Why We Home-School, Lesson #47
Posted on 05.12.13 by Danny Glover @ 12:22 am

We don’t want our children educated in an environment where a teacher lets an unruly student bully her (and other students film the episode), where the disruptive student wins praise for ranting at the teacher, and where neither the mother (a teacher herself) nor school administrators punish the student for being inexcusably disrespectful.

There are no winners in this episode at Duncanville High School in Texas, which sadly earned 18-year-old sophomore Jeff Bliss 86 seconds of YouTube fame:

The message to teachers is that students can shout you down without consequence, and the message to students is that they are in control of the classroom. That’s an unhealthy atmosphere for teaching children who actually want to learn — even if, as Dallas Morning News columnist Tod Robberson argues, Bliss had a valid point about his teacher’s instructional methods.

“Teaching by ‘packet’ is no way to get through to young minds,” Robberson wrote in a column decrying Bliss’ behavior and the reaction to it. “… But his choice of protest venues and methods is one I will never celebrate. He owes everyone involved an apology.”

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


Filed under: 1980s and Business and Culture and Education and Government and Human Interest and Media and News & Politics and Parenting and People and Rednecks and Video and Why We Home-School
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Redneck Artistry In Action
Posted on 04.21.13 by Danny Glover @ 11:26 pm

This is how you make a masterpiece, redneck style:

My wife watched the video with me and wants to buy me one of the paintings, especially once she realized the artist, Heather LaCroix, is from Louisiana.


Filed under: An Enlightened Redneck ... and Culture and Family and Features and Human Interest and Media and Parenting and People and Rednecks and Video
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What Are You, A Communist?
Posted on 10.05.12 by Danny Glover @ 5:25 pm

Sometimes when our children say something odd, I answer with a wisecrack from my youth: “What are you, a communist?” I get blank stares. Or in the case of our 7-year-old daughter today, an enthusiastic “yes” — until I told her being a communist is bad.

I guess you had to be there — for the Cold War, that is. That snark, a word that didn’t exist when I was a kid, just doesn’t carry the same punch without the Soviet Union as a mortal enemy.


Filed under: 1980s and Family and History
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Take A Stand For Lemonade Liberty
Posted on 08.17.12 by Danny Glover @ 11:09 am

Once upon a time in America, the government largely stayed out of people’s business unless they asked for help or were up to no good. Those days are over. Today’s politicians and bureaucrats — especially bureaucrats — are a bunch of nib-noses and proud of it.

The latest proof: Lemonade Freedom Day, which will be celebrated tomorrow. In a country that embraces liberty and personal responsibility, why do we need a special day to defend the rights of budding young entrepreneurs everywhere to sell sweet drinks? Because nanny-staters across the country are denying them that right.

The insanity hit close to home for our family last week when the Republican presidential ticket came to our neighborhood. With Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan scheduled to speak just two blocks from our house in Virginia, we expected a steady flow of foot traffic on our street and encouraged our three children (ages 7, 10 and 12) to sell drinks and snacks from our front lawn.

I work in marketing, so I couldn’t resist the urge to add the creative touch to our product names. We called our lemonade “Romney-ade,” and we sold “Sweet LiberTea,” a nod to the tea partiers in town. The menu also included West Virginia’s unofficial state snack with a partisan spin — “GOPepperoni Rolls.” And for the journalists in the neighborhood who might want to maintain the appearance of objectivity in refreshment choices, we offered “Nonpartisan Bottled Water” and “Capital Cookies,” which were just Costco cookies marked up to make a profit.

The recent nationwide controversy over lemonade stands did make us wonder whether our attempt to teach our children how to run a business and serve customers with a smile might rile the local regulators. But we live in a Republican city that is friendly to the free market and we put the stand on our own property, so we figured it was legit.

Just to be safe, we also told the councilman who owns a business three buildings down from our house. He didn’t register any objections. We decided to take a chance.
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Filed under: Business and Culture and Family and Food and Government and News & Politics and People and West Virginia
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Time For A ‘Redneck Intervention’?
Posted on 07.26.12 by Danny Glover @ 10:44 am

Yesterday a casting director submitted the comment below on an older blog post, with a note that said: “Pay for everyone involved. Including referrals. Love to hear from you.”

Do you have a family member who is embarrassed of his or her “redneck roots?” Have they lost their backwoods charm because of the demands of the big city? Have they traded in their camouflage gear for a suit and tie? Would you like to reconnect with your distant family member and have them come home for a SURPRISE fun-filled redneck family reunion?

