The Enlightened Redneck

Posted on 03.12.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 11:21 pm

The George W. Bush urinal — proof that liberals never, ever disrespect the office of the presidency. Only those crazy, right-wing rednecks would demean the Leader of the Free World by peeing on his likeness.

In case you were wondering, the Bush hater who builds these contraptions is represented in Congress by none other than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Filed under: News & Politics and People
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Sarah Palin’s Redneck Teleprompter

Posted on 03.07.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 11:29 pm

The Urban Dictionary gained a new entry and definition last month courtesy of “2008 Enlightened Redneck of the Year” Sarah Palin. The entry: redneck teleprompter. The definition: “Crib notes written on a public speaker’s hand in order to remind him or her what to say during a speech or interview.”

Palin’s decision to fill the palm of her hand with the few verbal cues before a big speech predictably earned her the scorn of elitists like Mary Kate Cary in U.S. News & World Report:

At a certain age and at a certain professional level, it’s really not cool to write the big stuff down on your hand. Yellow stickies, maybe. BlackBerry, maybe. But if you were sitting in your doctor’s office after an exam, and saw that he’d written on his hand: “Diagnose Illness … Write Prescription,” you’d be more than alarmed. …

Like the Tea Party keynote speech she gave and her book before that, this incident shows that she doesn’t care to take the time to be prepared, to engage in serious policy discussions, or even to rely on issue briefing materials before speaking.

But Palin got the last laugh the next day during an appearance in Texas. She wrote “Hi Mom!” on her palm when she knew the whole Palin-hating media world would be watching:

Redneck Bigotry: It’s Academic

Posted on 03.07.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:55 pm

While redneck bigotry emanates from the mouths of ignoramuses in Washington, Hollywood and other elite coastal locales with great regularity, it’s rare in the heartland. But the elites do find their way to places like Nebraska now and then — usually at institutions of so-called higher learning.

So it is with Josh Loomis, a writer for the Daily Nebraskan, the school paper at the University of Nebraska. Like most journalists at college publications — even at places like my alma mater, West Virginia University — Loomis looks down his highbrow nose at people who cling to their guns, wear camouflage, drive trucks and know how to have a good time.

He tries to pretend, based on his major (fisheries and wildlife) and his companions, that he’s just one of the redneck boys. But Loomis’ column about the “Top 10 Things You Might/Might Not Know About Rednecks” oozes with condescension. Here are three tidbits that stood out to me:

“All rednecks (at least redneck men), either chew (’chaw’) or smoke. If they tell you they don’t do either of them, they are lyin’.”
“Four-wheel drive isn’t an option: It’s a necessity.”
“Beer. Rednecks of both sexes love beer.”

I despise tobacco; I’m a lifelong tee-teetotaler; and although I’d love to own a four-wheel-drive truck, I drive a recalled Toyota. But I’m proud to wear the redneck label.

Loomis clearly needs to be enlightened as to the diverse ways of the redneck. The stereotypes hatched in his academic mind are not a reflection of reality.

Filed under: Culture and Hatin' On Rednecks and Media and People and Rednecks
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The Redneck Winter Olympics

Posted on 02.26.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 12:04 pm

It’s time for another addition to the “Redneck Hall of Shame.” This time, it’s the entire Canadian women’s hockey team for the total lack of class and sportsmanship they showed after defeating the United States 2-0 yesterday to win gold.

The women of the Canadian hockey team politely accepted their gold medals and waved to an adoring crowd. And then the real celebration began.

More than half an hour after they beat the United States 2-0 on Thursday, the players came back from the locker room and staged a party on ice - swigging from bottles of champagne, guzzling beer and smoking cigars. …

Meghan Agosta and Marie-Philip Poulin posed wearing goofy grins. Rebecca Johnston actually tried to drive the ice-resurfacing machine. Haley Irwin poured champagne into the mouth of Tessa Bonhomme, gold medals swinging from both their necks.

The celebration raised eyebrows at the IOC, which said it would look into the matter. Informed of the antics by the Associated Press, Gilbert Felli, the IOC’s executive director of the Olympic Games, said it was “not what we want to see.”

Other entrants into the “Redneck Hall of Shame” courtesy of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia: U.S. half-pipe bronze medalist Scotty Lago, who left town after racy celebration photos surfaced; and Canadian Jon Montgomery, who after winning gold in the skeleton race “marched triumphantly through the town, guzzling beer straight from the pitcher.”

Filed under: News & Politics and People and Redneck Hall Of Shame and Sports
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The Untold Sarah Palin Story

Posted on 02.23.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 6:43 pm

In an interview with The Onion’s A.V. Club, liberal blogger Ana Marie Cox, definitely no fan of former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, told the story of Palin’s 2008 campaign rallies that Cox said should have been told back then:

I went to a fair number of Sarah Palin rallies during the campaign, and my friends would say, “Man, the pitchfork-wavers are really out there today.” I thought that, too, but then I started to talk to people, and they weren’t all angry. That’s just lazy.

