Why We Home-School, Lesson #31
Posted on 07.16.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 12:41 pm

Our children don’t need as “leaders” religiously correct busybodies who are determined to push all references to God, even those that are part of America’s government and culture.

The key quote from this video: “So, this school district is arguing that Judeo-Christian views, as expressed in our nation’s history, are too offensive for students to view — but other religions, even anti-religion … OK.”

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


Filed under: History and News & Politics and Religion and Why We Home-School
Comments: None

Votes From The Crypt
Posted on 07.15.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 12:13 am

It’s a good thing for Harry Reid that Nevadans don’t vote in the after life.

It’s a bad thing for the Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate that newspapers let family members write whatever they want in paid obituaries. He awoke to this one in memory of 84-year-old Charlotte McCourt, a former Reid supporter:

We believe that Mom would say she was mortified to have taken a large role in the election of Harry Reid to U.S. Congress. Let the record show Charlotte was displeased with his work. Please, in lieu of flowers, vote for another more worthy candidate.

Something tells me there’s a strong current of enlightened redneck blood in the McCourt family history — that and an ornery streak a mile long.

John Smith, a writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, said this after seeing the obit: “It’s the kind of small story that has the potential to ricochet like a bullet through the campaign showdown between incumbent Reid and Republican challenger Sharron Angle.”

If Angle is smart, she’ll feature the obit prominently in her campaign ads and find ways to remind voters of it at every opportunity.


Filed under: Just For Laughs and Media and News & Politics and People
Comments: None

State Rocks: Coal vs. Serpentine
Posted on 07.15.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 12:00 am

You can tell a lot about a state by the rock that represents it.

Take West Virginia. My home state chose coal as its state rock in 2009, a selection that makes perfect sense because of what the black rocks buried deep within the Mountain State mean both economically and culturally to her people. For better or worse, West Virginia would not be what it is without coal.

Then there’s California, home to an array of reprehensible characters — from the cultural “elites” in La La Land to the degenerates in San Franciso. The rock that represents them: serpentine, a stone laced with deadly asbestos.

Score one for the enlightened rednecks. West Virginians know how to pick a state rock.


Filed under: Government and History and Human Interest and News & Politics and Rednecks and West Virginia
Comments: 1 Comment

Watchdogs On The Congressional Payroll
Posted on 07.13.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:13 pm

John Dougherty doesn’t have much of a chance to win Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat this year, but I like the way the former investigative journalist thinks:

[Dougherty] said last week he’d hire up to a dozen investigative reporters to root out government waste and corruption if elected.

The team of reporters would act as a government watchdog, aggressively reporting on government agencies and programs. Their findings, Dougherty said, would be used in regular oversight committee hearings.

“There’s not a lot of accountability out there,” Dougherty said.

It’s a brilliant idea. The founding fathers designed a system of checks and balances so no one branch of government gained undue power, and Congress needs to take its role as a watchdog of the executive branch more seriously. Who better to do the work than journalists who not only have been trained to expose government’s flaws but who also know how to tell great stories?

I wouldn’t vote for a candidate just because he’s pushing the idea, but I would like to see people in power give the concept a try.


Filed under: Government and Media and News & Politics
Comments: 1 Comment

Centreville: The Best Place To Live In Virginia?
Posted on 07.13.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 9:51 pm

Centreville, Va., has been a big part of the Glover family life since 1997, when we started worshiping with the saints who meet at the church of Christ.

It’s where we see the people closest to us, our spiritual family, on a regular basis — twice on Sundays for Bible study and worship, again for Wednesday evening Bible study, and also at gospel meetings and other special services. We love Centreville.

But it is not, as CNN Money would have America believe, the best place to live in Virginia. The news outlet ranked the best 100 places to live in the country, and Centreville finished at No. 30. Three other Virginia cities — Alexandria (47), Chesapeake (85) and Suffolk (91) — made the cut.

This statement alone should have disqualified Centreville as a candidate: “Washington, D.C., is anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour and a half away, depending on traffic.” The best places to live don’t have commutes that double unpredictably.

Here, from the comments after the article, are a few other observations by people who know firsthand what’s wrong with Centreville:
(more…)


Filed under: Culture and Family and Human Interest and Media and News & Politics
Comments: None

Lebron and Da’Sean
Posted on 07.10.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:18 am

It was mildly amusing yesterday to see the different, and often hysterical, reactions to the biggest news event of the week — Lebron James’ decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers for the “greener” NBA grass in Miami.