The producers of CMT’s “My Big Redneck Wedding” and “My Big Redneck Vacation” bring you an exciting new show, “Redneck Intervention.” Tom Arnold will reunite your family with a big-city relative for a family reunion they’ll NEVER forget! If you’re an outgoing, proud, All-American redneck family, then we want to hear from you!

I thought twice about even calling attention to the query because the premise of all of CMT’s redneck shows run contrary to the theme of this blog. They find the most bizarre people on the planet to perpetuate myths about rednecks that date back to the “yellow journalism” surrounding the Hatfields and McCoys feud.

But the storyline of “Redneck Intervention” does have something loosely in common with this blog. The main characters in the future show — people who “lost their backwoods charm because of the demands of the big city” and “traded in their camouflage gear for a suit and tie” — could be enlightened rednecks.

CMT wants to make a reality show as sensational as possible to win ratings and generate revenue, so the casting director obviously is in search of former rednecks who now look down their noses at family. (Think of Reese Witherspoon’s character in the early stages of the movie “Sweet Home Alabama.”) But big-city life certainly has enlightened this redneck.

The difference is that I am not embarrassed of my redneck roots. I cherish and embrace them. They make me who I am, whether I live in small-town West Virginia (24 years) or urban Northern Virginia (21 years now). And I am a better person because I am both “redneck” and “enlightened” in the good sense of both words.


Filed under: Culture and Entertainment and Family and History and People and Redneck Humor and Rednecks and West Virginia
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Dear Graduate: ‘You’re Not Special’
Posted on 06.12.12 by Danny Glover @ 11:20 am

It took a sincere English teacher to tell the seniors at his high school what no political or celebrity commencement speaker ever would: “You’re not special.”

David McCullough Jr., whose only claim to fame before this month was being the son of renowned historian David McCullough Sr., delivered that message repeatedly and profoundly at Wellesley High School’s graduation ceremony June 1, and he is earning kudos for his honesty toward “pampered” students.

Here are excerpts of McCullough’s speech:

Your ceremonial costume — shapeless, uniform, one size fits all. Whether male or female, tall or short, scholar or slacker, spray-tanned prom queen or intergalactic X-Box assassin, each of you is dressed, you’ll notice, exactly the same. And your diploma, but for your name, exactly the same. All of this is as it should be because none of you is special.

You are not special. You are not exceptional. Contrary to what your U9 soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh-grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia, no matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you, you’re nothing special.
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Filed under: Culture and Government and History and Human Interest and News & Politics and Parenting and People and Video
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The United States Of Profanity
Posted on 06.11.12 by Danny Glover @ 12:35 pm

This morning as I rounded the corner to depart the Metro station in our nation’s capital, the man behind me uttered a four-letter word devoid of any apparent context. For a moment, I wondered what I had done to offend him, and then I looked forward and realized why he cursed. Both escalators were broken, so he was going to have to walk up 72 steps to get to the street level.

My first thought was that his vulgar, one-word outburst is proof that America truly is plagued by an “obesity epidemic.” We’re so fat and lazy that we can’t even bear the thought of walking up the stairs. But another thought came to me as I read an article about how coarse our discourse has become. People are cursing so much that government officials feel compelled to punish it:

[Middleborough, Mass., Police Chief Bruce Gates] is asking citizens to vote at the annual town meeting on Monday to flush potty mouths by granting police the power to issue $20 civil tickets to anyone who publicly “accosts” another person verbally with profanity.

He isn’t targeting ordinary swears, like an understandable expletive uttered after a Red Sox loss. He said he is aiming at offenses like “profane language at some attractive female walking through town.” His officers patrol on bikes and can already give tickets for public drinking, rubbish thrown in streets and more. Cursing is another “quality of life” issue, he said. …

Middleborough isn’t the only place, by golly, where officials want to effectively wash citizens’ mouths out with soap. In April, work at the Alabama Legislature turned a little off-color when a lobbyist allegedly verbally took a lawmaker to the woodshed after a vote. So for the first time ever, legislators issued a formal reprimand for cursing, saying the lobbyist violated Rule 27 pertaining to “the honor of the legislative process.”

Arizona state senators in February debated legislation that would have banned public-school and college instructors from any swear word not allowed on broadcast television. The bill died after much discussion. And counties from Los Angeles to Mobile, Ala., have declared “no cussing week” in recent years.

Language isn’t the only evidence of a country headed over a cliff into the abyss of spiritually defiant vulgarity. At our 12-year-old son’s soccer tournament over the weekend, I saw the kind of soccer mom who gives rednecks a bad name. She had a bare-breasted woman tattooed onto the back of her right shoulder — a shoulder that she proudly bared so hundreds of young children could see her body porn. She’s an embarrassment to soccer Moms, all Moms and all womankind, and sadly, she doesn’t care.

