The South Bank Show: Elizabeth Taylor 1981 Interview

Source: Marmar- Hollywood Goddess Dame Elizabeth Taylor in 1981. 

Source:The Daily Review

The term genius gets thrown out a lot and generally thrown badly and for a lot of incomplete passes ( to use a football analogy ) and gets thrown around by a lot of people who certainly aren't geniuses and if anything are lazy mentally. And they use it to talk about people who impress them and these people tend to get impressed easily. The word is misused a lot similar to how the word awesome is misused today and done for pop culture reasons. But Elizabeth Taylor's case, I believe genius fits her perfectly and not just because she's a great actress, but because of every other characteristic that comes with being a genius.

According to Cambridge Dictionary

a genius is someone who is very great and possesses rare natural ability or skill especially in a particular area such as science or art. That's a paraphrase but it's pretty close. But we all know or know of people that could be accurately labeled as geniuses who are different and standout in other areas and perhaps not as well as they do with their craft.

Anyone who is familiar with the filmmaker and aviator Howard Hughes knows that he was great at his business, but struggled to get close to anyone emotionally and preferred to be left alone. Richard Nixon, in a lot of ways was a brilliant man when it came to public policy especially as it related to foreign affairs and national security, but struggled to socialize with people and didn't like even shaking hands with other people.

Liz Taylor, was a genius in another way as an actress. Someone who was great at playing her parts so well that she made you believe that she was exactly the person that she was playing, but struggled in other areas of her personal life and could even come off as an idiot as far as how she lived her personal life. All the marriages and the different men in her life, the obesity, followed by alcoholism.

Liz, was great at doing the things that made her famous in life which was her ability to act and had a very sharp intelligent wit and could sum up things very well and accurately and do it in a humorous way, but struggled to make deep connections with people and relate to them positively and keep relationships with people she cared about and loved. Things that normal people, ( not to be insulting ) but people who aren't geniuses, but otherwise intelligent and talented do well in their everyday lives everyday.
Source:Marmar

Real Time With Bill Maher: ‘New Rule: Scary Socialism’

Source:Real Time With Bill Maher arguing for socialism?

Source:FreeState MD

“In his editorial New Rule, Bill argues that socialism isn’t as scary as it sounds and calls on Democrats to ramp up their rhetoric against Trump.” 

From Real Time With Bill Maher

At risk of sounding serious for perhaps a minute or few paragraphs: (depending on how fast you read) if Bill Maher’s definition of Socialist, is someone who believes in any form of government whatsoever and not just communist states or social democracies, then, no. We’re not all Socialists.

If Bill Maher is right about Socialists, then even freakin (sorry, this is not HBO) Libertarians, would be Socialists. At least the 5 Libertarians left in the world who not right-wing anarchists, pretending to be Libertarians, as if Libertarian is their Halloween costume, or something.

I agree with Maher that any government social program that’s designed to benefit everyone and funded through tax dollars, is a Socialist program. But that’s not the standard for what it means to be a Socialist, or even a let’s say modern Socialist.

To put it simply: the modern Socialist (let’s call them Democratic Socialists) believe that the world is a very big and complicated place. And therefor you need a government, especially a national government big enough to make sure that no one is left behind or has to go without, in a free, capitalist society. That’s basically what the modern Socialist, or Democratic Socialist is.

Now, at risk of hopefully sounding like a comedian: (or at least political satirist) Donald Trump and his MAGA cult when it comes to Socialists and socialism, are like closeted gay lovers who don’t want to the rest of the world to know that they’re gay. Sort of like former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who would spend his days trying to out anyone that he saw as a danger to American traditionalism and even out them as gay, while spending his nights banging multiple men and perhaps trying on different dresses for his male lovers. Or whatever gay men do in their privacy of their own homes.

I say this, well, to be funny. But also because most of Donald Trump’s MAGA cult, either lives off of Unemployment Insurance, government Farm Insurance, Food Assistance, rent control, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, or a combination of all those government socialist programs.

