N.’s alarmist-in-chief flew at least 443,243 miles in 19 months to decry global warming. Can you say “hypocrisy”?
  • At least 22.6 million reasons why ClimateGate matters to taxpayers (via @donsurber). I suspect there are many more.
  • Wanna run for Congress? Join the roster of candidates in non-existent districts. Only dead people vote there!
  • Deer own this country. America needs more hunters.
  • Twitter is the top word of 2009, beating Obama. Stimulus is No. 4. Obama-mania is No. 2 phrase; Obama is top name.
  • Today, ignorant people are afraid of Twitter; in the Civl War Era, they were afraid of telegrams.
  • Today’s media market in brief: Detroit got a new newspaper last week; it suspended publication this week.
  • I’m wondering whether the FTC news workshop is going to be a forum for media dinosaurs to bash bloggers for two days. Paul Steiger of ProPublica, the first speaker, took multiple jabs at bloggers in his opening statement. … The current panel is a portrait of what’s wrong with journalism — media dinosaurs who resisted new media until it was too late.

    Filed under: Entertainment and Government and Human Interest and Hunting & Guns and Media and News & Politics and People and Redneck Rants and Sports and Technology and Wildlife
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    Uncle Jay Explains Party-Crashing
    Posted on 11.30.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 1:14 pm

    Michaele and Tareq Salahi became celebrities overnight after crashing Barack Obama’s first state dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week. Why did they do it? Because Mrs. Salahi wants a slot on Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of D.C.” reality show.

    Uncle Jay has a new theory on how the couple bypassed presumably tight security for the event: “Like everybody who’s trying to get a TV reality show, they admitted that they were just hiding in the White House attic the whole time.”

    But the Salahis’ plan to make a small fortune from their publicity coup may backfire. The Secret Service is considering criminal charges against the couple.

    “It’s not totally clear how [a government prosecution] would play out, as that could depend on the facts of the misrepresentations that the couple had to make to gain access to the dinner,” blogger Orin Kerr wrote at The Volokh Conspiracy. “But I think one thing is clear: Crashing a White House state dinner, and then bragging about it on Facebook, is really really dumb.”


    Filed under: Entertainment and Government and Human Interest and Just For Laughs and News & Politics and People and Video
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    The Cumbersome IPod
    Posted on 11.27.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 6:28 pm

    You whipper-snappers who jog with iPods in tow don’t know squat when it comes to “cumbersome” technology, so let comedian Tim Hawkins enlighten you to life during the era of the Walkman and portable CD players:


    Filed under: Entertainment and Just For Laughs and Music and Technology and Video
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    The Politics Of Peer Review Exposed
    Posted on 11.27.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 4:54 pm

    Several months ago on Facebook, a high-school classmate engaged me in debate on the subject of global warming after I posted an article on the subject. He believes man is causing the globe to warm and supports draconian government regulation to address the problem; I think the science is bunk, and thus regulation based on that science is misguided.

    As we debated the subject, it became clear that my “friend,” who makes a living in the scientific community, puts all of his faith in the peer-review process, whereby scientific researchers study each others’ data to make sure it is sound before publication in austere journals. Nothing this enlightened redneck said mattered because I’m not a scientist, and he had peer review on his side.

    My former classmate sounded very much like actor Ed Begley Jr. this week on Fox News. The environmental activist, who has been known to fake his emotions, was mild-mannered while backstage but went ballistic when Stuart Varney interviewed him on air:

    The fairness of peer review was suspect even when my classmate and I clashed online because the work of nearly all scientists critical of the theory of global warming had been banished from major journals for years. Regardless of their credentials, such researchers were ridiculed as “deniers” and “skeptics” whose work did not deserve to see the light of day.

    “When you enter into a debate with any of them, they always stop cold when you ask an awkward question,” Vincent Gray, an expert reviewer for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, wrote at Pajamas Media. “This applies even when you write to a government department or a member of Parliament. I and many of my friends have grown accustomed to our failure to publish and to lecture, and to the rejection of our comments submitted prior to every IPCC report.”

    All of Gray’s 1,898 comments critical of the 2007 IPCC report were ignored. (Hat tip to Instapundit)

    As of last week, peer review as it relates to global warming has been completely debunked thanks to the revelations in more than a decade’s worth of e-mails among the scientists who control the process. Even some scientists and environmental activists, the few who still have a shred of integrity left within them, appreciate the damage the e-mails have done to the reputation of peer review.
    (more…)


    Filed under: Entertainment and News & Politics and People and The Redneck Report and Video
    Comments: 1 Comment

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