We can’t regulate bad words and bad behavior like hers out of existence, nor should we necessarily even try. But decent people who say nothing as filth continues to saturate American culture — and parents who tolerate it among or, worse, teach it to their children — should be ashamed.

We, the people, have allowed a great nation to become the United States of Profanity, and only we can steer our children and our country onto a more wholesome path.

UPDATE, 6/12: Residents of Middleborough voted 183-50 for the fines on public profanity. Ideally, Americans would take the hint and wash their own mouths out with soap so their neighbors or the government don’t feel compelled to act. But that’s unlikely.


Filed under: Culture and Government and History and News & Politics and Parenting and Rednecks and Religion
Comments: 1 Comment

Where’s My Tornado Helmet?
Posted on 04.30.12 by Danny Glover @ 6:41 am

If you live in Tornado Alley, you may want to find a sturdy helmet. It could save your life like 8-year-old Noah Stewart’s baseball helmet appears to have saved him:

[Jonathan Stewart had] rushed home just minutes before a tornado swallowed up his neighborhood in Pleasant Grove, Ala. Stewart, his wife, adult daughter and 8-year-old son crowded into a tiny shower stall. It didn’t take long for him to feel the house shift and become weightless — and then an explosion.

“I remember being sucked out of the house, and it was not being blown about, it was not walls blowing around. It was like a vacuum, and it sucked us out,” Stewart says. In an instant, Stewart’s family was gone. Lisa, his wife, peered up into the swirling sea of debris and saw her son, Noah, floating above her — high above her, Lisa says: “I actually saw him up in the air, stuck up in it, being tossed around as high as the power lines.”

Noah was twisting, churning, flying through the air, held up high by the tornado’s angry winds. And then, Noah remembers, “the wind just immediately stopped, and I was going down headfirst, and then I think my helmet just cracked.”

That anecdote from an NPR story about the potential for helmets to reduce tornado deaths fascinated me on many levels. As a parent, I pictured one of our children floating above us inside a tornado, and the thought of it horrified me. As a lilapsophobe in the making (fear of tornadoes and other severe weather), I imagined myself living through every aspect of the Stewarts’ ordeal and wanted to rush to the store to buy tornado helmets for our whole family.

And as an entrepreneurial spirit, I started dreaming of a hot new market for tornado helmets. If I would buy them, how many other people would do the same? Wearing helmets couldn’t possibly prevent all tornado deaths, but it’s common sense that it would give some people a better chance of surviving flying debris.


Filed under: Business and Family and Human Interest and News & Politics and People and Weather
Comments: None

The ‘Bronies’ Brotherhood
Posted on 04.26.12 by Danny Glover @ 1:29 pm

Every Wednesday when I work from home and sometimes on weekends, I am subjected to the worst kind of televised torture any grown man has to endure — my daughters watching “My Little Ponies.”

Years ago, I thought “Blues Clues” was bad when our toddler son was addicted to it and made us watch the same episodes for hours, but “My Little Ponies” is so much worse. The rainbows, the bright colors, the high-pitched horsey voices — all of it makes me wanna scream!

I would have thought that all people of the male persuasion shared my hostility toward “My Little Ponies.” But sadly, there is an entire subculture of post-pubescent boys and men who adore the fictitious creatures. They call themselves “bronies,” and they’re getting plenty of media attention.

All of which raises this question asked in The Washington Post: “Isn’t there something a little weird about grown men playing with rainbow-hued ponies?”

The paper quoted a psychological expert who said it’s no big deal. “They’re just a fan base revisiting childhood and some of the things they have left behind. … It really is just different ways people have of fulfilling these very fundamental human needs.”

But little girls like our 10-year-old have enough common sense to realize that explanation is bunk. When I told her about bronies the other day, she shot me a look that said, “Are you serious? Are they crazy?”

I’ve now robbed her of a piece of the childhood innocence that bronies refuse to forsake. Hopefully that means I won’t have to watch “My Little Ponies” much longer.


Filed under: Culture and Entertainment and Family
Comments: None

The Best (And Hardest) Job: Mom
Posted on 04.20.12 by Danny Glover @ 10:35 am

Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen created a firestorm of rhetorical protest last week after she chided first-lady-wannabe Ann Romney’s credentials. In a CNN appearance Rosen said that Romney can’t possibly identify with the economic concerns of women in America because she “never worked a day in her life.”