And while MAGA is living off the backs of hard-working Americans who live and work on the West Coast, you know those Socialist communities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, or on the East Coast like in Boston, New York, Washington, etc, they’re bashing Socialists and socialism. Donald Trump’s MAGA cult is like an Oxymoron convention. Or, the national association of political hypocrites.

E True Hollywood Story: Dallas

Source:Angela Mary- The women of Dallas; Victoria Principal, Linda Gray & Charlene Tilton. 

Source:The Daily Review

“Dallas E True Hollywood Story.”

From Angela Mary

There have been a lot of great soap operas both in the movies and on TV. The big ones of course today are The Young And The Restless, General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, but back in the day you had great prime time soap operas like Melrose Place, Dynasty, One Life To Live, Guiding Light, and movies that were soaps like Where Love Has Gone with Susan Hayward and Mike Connors, Love Has Many Faces with Lana Turner and Cliff Robertson, Strangers When We Meet with Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak.

But if I had to choose one over every other I have to choose Dallas because it represents soap opera at its best, which is what I’m going to explain.

When I think of great soaps I think of dramatic comedy at it’s best where you have really serious scenes and situations, but people and characters who are exactly that who do crazy things and seem somewhat out of control and yet always seem to know what they’re doing.

Like the JR Ewing character ( played by Larry Hagman ) on Dallas. Where you have serious situations with serious people, but doing crazy funny things. Like two adult women getting into cat fights and throwing pillows at each other. Happened multiple times between Linda Evans and Joan Collins on Dynasty.

Or two grown men getting into a fist fight at a restaurant because they’re interested in the same woman, with one of them saying: “look, we’re both adults here no need to fight for her.” Even though that’s exactly what happens two guys getting into a fist fight over a girl the kind of thing that happens in high school, but on Dallas or on another great soap opera it happens between two middle age men in public at a popular restaurant.

Dallas, wasn’t a drama or a comedy, it was both because it was a soap opera. You had a lot of serious situations and serious people, but with crazy immature people doing a lot and saying a lot of funny crazy things. Like with Larry Hagman on the show, who was like an evil bastard, except he was so good at it and funny at it you almost had to like him or at least respect him because he was so good at being a bastard.

The 1980s was a decade of excess where Americans had a lot of money and seemed to be in a hurry to spend as much of it as they possibly could as if they’re was a national money going out of business sale and you have to spend all of your money before it becomes worthless. And Dallas perfectly represented the 1980s with the actors and characters that they had, as well as the writers. Similar to how Easy Rider perfectly represented the 1960s.

It also represented a time when network TV was not only great, but relevant as well and where people wanted to watch CBS, ABC, and NBC every night and not just for sports and movies, but for programs as well. And almost 30 years later after Dallas finally went off the air after 13 seasons Dallas is still the best soap opera ever.

Salon Magazine: Timothy Denevi- Hunter S. Thompson in Chicago, 1968: 'The Battle For The Democratic Party's Soul'

Source: Salon Magazine- Hunter Thompson at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. 

Source:The New Democrat 

If 1967 was the summer of love, then 1968 was the summer of discontentment, revolution, upheaval, whatever other big words that you prefer to voice a national unhappiness with the country and how things were going. It was the summer where once again millions of Baby Boomers were coming of age and pissed off at society, but especially the Vietnam War and feeling the need not just to speak out against the war, but to make their feelings known and to demand real change or face real consequences. The people would face those consequences being the government at three levels, local state and federal.

If you were a Baby Boomer in 1968, ( an American born in the 1940s and 50s ) life for you was pretty swell ( to use a word from the 1950s ) before you deiced to become a rebel and take on the man and the establishment that was created to give you a life where you could live freely and not have to worry about crime, poverty, being able to get a good education including college. Especially if you were of Anglo-Saxon background, ( people of English ethnicity ) just as long as toed the party line ( so to speak ) and weren't a disrupter. You weren't a woman who had some wild idea that you were going to become a lawyer. Or an African-American who had the nerve to enter a quality high school or go to college.

