The Enlightened Redneck

Posted on 02.29.12 by Danny Glover @ 2:24 pm

I am not convinced that this legislation is either necessary or even a good idea:

Parents who want access to text messages sent to and from their child’s phone currently need a court order to compel a cellphone company to provide it, even if the parent pays the bill. A state law being proposed in Arizona could be the first in the nation to change that.

Republican state Sen. Rich Crandall has proposed a law to require cellphone companies to offer Arizona parents access to their minor children’s texts. … Under the bill, phone companies could charge a fee for that service.

But I appreciate the sentiment behind it. Parents need to know who their children are texting, who’s texting them and what they’re saying to each other. Cyber bullying isn’t the only problem. There’s also the issue of “sexting,” which can land children in trouble with the law, and the tendency of children to get into other kinds of trouble we adults can’t even imagine.

This is true even if you have the best children in the world. First of all, they’re probably not the angels you want to think they are. And second, even if they never misbehave by phone, you can bet some of their friends will. Evil companions can corrupt good morals by text message just as easily, and arguably more easily, as they can in person.

Parents shouldn’t need a law to keep tabs on their children’s mobile activities. They just need the will to intervene in an era when other adults may mock and condemn them for being too strict and when spoiled children definitely will cry “invasion of my privacy!”

Filed under: Government and Parenting and Technology
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West Virginia’s ‘Bizarre Foods’

Posted on 02.27.12 by Danny Glover @ 11:54 pm

As I type, I’m watching an episode of “Bizarre Foods” that features West Virginia delicacies and a hunting guide nicknamed “Redneck.” He just bragged that his biggest monthly bill is his cell phone, so he’s an enlightened redneck — my kind of people.

Remember that blog post I wrote a few weeks back about eating groundhog? Thanks to “Bizarre Foods,” you now have video proof. Host Andrew Zimmern told the story of pepperoni rolls, too.

But even I learned something tonight: I had no idea that some of my fellow West Virginians eat mink. Or do they? The report on the “Roadkill Cook-off” left me wondering what’s true versus what’s for show.

Filed under: Entertainment and Food and History and Hunting & Guns and Media and People and Rednecks and West Virginia and Wildlife
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The Anti-Santorum BuzzFeed

Posted on 02.22.12 by Danny Glover @ 1:23 am

Go to the BuzzFeed Politics page and behold an orchestrated media feeding frenzy in progress. Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is the target. He has been rising in the polls, and BuzzFeed won’t allow it.

Three of the current top five pieces on the site are attacks on Santorum, and the hit pieces continue as you scroll further down the site or look at the “Most Viral in Politics” sidebar. Here are the headlines:

And then there’s the piece lamenting the fact that no matter how many presumably outrageous Santorum quotes BuzzFeed and other publications unearth, the new frontrunner is “gaffe-proof.”

The press dutifully transcribed all these remarks, but none of them raised a ruckus for more than a few hours. They’re just the latest in a long line of Santorum quotes — on homosexuality, on women’s roles, on contraception and abortion — that seem to have lost their capacity to shock. And though they’re still well to the right of public opinion, as reflected in polls, they’ve done nothing to hurt Santorum, whose campaign has attained an aura of momentum after winning three states in a row earlier this month. For Rick Santorum, there’s no such thing as a gaffe anymore.

Reading BuzzFeed these days is like reading transcriptions of the opposition research compiled by either his top GOP rival, Mitt Romney, or the Democratic National Committee — or both. I’ve rarely seen a presumably objective publication so transparently contemptuous of a candidate and so determined to drive a negative narrative about him or her.

But hey, BuzzFeed is driving traffic and generating buzz for itself. That’s all that matters in today’s “journalism,” right?

UPDATE: Rich Lowry of National Review explains what’s really stirring in the minds of journalists who keep trying to manufacture Santorum controversies.

Santorum is a standing affront to the sensibilities and assumptions of the media and political elite. That elite is constantly writing the obituary for social conservatism, which is supposed to wither away and leave a polite, undisturbed consensus in favor of social liberalism. Santorum not only defends beliefs that are looked down upon as dated and unrealistic; he does it with a passionate sincerity that opens him to mockery and attack.