The story that should’ve gotten written, that was really interesting to me, was how at every rally there were families with children with Down syndrome. They weren’t there to support Sarah Palin politically. They were really happy that there was someone in the national spotlight doing what they have to do every day. When you think about what it takes to take a child with Down syndrome to a political rally, I found that really moving.

Why didn’t Cox tell the story back then? Why didn’t her media colleagues? Lazy is part of the equation, as Cox admitted. But it was also more politically useful to promote the caricature of Palin fans as crazy, redneck racists than to portray them as loving, committed parents.

Filed under: Media and News & Politics and Parenting and People
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Jonathan Allen’s Brief Political Career

Posted on 02.23.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 7:29 am

The revolving door between journalism and politics in establishment Washington has never spun as quickly as it did when Jonathan Allen ran through it — twice. The superstar journalist spent 40 days wandering in the political wilderness as a Democratic flack before being welcomed back to Politico with open arms.

Allen told the story of his short, unhappy life in politics to Politico readers:

From the outset, I felt like I was a reporter just masquerading as a political operative.

Now, as I leave my job at [Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's] political action committee to make the transition back to journalism at Politico, there will be some who wonder whether I am a political operative just masquerading as a reporter.

It’s a fair question for the Republicans who may now view me with a skeptical eye, for the 300-plus congressional Democrats for whom I did not work and, above all, for Politico’s readers.

As a conservative who, like Allen, left journalism for political activism after a disillusioning layoff, I empathized with Allen’s predicament, yet my first instinct was to scoff at both his career flip-flopping and at Politico’s outside-the-media-box decision to rehire him.

Will Republicans ever answer a question from Allen without thinking twice about how he might use their answers? Will Democrats demand fluff because he is one of them? And what of Politico? Would John Harris, Jim VandeHei and company have given a second thought to rehiring a conservative under the same circumstances — or would they hire any openly conservative journalist, for that matter?

The timing of Allen’s return also was ironic in light of the stink that VandeHei and other journalists made earlier this month when Bill Sammon of Fox News dared to state the obvious — that “the mainstream media hates the tea party movement.” VandeHei had the chutzpah to go on Fox News to scold Sammon but then hired a Democratic operative as a reporter.
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Filed under: Government and Media and News & Politics and People
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Bob Marshall’s Disability: His Mouth

Posted on 02.22.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 7:47 pm

Bob Marshall used to represent me in the Virginia House of Delegates, and that was great because he is passionate about many of the issues that matter most to me, including his support for home schooling and his opposition to abortion.

But today I was glad we moved to a neighboring district several years ago because Marshall certainly wasn’t representing my views when he said this last week:

The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the firstborn of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children. In the Old Testament, the firstborn of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.

Marshall quickly backtracked from his “poorly chosen words.” “No one who knows me or my record would imagine that I believe or intended to communicate such an offensive notion,” he said in a statement on his Web site. “I have devoted a generation of work to defending disabled and unwanted children, and have always maintained that they are special blessings to their parents.”

But that quote is likely to follow Marshall the rest of his career — and rightly so. Marshall referenced the Bible in his comments to the Capital News Service, so here’s a reminder of what Jesus said about men’s words in Matthew 12:

For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. … But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

My point isn’t that God will condemn Marshall eternally for his words because he did apologize (albeit in the “mistakes were made” way that politicians typically do). Besides, that’s not my place to suggest any more than it was for Marshall to suggest that God uses “nature” to visit the sin of the mother who aborts a child upon a future child. I’m just saying that politicians like Marshall say dumb things because in their hearts, they believe them to some extent.

The good news is that bad publicity has a way of making politicians change their hearts — and their words — once they hear how foolish they sound.

[Cross-posted at Hot Air]

Filed under: Health and Home Schooling and News & Politics and People
Comments: 1 Comment

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.
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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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The Blog Bash At FreedomWorks

Posted on 02.19.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 9:47 am

Conservatives are the talk of the town in Washington this week because of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference that started yesterday, and FreedomWorks joined the festivities by hosting a “blog bash” at its headquarters last night. My wife and I were there.

Hot Air has the proof in picture. By sheer luck, we happened to be chatting with James Joyner of Outside the Beltway when FreedomWorks honored Ed Morrissey of Hot Air as its “Blogger of the Year.” My hot wife, Kimberly, is in the hot pink blouse in the right of the photo, and I’m the dude next to her having a really bad hair night. (I really need a haircut!)

Kudos to my friend Ed for the much-deserved honor. He also will be honored as CPAC’s “Blogger of the Year” today. Ed was one of the first bloggers I met after starting Beltway Blogroll for National Journal in 2005, and he is among the most thoughtful and fair-minded bloggers on the Web. If you don’t already read Hot Air, now under new management, then you should.

I blog there occasionally myself in Hot Air’s Greenroom. I just posted an entry there this morning in my new role as the editorial director of the free-market think tank Digital Society. The topic is the left’s spooky vision for media reform. Here’s an excerpt:

It took 90 minutes but Tuesday evening’s panel discussion about the future of news ultimately devolved into a predictable attack by media “reformers” on commercial media and communications companies that see the Internet as their “plaything.”