Proctor & Gamble knows better. A sponsor of the 2012 Olympics, the company just released a video that captures the hard-working essence of motherhood — being there for your children:

The video’s storyline focuses on mothers of future Olympians, but the closing message is a reminder to the Hilary Rosens of the world that stay-at-home mothers do real work and have valuable insights into the economics of life. “The hardest job in the world,” the video says, “is the best job in the world. Thank you, Mom.”

Josh Romney and his brothers know that about their own mother. “She could have pursued a career in teaching, business or science,” Josh Romney wrote of Ann Romney in the book “Life Lessons from Mothers of Faith.” “But she always knew that the profession that would bring her the most happiness and fulfillment was that of a mom.”

Let’s hope the power brokers in Washington now see the value of mothers, too.


Filed under: Culture and News & Politics and Parenting and People and Religion and Video
Comments: None

Dad’s IPad Cutting Board
Posted on 03.28.12 by Danny Glover @ 2:50 pm

When I was a child, my Dad decided to go high-tech one Christmas and buy my country-born-and-raised grandfather a Polaroid instant camera. I remember the first picture Grandpa ever took as he held the camera at his waist and pushed the red button. The result was a blurry photo of nothing in particular in his tiny living room. I doubt Grandpa ever used the camera again!

I thought of that Christmas Day as I watched this video of a German daughter asking her aging father what he thinks of the new iPad she bought him:

Thankfully, my own Dad isn’t so far removed from modern technology that he would use the iPad Mom bought him for Christmas last year as a cutting board. Then again, he doesn’t get to use it nearly as often these days because Mom is addicted to “Angry Birds.”


Filed under: Entertainment and Family and Just For Laughs and Photography and Technology and Video
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Stuff People Say To (And About) Homeschoolers
Posted on 03.28.12 by Danny Glover @ 2:30 pm

I wonder if our kids ever hear any of these comments or questions:

This girl’s video reminds me of the music video comedian Tim Hawkins created several years ago — “A Homeschool Family,” set to the tune of “The Addams Family.”

Sadly, the misinformed opinions about homeschooling that inspire parodies like those also can have serious repercussions. A recent article in Ohio that subtly pushes the idea of restricting the rights of homeschoolers illustrates that point:

To many, homeschooling is an effective way for families to educate their children, to others it is a loosely regulated world of education. …

Charles Russo, an education professor at the University of Dayton, called Ohio’s system “loosey-goosey” and said it is a potential end run around compulsory education for some families.

With no federal regulation of home schools, it’s left to the states to decide how much regulation is needed. Stanford University political science and education professor Rob Reich likened it to “the Wild West,” with nearly half the states having either no regulations or low regulations.

As homeschooling increases in popularity and education bureaucrats fear for their jobs, expect more stories like this about liberal do-gooders trying to force their idea of what’s best for America’s children onto concerned parents. It’s already ugly out there for some homeschoolers (more stories here) and is likely to get worse.

If you home-school your children, do enjoy videos like the ones mentioned above. But don’t become complacent about your rights to oversee your children’s education or you may lose them.


Filed under: Family and Government and Home Schooling and Just For Laughs and News & Politics and Video
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My 15 Minutes Of Mashable Fame
Posted on 03.26.12 by Danny Glover @ 6:37 pm

My son and I camped outside our local Best Buy all night back on March 15-16 so we could be first in line to get the new iPad. We needn’t have bothered. No one gathered outside the store until two hours before Best Buy started distributing tickets. I wasted a day’s vacation because I could have purchased any of the iPad options I wanted on my lunch hour.

But the adventure wasn’t a total waste. The technology site Mashable published these two pictures I took, one in line and the other inside the store:


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

Know What Your Children Are Texting
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
Comments: None

Why We Home-School, Lesson #39
Posted on 02.28.12 by Danny Glover @ 12:23 pm

There are many lessons in these words of homeschooling wisdom from Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, from his 2005 book “It Takes A Family”:

Never before and never again after their years of mass education will any person live and work in such a radically narrow, age-segregated environment. It’s amazing that so many kids turn out to be fairly normal, considering the weird socialization they get in public schools. …

In a home school, by contrast, children interact in a rich and complex way with adults and children of other ages all the time. In general, they are better-adjusted, more at ease with adults, more capable of conversation, more able to notice when a younger child needs help or comfort, and in general a lot better socialized than their mass-schooled peers.

Thankfully, many American parents can choose to teach their children at home rather than sending them children to government-run education factories. More should give it a whirl.

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


Filed under: Family and Government and Home Schooling and News & Politics and Parenting and People and Why We Home-School
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