Filed under: 1980s and Adoption and Books and Culture and Media and News & Politics and People
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Don’t Be Two-timing Our Little Girl

Posted on 02.21.12 by Danny Glover @ 11:38 pm

I learned tonight that our sweet, 10-year-old Elli loves this song. She even lip syncs it:

The Christian angel on my right shoulder is telling me to be horrified; the redneck Daddy devil on my left shoulder is insisting that I should be beaming with pride.

Filed under: Entertainment and Family and Music and People and Rednecks and Video
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Snickers: Candy Not Fit For A King Size

Posted on 02.17.12 by Danny Glover @ 4:24 pm

Well, candy fans, there’s sad news in the snack world this week. It looks like the obesity mafia organized by first lady Michelle Obama to whack all the fat and fun out of American society has put a hit on the king-size Snickers bar.

Mars, the candy company that makes Snickers and other delicious treats, has caved to the politically correct pressure of the food police. Come 2013, the company will stop selling candy bars that include more than 220 calories.

Forget the free-market principle of supply and demand that says if customers want giant candy bars, Mars will make them. When the first lady is traveling the country to decry the “obesity epidemic,” it makes more sense for Mars to conform to an arbitrary caloric line.

This corporate change of heart about sugary overload isn’t a bad thing for me personally. I’ve consumed way too many king-size Snickers bars in my life. But coming as it does amid a White House-driven campaign against obesity, and after the nanny state has taken control of light bulbs across America, it’s a wee bit annoying.

It’s also a hypocritical marketing gimmick considering that I just spotted a $10 Snickers bar like this in a local CVS last week:

These developments combined have inspired me. For our New Year’s Eve party this year, in memory of the soon-to-be-smaller Snickers bars, I’m going to buy a “Slice ‘n Share” Snickers to bid farewell to an American tradition. Maybe I’ll cut it into servings of 220 calories or less in honor of Mr. Mars and Michelle Obama.

Then we’ll dim all the incandescent light bulbs in the house and invite everyone to gather ’round our energy-inefficient TV to watch comedian Tim Hawkins tell us all about his dream of a “Snickaloaf.”

Filed under: 1980s and Adoption and Business and Culture and Food and Government and Human Interest and Just For Laughs and Media and News & Politics and People and Rednecks and Video
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Why We Home-School, Lesson #37

Posted on 02.15.12 by Danny Glover @ 11:25 am

We don’t want the government food police inspecting our children’s lunches and demanding that they eat something we didn’t give them. The story:

A North Carolina elementary school forced a preschool student to eat cafeteria chicken nuggets for lunch on Jan. 30 after officials reportedly determined that her homemade meal wasn’t up to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s standards for healthfulness. … The four-year-old girl brought a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, potato chips and apple juice in her packed lunch from home.

So according to government standards, a turkey and cheese sandwich is healthier than this?

That alone is ridiculous. It’s even more outrageous that bureaucrats think they have the right to micromanage the diets of individual schoolchildren.

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

Filed under: Food and Government and Health and News & Politics and Parenting and Why We Home-School
Comments: 1 Comment

What People Think I Do

Posted on 02.14.12 by Danny Glover @ 10:15 pm

If you’ve spent any time on Facebook lately, you’ve likely seen a flurry of photo essays that contrast the perceptions people have of various jobs, political beliefs and aspects of culture with the realities of those topics. It’s the latest Internet meme — “What people think I do vs. what I really do.”

These images have made me chuckle because they are relevant to my career or life:

If you hate this meme, or all Internet memes, you’ll appreciate these ironic contributions that bash the meme while also fueling it:

And if you love it all and want more visit my board on Pinterest.

Filed under: Business and Culture and Human Interest and Just For Laughs and Photography and Social Media and Technology
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The ‘Woolly Mammoth’ Hoax

Posted on 02.14.12 by Danny Glover @ 9:06 am

It never ceases to amaze me how gullible some people are when it comes to their willingness to believe something that is utterly absurd. Like the modern-day existence of a prehistoric “wooly mammoth” taking a casual stroll across a stream as a videographer records the unbelievable scene:

Now we can officially add the doctored video to the long list of confirmed Internet hoaxes. Here’s what the videographer who shot the actual footage along the Kitoy River in Siberia’s Sayan Mountains said:

“I don’t recall seeing a mammoth; there were bears, deer and sable,” he said in an interview with Life’s Little Mysteries. “But no woolly mammoths. I had no idea my footage was used to make this fake sighting.” Petho noted that his original video had been available on YouTube since July 2011, depicting an exactly identical scene — minus the faked woolly mammoth, of course.