Cleveland went ballistic over what it saw as a betrayal. The city’s newspaper, The Plain Dealer, dedicated its front page to a full-length photo of Lebron and this biting commentary: “Gone. 7 years in Cleveland. No rings.” What a bunch of “homers“!

Bitterness ruled the day in Chicago and New York, cities that Lebron rejected as his new basketball home. And Miami celebrated the anointing of a new sports king.

Lebron fever even hit the hills of my home state, West Virginia. The reason: A couple of weeks before Lebron decided to go to Miami, the Heat drafted West Virginia University all-star Da’Sean Butler. So if Butler makes the team, he could be playing with not only Lebron James but also Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, two other NBA all-stars headed for Miami.
(more…)


Filed under: News & Politics and People and Photography and Sports and West Virginia
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
Comments: None

How To Clean An Oily Bird
Posted on 07.05.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:56 am

My sister-in-law from Louisiana sent this joke via e-mail. It describes the Cajun cleanup plan for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill:

BP announced today that it no longer will hire Cajuns to help in the cleanup.

The reason: Thibodeaux, Boudreaux and Fontenot were told to clean as many brown pelicans as they could. So far, Thibodeaux has cleaned and gutted over 56 birds, while Boudreaux made the roux and Fontenot cooked the rice.

That sounds like an honest, redneck misunderstanding to me.


Filed under: Just For Laughs and News & Politics and Redneck Humor
Comments: None

‘West Virginia On My Heart’
Posted on 07.03.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 12:26 pm

West Virginia remembered Sen. Robert C. Byrd at a state Capitol service in the great Mountain State yesterday, and Mark Knoller of CBS tweeted one of the moments that will stick with me:

“He once said, ‘When I am dead and opened, they will find West Virginia on my heart,’” GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell said of Byrd.

That much Byrd and I have in common. West Virginia will forever be on my heart. (The words also were etched into postcard-sized memorial photos of Byrd.)

The other moment from the memorial that moved me, literally almost to tears, is when a bluegrass band started playing “Country Roads” and the crowd sang the lyrics to John Denver’s famous song while the honor guard carried Byrd’s casket back into the Capitol.

I can’t hear that song without getting chills. I love my home, and no matter how long I live in the Washington, D.C., area or anywhere else, I’ll always be a proud hillbilly from West Virginia.


Filed under: Music and News & Politics and People and Redneck Music and Rednecks and West Virginia
Comments: None

RIP, ‘Big Daddy’ Bobby Byrd
Posted on 07.01.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 11:24 pm

The Senate lost its heart and soul this week. Robert Byrd, a constitutional scholar and good ol’ boy from West Virginia coal country, died after serving in the Senate for more than a half-century — longer than anyone in history. He was the epitome of an enlightened redneck.

Byrd, who was 92, made one last appearance on the Senate floor today. An honor guard carried his body into the chamber to lie in state. It was the first time since 1959, the year Byrd was first elected to the Senate, that senators had paid tribute to one of their own in such fashion.

Politically, I was not a Byrd man. I never voted for him when I lived in the great Mountain State, and I detest to this day the pork-barrel politics he mastered. Money is the most corrupting influence in politics, and pork too often is all about rewarding political allies with taxpayers’ money.

But I always respected Byrd for his love of family, his commitment to the Constitution, his eloquent defenses of the legislative branch in general and the Senate in particular, and his passion for the state we both love. Robert C. Byrd was a statesman with an expensive soft spot for West Virginia, and while I wish the practice of earmarking federal funds would die with the “King of Pork,” I forgive him that flaw.

Rest in peace, “Big Daddy.”


Filed under: Government and History and News & Politics and People and Video and West Virginia
Comments: 1 Comment

Why We Home-School, Lesson #29
Posted on 06.28.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:19 pm

We don’t want our children “educated” in an environment where administrators encourage sexual promiscuity as early as elementary school by distributing condoms.

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


Filed under: Culture and News & Politics and Why We Home-School
Comments: None

The D.C. Metro Way
Posted on 06.28.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 9:35 pm

Fares go up and services go down — that’s the D.C. Metro system’s way of doing business.

Higher rates of up to 18 percent took effect over the weekend for commuters, tourists and others using the public rail system in the nation’s capital. For me that means 20 cents more per ride for three measly stops. That may seem like chump change, but it adds up quickly — 40 cents a day, $2 a week, $8-plus a month and almost $100 a year.

