Public schools are dominated by union teachers who have no sense of humor and no appreciation of the First Amendment they are supposed to be teaching to America’s children.
November 25, 2008
Barack Obama wants to know whether anyone with ambitions to work in his administration owns guns. Melissa Clouthier wonders whether average Americans might be asked the same question someday soon.
Actually, I had to endure just such a grilling from a social worker during the Bush administration, when we adopted our third child. It was one of the most infuriating experiences of my life.
Keep in mind that we already had adopted two children through the same agency and been subjected to three background checks by that time. Our previous social workers had never asked if I owned guns and, if so, how I stored them.
The query prompted a tense back-and-forth between the newbie social worker and me, in part because our children never even knew I had guns until she asked in front of them. They’re hunting guns that I hadn’t used in years.
My wife intervened to keep me from picking a Second Amendment fight over gun ownership with a meddlesome social worker who could have quashed the adoption. I followed her rules until the adoption was final. Now I’m back to deciding for myself how to store my guns.
(For the record, I don’t even keep ammunition in the house because I have only been hunting once in the past 14 years. I keep the guns in case I ever fulfill my dream of living on a farm.)
UPDATE: My wife reminded me of the most infuriating part of the social worker getting tough over the guns in our house — thy hypocrisy of her neither checking our home for chemicals stored in places that could be reached by children nor asking us about where we store them. We’ve always been quite careful on that front.
Seriously, what is more likely — that our five-year-old son would have searched for and been able to load and use my well-hidden high-powered rifle or 12-gauge shotgun, or that he might have found and been able to open a container of toxic chemicals.
Our social worker at Catholic Charities had her home-safety priorities way out of order. Thankfully, she left before the adoption was finalized, so she didn’t do our post-adoption home study.
November 25, 2008
Why We Home-School, Lesson #9
We don’t have to tolerate political correctness over Thanksgiving costumes and any other number of petty issues that cause squabbles among parents of schoolchildren.
November 22, 2008
The New Media Mission Ahead
Nearly four years ago, I penned a memo to the head of Atlantic Media and National Journal in an effort to nudge the company into the blog-driven new media era. I repeatedly promoted the same ideas among top editors and executives in the company until I left in January.
Here are the core elements of the plan I first circulated soon after the 2004 election:
1) Launch a blogging service with the aim of corralling “reliable sources” in Washington policy and political circles into a new online community. Invite lawmakers, congressional staffers, administration officials, lobbyists, experts at trade associations and think tanks, and campaign professionals to participate. Think of the service as C-SPAN on the Internet. C-SPAN is popular because it gives news consumers unfiltered access to the policymaking and political processes. Our service would provide unfiltered access to the smoke-filled rooms of Washington — all of the behind-the-scenes chatter that shapes what C-SPAN viewers see.
2) Create a section where reporters and editors from Atlantic Media can voluntarily provide their own insights, ones that might not make it into stories or that could be embellished in the more free-wheeling style of blogging. Innovative journalists are among those who absolutely love blogging because of the intellectual freedom it provides.
3) Link to policy-oriented blogs by think tanks, media, etc. Linking to other blogs is considered proper etiquette in the blogging community. More importantly, doing so would add value to our product. Atlantic Media could offer the one blog where everyone in Washington turns to find both the best policy blogs (the ones we would provide) and an updated list of other blogs.
4) Name an editor to recruit bloggers, oversee the service, write some content, coordinate with other editors and reporters at Atlantic Media, and work with the advertising and marketing departments to promote the service. One of the editor’s functions would be to author a feature — a blog within a blog — that points readers to the best posts from our various issue-oriented blogs. That is where Atlantic Media could serve a valuable editorial function, separating the wheat from the chaff in our own part of the blogosphere.
With the recent launch of several blogs — National Journal Expert Blogs, Lost In Transition and Under The Influence — that new media mission has largely been accomplished. An inside-the-Beltway publishing company that entered the blogosphere more cautiously than I had hoped is now finally positioned to be an innovator.
Keep reading →
November 19, 2008
Eyewitness To A Police Bust
Tonight, on my way to Bible study of all places, I found myself a bit too close for comfort to a frightening police bust at a red light in Northern Virginia.
My car was the second in line in the center lane of three. The first signs of trouble were audible — a honking horn from the rear and to the right, and then the sound of cars crashing. I looked to my right and saw the small red truck next to my car sandwiched between a large SUV in front and another car in the rear.
