Susan Monday inducted as honorary Drunk Redneck
We never thought it would happen, but it did. Even though our loose-knit group is pretty much down to one, the other four did make it a point to listen to Susan Monday on WXDE 105.9 Talk Radio over the last month. We're all in agreement. Susan Monday, or SuMo (as her fans call her), has what it takes to be a sixth Drunk Redneck.
The voting was close for awhile. SuMo hails from the foreign country of New Jersey. It's not that we don't like foreigners. They're ok, even if they talk funny, but usually foreigners don't care about native Delmarvans, their culture, and their heritage. They are attracted to the rural life Delmarva offers, but then set out to change it to be more city-ish, the environment they were comfortable with back home.
Two of us five are foreigners - one from Annapolis and one from Baltimore - so we all listened to SuMo with an open mind. Of course, one of us (the one who does all the writing) has been listening to SuMo for over a year and she already had his vote. Because of her show, she inspired Transformation comes with a price, Being accused isn't enough for Dover police, PETA protests cruelty of Easter candy, and The sexual hang-ups of Mayor Jim Ireton.
Oh, she also inspired All in the family, Sussex County style, but it is still in draft form. Due to our writer suffering a debilitating illness most people label as getting old, that article has been sitting on the back burner awaiting to be finished. The time relevancy of that article may mean that it will be chucked in the garbage disposal.
Other than being an inspiration for a handful of our own articles, SuMo has covered a couple of stories in true Drunk Redneck style. Drunk Redneck style, in case you missed it, is to gather as many facts as are available and connect the dots to draw a picture, a picture drawn regardless of one's political, religious, and personal leanings and without disregarding the facts that don't fit into the picture. In other words, a Drunk Redneck attempts to draw an unbiased, objective picture.
The first story that caught this Drunk Redneck's attention for consideration as an honorary sixth Drunk Redneck was her month long coverage of an individual who built a bike path through a state park. As an avid parks lover (according to SuMo's twitter account, worth following if you want to keep up with what she may talk about on her show), the story of the man and his friends who built a mountain bike trail through a park riled her up in true Drunk Redneck fashion. Over the course of a month of covering the story, she got the head guy at Delaware's Department of Natural Resources on air to defend the department's decision to arrest the man for what he did. After his interview, almost every caller expressed support for the man who built the trail and dislike for DNREC's decision to arrest the guy.
In the second story all five of us Rednecks listened to, the Cape Henlopen School Board removed a book, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, from their suggested summer reading list. While other talk show hosts zeroed in on the language in the book and building an issue over that (like the school board claimed was their reasoning for removing it), SuMo zeroed in on the school board's violation of its own procedures in reviewing the education curriculum.
While most people, including local talk show hosts and news people, may have thought the story would be a local blip on the radar screen, the story ended up going national. SuMo had two school board members call in to defend their decision. The ACLU got involved and sent a letter to the school board urging them to reconsider their decision. SuMo landed an interview with the author of the book. The National Coalition Against Censorship stepped in with a contest for Delaware students to read The Miseducation of Cameron Post and submit an essay on it. Writers of the winning essays receive up to $250.
With all this attention, the school board reconvened and voted to put the book back on the list of suggested summer reading. Then they immediately banned the entire list of ten books. The problem of the book was not the language, as SuMo and most everyone else suspected. The problem was with the subject matter of the book, namely, a coming-of-age story of a lesbian.
Now it is important for us to point the subject matter of the book out. WXDE is generally a conservative talk station. Unlike other conservative talk stations, WXDE hires hosts who speak their mind and the station doesn't appear to put limits on how their hosts presents their views. While many other conservative stations would've dictated that their hosts dance around the fact the book was about lesbians, in general, the hosts should support the school board's decision. Not WXDE nor SuMo. There was a procedural violation in the way the book was removed from the list and SuMo held the school board, as public servants, responsible. WXDE, apparently, backed her up.
How does SuMo feel about the appropriateness of the book? We don't know. And the fact we don't know is another deciding factor that made us all vote, unanimously, to make SuMo an honorary Drunk Redneck. Drunk Rednecks don't fit a mold. On any given issue, you don't know how a Drunk Redneck will respond. You just have to wait until a Drunk Redneck's story unfolds.
So, SuMo, welcome to the Drunk Redneck clan, but, no, we're not changing our name. It's hard enough for a blogger to land on our suggested reading list in the right hand column, which is why there are only two right now. To land in the right hand column as an honorary Drunk Redneck, well, only one person in the entire world as achieved that honor.
Don't worry. There are no membership fees or required contributions to the Five Drunk Rednecks site to maintain your honorary Drunk Redneck status. Keep doing your award winning show and fighting for what will make Delmarva a better place while preserving its culture and heritage. If, however, you ever decide to join our Saturday night roundtable discussions and card playing, you have to bring the beer. And it has to be beer, not wine. We suspect you're a wine drinker, not a beer drinker. Leave the wine at home and bring the beer. We're not ready to be culturalized yet.
Ok, our Drunk Redneck from Baltimore says bring the red wine. He likes an Argentine malbec or California red zinfandel. Dang foreigners just don't like a good old beer.
For the TL;DR folks:
Listen to SuMo on WXDE 105.9 weekdays, 10:00 am until noon and 1:00 pm until 3:00 pm. She's awesome!
For your listening pleasure....