Worse than the rate hikes, though, are the simultaneous, perpetual declines in commuting quality. The Metro system has a hard-earned reputation for shoddy service that plummets in reverse proportion to fare increases.

Trains are forced out of service at the height of rush hour; escalators are taken out of service for months; operators don’t give passengers time to board before closing the doors; and cars feel like saunas because of broken air-conditioning. I’ve experienced all of these problems in the few weeks since Metro finalized the latest fare increase — and remember, I only travel between three stops!

I took the picture in this entry several days into June and posted it to Twitter to try to embarrass Metro into action on an escalator that already had been broken for weeks. Metro’s response: It changed the date on the sign to say July, and still no workers have begun work on the project.

Unfortunately, we riders are at the mercy of Metro officials who realize most of us have no better option than public transportation if we want to get into the city cheaply and relatively quickly. For years I’ve been saying that the day it becomes cheaper to drive into the city is the day I stop taking Metro (and now Virginia Railway Express). But with higher gas and parking prices, that day never comes.


Filed under: D.C. Commuter Diary and News & Politics and Travel
Comments: 1 Comment

Diary Of A D.C. Commuter
Posted on 06.26.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 8:40 pm

Speaking of the D.C. Metro system, I had a lousy week on the commuting front. Most of the problems were on the Virginia Railway Express, but the Metro system is typically the bigger headache.

My travails were so trying this week that I wrote about them regularly in various social media outlets. I’ve decided to compile my highs (not many) and lows here as my first entry of a new feature, “Diary Of A D.C. Commuter.” Here’s a recap from this week’s posts on Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare:

  • Monday: “Another #Metro car sauna. This really is getting ridiculous, @wmata. Trains shouldn’t be hotter than steamy stations. #metrofail”
  • Tuesday: “My train commute is ending just in time to get rained on.”
  • Wednesday, 7:38 a.m.: “I just saw a doe in the clearing by the tracks. Commuting via @VaRailXpress is cool.”
  • 7:51 a.m.: “Add wild turkeys in a pasture to the list of today’s nature sightings on @VaRailXpress.”
  • (more…)


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

How ‘Bout I Put This ‘Gun Up Your Butt’?
Posted on 05.22.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 11:51 am

When a public official resorts to crudely threatening an inquisitive reporter with a rifle to make a point about gun control, he’s already lost the debate. So it was with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

At a press conference to defend his city’s handgun ban, Daley said this to a reporter who dared ask how effective the ban has been: “It’s been very effective. If I put this up your butt, you’ll find out how effective it is. Let me put a round up your, you know.”

(Hat tip to Don Surber)

Daley later apologized for the comment — sort of. “Sure, I’ll be sorry. I’m not going to sing the [1960 Brenda Lee] song ‘I’m Sorry’ now, but sure, you can write it. But I hope I shocked you that you can write about now the gun manufacturers.”

But his apology was about as effective as … the city’s handgun ban.

I hereby proclaim Daley the first winner of the “Real Leaders of Genius” award here at The Enlightened Redneck. He’s earned it.


Filed under: Government and Hunting & Guns and News & Politics and Real Leaders of Genius and Video
Comments: None

Everybody Disobey Jesus Day
Posted on 05.20.10 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:30 pm

Today was “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day,” an online protest manufactured by a bunch of juveniles who fancy themselves defenders of the sacred American principle of free speech.

Does the First Amendment give them the right to engage in such offensive behavior? Absolutely. Do I, a journalist whose livelihood depends upon that constitutional guarantee and a Christian whose religious freedom is protected by it, defend their right to be willfully obnoxious? Yes, reluctantly.

But what I won’t do is praise anyone who thinks it noble to viciously demean another man’s beliefs.

That’s especially true of people who profess to follow Christ. “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day” violates a core tenant of Christ’s teachings: “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 7:12)

Notice that Jesus didn’t say “treat people the same way they have treated you” — or, in this case, your religion. So the fact that blaspheming all things Christian is considered high art in America these days is no justification for a supposedly artistic counterattack against Mohammad.

Drawing Mohammad in order to stick a collective finger in the eyes of his disciples doesn’t make him look bad, but self-proclaimed Christians who participated in the event certainly made Jesus look bad by disobeying His “Golden Rule.”


Filed under: Culture and News & Politics and Religion
Comments: None

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