The panelists — Robert McChesney and John Nichols of Free Press, Jane Hamsher of the blog Firedoglake, and Ivan Roman of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists — all said their ideas for media reform depend first and foremost upon winning a fight for control of the Internet. Their idea of victory is government oversight and massive federal spending. …

McChesney accused phone and cable companies of having a business model aimed at “buying off politicians.” He called them monopolists who want “to take over and effectively privatize the Internet, make it their private plaything.”

McChesney’s rant against an imagined “rip off” perpetrated by “commercial media” is consistent with his oft-stated (but under-reported) “ultimate goal” of dismantling the capitalist system in general and getting rid of the “media capitalists” in particular. His perverted vision of a “free” press features a government that has regulatory and financial influence over both the infrastructure underpinning journalism and the people producing it.

Read the whole thing, and stay tuned to Digital Society for analysis of technology policy and how it can help or hurt America’s burgeoning digital culture and commerce.

Filed under: Blogging and Family and Government and Media and News & Politics and People and Technology
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The Squirrel That Killed ‘Green’ Jobs

Posted on 02.15.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 6:06 pm

As a native West Virginian who loves hunting and fishing, I have an inherent conservationist streak within me. It would be fa ir to say that I’m even a bit “green,” meaning that I want to preserve the beauty of this planet God created.

But I long ago broke with the loony environmental movement. The people who walk in those circles make absolutely no sense.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger learned that lesson while pushing for the construction of alternative energy farms in the Mojave Desert. “Alternative energy” is one of the pet causes of environmentalists, but apparently they love imaginary squirrels more. They are blocking construction of the energy farms based on an assumption that squirrels one day might want to live on the land in question.

Via Instapundit, here is Schwarzenegger’s account of a battle that surprised him:

“So the environmentalists … are confused because they want to have renewable energy but then when it comes to the permitting process, creating that renewable energy and building the solar plants, they are then in the way. And they then talk about, ‘You cannot go and destroy this squirrel.’”

“I say, ‘What squirrel? I was out there, I didn’t see a squirrel.’

“They say, ‘Well, there could be a squirrel coming very soon.’

“So I say, ‘But there’s no squirrel there right now.’

“‘But you’ve got to protect things that could be there.’”

Environmentalists simply cannot be taken seriously when their words and their actions are in such obvious conflict. They always find a reason to fight progress, even the progress like alternative energy development that they say they want to see.

Filed under: Government and News & Politics and People
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Mountaineers Road Trip

Posted on 02.14.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:12 pm

Last week, my son and I drove 3-1/2 hours to Morgantown, W.Va., to watch the WVU Mountaineers play the Villanova Wildcats in a battle between two Big East powerhouses — No. 4 in the nation vs. No. 5.

The game was played two days after the Blizzard of 2010 that walloped the Washington area, so we snapped some great snow pictures in addition to shots of ‘Nova superstar Scottie Reynolds, who attended church at our congregation when Anthony was a baby, after the game.

I got half of what I wanted from the trip: Scottie had a great game, but my alma mater lost to his team. But somehow seeing my Mountaineers lose wasn’t as depressing as usual because I got to see a friend win. The bonus: Scottie autographed a basketball for Anthony.

The entries below this one feature snapshots from our road trip.

Filed under: Family and People and Photography and Sports and West Virginia
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Outside The Villanova Locker Room

Posted on 02.14.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:04 pm

After the WVU-Villanova game in Morgantown, Rick Reynolds took my son Anthony, my brother Mark and his son Niko, several Villanova fans, and myself to the VIP section outside the ‘Nova locker room so we could see Scottie.

It was great to see Rick interacting with Scottie Reynolds’ teammates. He’s a people person, and he has passed that personality trait along to his son, which will serve Scottie well if he goes pro.

Filed under: People and Photography and Sports
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Thanks For The Memories, Scottie

Posted on 02.14.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:00 pm

Scottie Reynolds sent the Villanova Wildcats to the Final Four in 2009 with a drive down the court that ended in a last-second layup to win the game against Pittsburgh. At the 2010 WVU-Villanova game in Morgantown, W.Va., Scottie signed copies of a black-and-white photograph that captured the moment.

Here’s a snapshot of Scottie signing one of the pictures for the Villanova fan who brought them to the game:

Plus two more shots of Scottie outside the locker room in Morgantown:

Filed under: People and Photography and Sports and West Virginia
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Barack Obama Is ‘Not Believable’

Posted on 02.12.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 9:10 pm

That’s what Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat from my home, coal-producing state of West Virginia said about the president’s conflicting statements and actions on clean-coal technology. “He’s beginning to be not believable to me,” Rockefeller said.

As Don Surber of the Charleston Daily Mail helpfully reminded his readers, Rockefeller is the same man who said this of Obama a little more than a year ago: “He’s the president I’ve been waiting for all my life.”

Obama’s double talk and broken promises — not just on clean-coal technology but on about any issue you pick — have done wonders to open the eyes of even his biggest fans.

Filed under: Culture and Government and Human Interest and Media and News & Politics and People and Rednecks and Video and West Virginia
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