At first I thought I was just witnessing an accident, but then I heard shouts: “Get out of the car! Get out of the car!” Men brandishing pistols, dressed in black and wearing masks appeared in my peripheral vision. I feared that I had been caught in the middle of a gang hit because of the forced accident.
It wasn’t until more masked men with weapons poured from the SUV in front of the truck that I saw the word “POLICE” on bullet-proof vests. At least eight to 10 officers, all with weapons drawn, surrounded the truck from the front and rear. That’s also when I noticed the police lights flashing in my rearview mirror and realized I was witnessing a planned bust.
The police car had intentionally forced the red truck into the unmarked SUV first in line at the traffic light in order to trap the occupants. And there I was, stuck next to a truckload of criminals, with police officers screaming and waving weapons.
I wanted to bolt through the light, which had turned green soon after the impact of the cars, but one officer appeared to be waving me through while another officer’s hand signals were saying the opposite. I briefly wondered whether I was about to be mistaken for a partner in whatever crime had been committed.
A few seconds later, I eased through the intersection and into our church parking lot, not 100 yards from where the bust occurred. I definitely had prayers of thanks to offer tonight.
November 17, 2008
Why I Don’t Buy American Cars
The first car I ever bought, in 1989 midway through my senior year in college, has just been dubbed one of the “10 Cars That Sank Detroit” by U.S. News & World Report.
Chevrolet Cavalier. GM sold millions of Cavaliers in the 1980s — and decided the thrifty car was so successful the company didn’t need to update it for more than a decade. To milk the model, GM even added some lipstick and high heels and tried to peddle the upgrade as the Cadillac Cimarron — a legendary flop. Honda and Toyota, meanwhile, were updating their competing models every four or five years, and grabbing market share with each quality improvement. A new Cavalier came out in the mid 1990s — then languished for another decade, while GM put most of its money into big trucks and SUVs.
My Cavalier became a drain on the family budget by the time it hit 80,000 miles, and the engine was dead soon after it broke the 100,000-miles mark. We replaced it with a Dodge Caravan that had to have the transmission rebuilt at a relatively young age. We also had repeated mechanical problems and recalls on our Oldsmobile Silhouette before ditching it about two years ago.
Those experiences explain our family’s move toward Toyota. I’ve been driving Corollas to work since 2000 — I just bought a new one a few weeks ago — and the family car is now a Sienna.
I’d love to buy American cars again someday, in part because my father has been a loyal GM fan most of his life. But I’ll definitely be a tough sell for Detroit going forward. My goal is to buy cars that will last 7-10 years and 200,000 miles or more.
I don’t see GM or any other U.S. automaker meeting those expectations reliably anytime soon.
November 13, 2008
If you have to call yourself a “Real Conservative,” odds are good that you aren’t one.
You certainly aren’t conservative if you are “fiscally conservative [and] socially inclusive” any more than you would be conservative if you were socially conservative and fiscally inclusive. You may not be a liberal, but you aren’t a conservative, either.
November 7, 2008
Forwarded from a friend in West Virginia, where Rich (Gotta Get Richer) Rodriguez deserves every bit of ridicule directed at him by the Mountaineers he unethically and illegally forsook:
Michigan football practice was delayed nearly two hours late this morning after a player reported finding an unknown white powdery substance on the practice field. Head coach Rich Rodriguez immediately suspended practice while police and federal agents were called to investigate.
After a complete analysis, FBI forensic experts determined that the white substance, unknown to the players, was the goal line. Practice was resumed this afternoon after special agents decided the team was unlikely to encounter the substance again.
October 27, 2008
Media coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign has been bewildering and appalling. I’ve been a journalist for 20 years now — 18 of them inside the Beltway — and like ABC columnist Michael Malone, the coverage has been so blatantly biased that I’m “embarrassed to admit what I do for a living.”
October 19, 2008
A Boy Named Danny … Or Is It Keith
One of the lamer storylines to emerge from the ongoing “Joe The Plumber” media feeding frenzy is the accusation that his name isn’t even Joe.
Newsflash folks: My name isn’t really Danny Glover, either. Danny is my — wait for it — nickname. And like Joe Wurzelbacher, who is actually named Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, the name I answer to is based on my middle name (Daniel), not my first name (Keith).
Ahhhhhhhh, that felt great! I’ve been keeping that secret for years. Now it’s out there and I don’t have to worry about liberal bloggers and their parrots in the mainstream media unleashing their hounds after “Danny The Enlightened Redneck.”