Nothing to see here. Move along, fakers and the suckers who fall for their tricks.

Filed under: History and Human Interest and News & Politics and Technology and Video and Wildlife
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Dustin Ellerman: Faith First, Shooting Second

Posted on 02.11.12 by Danny Glover @ 9:40 pm

Our family just finished watching a marathon of last season’s “Top Shot” on the History Channel, and we were all thrilled to see Dustin Ellerman, who runs a religious camp in Texas, win the $100,000 prize. He was probably the only competitor on the show who didn’t need to be bleeped for vulgarity.

After watching the season finale, I decided to poke around the Internet to learn more about Ellerman and found this post-”Top Shot” interview with him on CBN:

What an excellent role model!

For a while today, I wasn’t so sure I had made a wise choice in picking “Top Shot” for quality father/son and male-bonding time with our 12-year-old. Although the History Channel bleeps most of the bad language from its reality shows, it’s fairly easy to interpret them visually, and the bad guy of “Top Shot,” Jake Zweig, uttered the f-word so many times during a couple of the episodes that I almost turned off the show.

But after seeing Ellerman win, I’m glad we watched to the end. The bad guy revealed himself to be a total loser in every respect, and the good guy won convincingly, after weeks of demonstrating both sportsmanship and humility. He stayed true to his faith and quietly let his light shine before people who clearly don’t put God first.

Those are lessons I’m glad our children had the opportunity to learn. Who’d have thunk they could learn it by watching reality TV?

Filed under: Entertainment and Hunting & Guns and People and Religion and Video
Comments: 2 Comments

Social Media: It’s All About Donuts

Posted on 02.06.12 by Danny Glover @ 5:51 pm

This snapshot, posted to Instagram by Douglas W. Ray of the digital marketing firm Three Ships Media, has been plastered all over my Facebook news feed for the past two days. I got a kick out of it, so I thought I’d share it here:

Social media isn’t really all about donuts (or other foods) and the people who eat them. But like everyone else, I’ve posted my share of updates, tweets and photos about my dining experiences. If you can’t laugh at yourself, then who can you laugh at?

Wray’s list of “Social Media Explained” has inspired others to expand it.

UPDATE: Three Ships Media told the story behind how its inside joke about social media and donuts went viral. Apparently Punxsutawney Phil deserves the credit:

The groundhog drawing [on our whiteboard], itself just seasonal filler, was a fleeting replacement of something else, an easy way to eliminate some white space and live up to our reputation as quirky creative types.

So we decided to make a little chart explaining social media through donuts. We put our minds together and then our creative director, Nuno Gomes, scribbled it out. Doug Ray, a multimedia producer here, snapped a photo with Instagram and posted it on Facebook and Twitter. We had a beer, a good laugh and went home for the weekend.

Since then, more than 60,000 people have ‘liked’ it on Facebook, and thousands of people have tweeted about it. We weren’t trying to make anything cute or funny.

Filed under: Culture and Just For Laughs and Photography and Social Media and Technology
Comments: 1 Comment

City Chickens Come Home To Roost

Posted on 02.06.12 by Danny Glover @ 3:06 pm

My wife desperately wants to raise her own chickens. We live in a city. This story explains why my wife, thankfully, will never get her way:

[O]n Jan. 27, [humane officer Clarence] Carte, 60, caught a rogue rooster on Charleston’s East End. Another humane officer, Jesse Harris, had been on the rooster’s tail for a few weeks, ever since East End residents started calling and complaining about the animal’s early-morning wake-up calls. …

The rooster apparently was using a windowsill for its roost. Carte said no one in the neighborhood knew where the bird, a small black game rooster, came from.

“They just said he was walking around in the neighborhood one morning,” he said.

Chickens belong in one of two places — in the country or on a platter.

Filed under: Culture and Family and Rednecks and West Virginia
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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
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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: 2 Comments

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
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