Posted by Five Drunk Rednecks
The voting was close for awhile. SuMo hails from the foreign country of New Jersey. It's not that we don't like foreigners. They're ok, even if they talk funny, but usually foreigners don't care about native Delmarvans, their culture, and their heritage. They are attracted to the rural life Delmarva offers, but then set out to change it to be more city-ish, the environment they were comfortable with back home.
Two of us five are foreigners - one from Annapolis and one from Baltimore - so we all listened to SuMo with an open mind. Of course, one of us (the one who does all the writing) has been listening to SuMo for over a year and she already had his vote. Because of her show, she inspired Transformation comes with a price, Being accused isn't enough for Dover police, PETA protests cruelty of Easter candy, and The sexual hang-ups of Mayor Jim Ireton.
Oh, she also inspired All in the family, Sussex County style, but it is still in draft form. Due to our writer suffering a debilitating illness most people label as getting old, that article has been sitting on the back burner awaiting to be finished. The time relevancy of that article may mean that it will be chucked in the garbage disposal.
Other than being an inspiration for a handful of our own articles, SuMo has covered a couple of stories in true Drunk Redneck style. Drunk Redneck style, in case you missed it, is to gather as many facts as are available and connect the dots to draw a picture, a picture drawn regardless of one's political, religious, and personal leanings and without disregarding the facts that don't fit into the picture. In other words, a Drunk Redneck attempts to draw an unbiased, objective picture.
The first story that caught this Drunk Redneck's attention for consideration as an honorary sixth Drunk Redneck was her month long coverage of an individual who built a bike path through a state park. As an avid parks lover (according to SuMo's twitter account, worth following if you want to keep up with what she may talk about on her show), the story of the man and his friends who built a mountain bike trail through a park riled her up in true Drunk Redneck fashion. Over the course of a month of covering the story, she got the head guy at Delaware's Department of Natural Resources on air to defend the department's decision to arrest the man for what he did. After his interview, almost every caller expressed support for the man who built the trail and dislike for DNREC's decision to arrest the guy.
In the second story all five of us Rednecks listened to, the Cape Henlopen School Board removed a book, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, from their suggested summer reading list. While other talk show hosts zeroed in on the language in the book and building an issue over that (like the school board claimed was their reasoning for removing it), SuMo zeroed in on the school board's violation of its own procedures in reviewing the education curriculum.
While most people, including local talk show hosts and news people, may have thought the story would be a local blip on the radar screen, the story ended up going national. SuMo had two school board members call in to defend their decision. The ACLU got involved and sent a letter to the school board urging them to reconsider their decision. SuMo landed an interview with the author of the book. The National Coalition Against Censorship stepped in with a contest for Delaware students to read The Miseducation of Cameron Post and submit an essay on it. Writers of the winning essays receive up to $250.
With all this attention, the school board reconvened and voted to put the book back on the list of suggested summer reading. Then they immediately banned the entire list of ten books. The problem of the book was not the language, as SuMo and most everyone else suspected. The problem was with the subject matter of the book, namely, a coming-of-age story of a lesbian.
Now it is important for us to point the subject matter of the book out. WXDE is generally a conservative talk station. Unlike other conservative talk stations, WXDE hires hosts who speak their mind and the station doesn't appear to put limits on how their hosts presents their views. While many other conservative stations would've dictated that their hosts dance around the fact the book was about lesbians, in general, the hosts should support the school board's decision. Not WXDE nor SuMo. There was a procedural violation in the way the book was removed from the list and SuMo held the school board, as public servants, responsible. WXDE, apparently, backed her up.
How does SuMo feel about the appropriateness of the book? We don't know. And the fact we don't know is another deciding factor that made us all vote, unanimously, to make SuMo an honorary Drunk Redneck. Drunk Rednecks don't fit a mold. On any given issue, you don't know how a Drunk Redneck will respond. You just have to wait until a Drunk Redneck's story unfolds.
So, SuMo, welcome to the Drunk Redneck clan, but, no, we're not changing our name. It's hard enough for a blogger to land on our suggested reading list in the right hand column, which is why there are only two right now. To land in the right hand column as an honorary Drunk Redneck, well, only one person in the entire world as achieved that honor.
Don't worry. There are no membership fees or required contributions to the Five Drunk Rednecks site to maintain your honorary Drunk Redneck status. Keep doing your award winning show and fighting for what will make Delmarva a better place while preserving its culture and heritage. If, however, you ever decide to join our Saturday night roundtable discussions and card playing, you have to bring the beer. And it has to be beer, not wine. We suspect you're a wine drinker, not a beer drinker. Leave the wine at home and bring the beer. We're not ready to be culturalized yet.
Ok, our Drunk Redneck from Baltimore says bring the red wine. He likes an Argentine malbec or California red zinfandel. Dang foreigners just don't like a good old beer.
For the TL;DR folks:
Listen to SuMo on WXDE 105.9 weekdays, 10:00 am until noon and 1:00 pm until 3:00 pm. She's awesome!
For your listening pleasure....
Post edited 12 Aug 14 to add link to the National Coalition Against Censorship essay contest, add a TL;DR section, and add a YouTube video, Beer! by Psychostik.
Related Links:
SuMo isn't just a Monday thing
Susan Monday montage dedication
Related Links:
SuMo isn't just a Monday thing
Susan Monday montage dedication
Posted by Five Drunk Rednecks
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