I have so many aliases and bylines that I can’t remember them all. When we adopted our children, I was nervous that we would be denied a family if I didn’t list every name I had ever used on the paperwork for the background checks.
It was only a matter of time before some enterprising journalist exposed me. I’ve had visions of being grilled before a congressional inquisition and having to answer question after question about my names in Alberto Gonzales-like fashion: I don’t remember … I don’t recall … I have no recollection.
Stop the badgering! My name is Danny!
Thanks to Joe The Plumber, I don’t have to live that nightmare any longer. He has inspired me to tell the whole sordid story of my many names, so here goes:
Keep reading →
October 15, 2008
My Hero: Plumber Joe Wurzelbacher
An Ohio plumber is getting his 15 minutes of fame on television and the Internet because of his on-the-trail chat with Barack Obama. But Joe Wurzelbacher isn’t letting the attention distract him.
I love this segment from an interview he gave to Family Security Matters:
PM: There’s a clip of you that’s been shown on television, and it’s all over the Internet on YouTube as well. It’s a very short clip. Do you think it accurately portrays the exchange that you had with Sen. Obama? Obviously there was more to it.
JW: I haven’t seen too much of it to be honest with you. I’ve been working yesterday and today, and the evenings spent with my boy or with my family. So I haven’t spent too much time looking at it.
I spend my days (and some nights) watching online videos. The day-time viewing is tolerable; it pays the bills because I’m the executive producer of a video-sharing site. But I’m lousing at calling it quits when the 5 o’clock whistle blows.
I didn’t use to be that way, and I don’t want to be that way any more. I want to be Joe Wurzelbacher — the kind of man who won’t even watch videos of himself because he is focused on his family when he’s not on the job.
October 15, 2008
Broken Brokers
One of the toughest jobs in America these days is being a broker. But don’t believe me; see for yourself at the new “Brokers With Hands On Their Faces Blog.”
Hat tip to The Club For Growth.
November 21, 2008
Martians used to live in Antarctica? That’s the way this sentence reads: “Samples drilled out of the ice [on Mars] could provide a record of Martian life, as have similar glaciers in Antarctica.”
June 20, 2008
Why We Home-School, Lesson #6
Teenage girls think getting pregnant is a neat school project.
June 2, 2008
Why We Home-School, Lesson #5
It’s related to Lesson No. 4, only worse: We don’t want school officials subjecting our children to attempts at indoctrination into the heresy that is Islam.
It’s tough enough raising children to be good, wholesome, faithful servants of Christ in a country where it’s acceptable to mock us for doing so. We don’t need educrats complicating that task further by polluting our children’s minds with false teaching under the guise of “awareness.”
June 2, 2008
Why We Home-School, Lesson #4
Why we home-school, Lesson #4: Because we don’t want politically correct school officials telling our children to dress as Arabs in order “to reach out and learn from people around the world, and to promote curiosity and cultural understanding.”
May 7, 2008
Why We Home-School, Lesson #3
Why we home-school, Lesson #3: Too many of the people who run America’s schools (and public libraries) think it’s “educational” for children to read books about gay penguins.
March 10, 2008
Why We Home-School, Lesson #2
Why we home-school, Lesson #2: A high school in Deerfield, Ind., has included graphic material about homosexuality and violence in the required reading list for advanced-placement English students.
January 21, 2008
Rich (Gotta Get Richer) Rodriguez is earning scorn not just from WVU alums and fans like me but from the broader sports world — even from University of Michigan football fans who have him as their new coach. I’m glad he’s being exposed for the selfish egomaniac, and ethically challenged man, that he is.
December 28, 2007
WVU has sued cowardly ex-football coach Rich Rodriguez for breach of contract over his abrupt departure for the University of Michigan. Good for my alma mater. An anonymous source said the university won’t blink in this battle with Richy Gotta Get Richer, and I sure hope they don’t.
December 24, 2007
Two reasons I like Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul:
1) He reminds me of Grandpa Tumblebug.
2) He “trusts coins, and he has bought them all his life, first as a childhood collector, then as an investor. During the 1980s, as he ran unsuccessfully for the Senate and the White House, he became involved in a coin business, Ron Paul Coins.”
December 21, 2007
Why We Home-School, Lesson #1
Why we home-school, Lesson #1: Because educators think the public schools are a place to teach children the ways of breaking the law – and their bosses think that qualifies as “learning incredible things.”
December 18, 2007
Home-schoolers are getting some credit for helping Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee rise dramatically in the GOP polls. More on the story here and here.