I have mixed feelings about the 1960s especially the late 1960s as someone who wasn't born until about ten years after the summer of 1968 where the only protests and the closest things I got to see to rioting in highs school, were students complaining about the low quality of food at lunch or students getting into fights at the nearby McDonald's because someone believed someone took one of their fries. I love the individualism and the personal freedom of that decade as a Liberal. This feeling that being an American was about being yourself and not having to follow in your parents footsteps, especially your father's just because that's what they decided to do with their lives.

But on the other side I hate the violence of that decade especially 1968. The rioting, the high crime rates, law enforcement going to far in how they responded to the young protesters. Young Boomers, who were given all the opportunities in the world to make great lives for themselves and instead of feeling grateful that instead of growing up in some authoritarian state where the government decides what kind of lives everyone in the country is going to have, they grew up in America where they had that freedom to make those decisions for themselves and instead of feeling grateful, they become political terrorists in many cases. Deciding to rob banks as a political statement because they claimed to hate our capitalist economic system. Far-Left socialist groups like The Weather Underground and others.

I get the opposition to the Vietnam War and if was a young man back then I would've hated that war and just what I've read, seen, and heard about it I hate that war myself. And I get this feeling that it's time for the Democratic Party to change and not just oppose the Vietnam War outright but create a new politics by abandoning the right-wing Dixiecrats and moving the Democratic Party in a more leftist direction. Socialist to be more accurate, with groups like Students For a Democratic Society supporting people like Senator George McGovern and others.

But that's what liberal democracy is for. You don't like the direction that the country is going in, you're more than free to speak out and campaign against it, and even offer an alternative vision for where you believe the country should go. But when you don't win and get your way, the answer is to not turn to violence to try to force your views and policies which is what The Weather Underground and other Socialist groups did back then. But instead take your losses and regroup and get ready for the next elections.

Source: E.P. James MacAdams: Hunter S. Thompson on Richard Nixon - Hunter Thompson's eyes on 1968 

The Rubin Report: Dave Rubin- Interviewing Jeffrey Tucker: Alt-Right & Right-Wing Collectivism

Source: The Rubin Report- Author Jeffrey Tucker, on The Rubin Report talking about the Alt-Right and right-wing collectivism. 

Source:The New Democrat

As Dave Rubin said, we know about left-wing collectivism or people who understand and follow political philosophy do. Which is the two branches of socialism meaning democratic socialism and communism. Not progressivism which is a different philosophy all together and a lot less collectivist where you have both a Left progressivism like the Franklin Roosevelt's of the world. And a Right progressivism the Nelson Rockefeller's of the world, Richard Nixon would be another one and Harry Truman would also be a Left-Progressive. But there's also a right-wing form of collectivism in America and they have several branches and none of them are very conservative.

Source: Amazon- Jeffrey Tucker's book about the Alt-Right and right-wing collectivism 

The three branches of right-wing collectivism at least as I see it are the Christian-Right, the Alt-Right and Nationalists. There not Conservatives at least in a political and constitutional sense as people who believe in conserving the Constitution and all of our individual rights.

Christian-Right

As Christian -Right Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore said himself last year, the book he goes by that defines his politics is the Bible, not the U.S. Constitution. That's a paraphrase, but that's pretty close to exactly what he's saying there. Christian-Conservatives ( or Christian-Nationalists, as I call them ) use their fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible to define their politics. That their religious beliefs should be what governs the country. And that everyone should be forced to live by their Christian moral values.

Nationalists

Similar to Christian-Nationalists are people who believe their national values and how they see their country trumps everyone else's and that their country should really have nothing to do with what goes on with the rest of the world short of having trade deals that benefit their country. Nationalists, tend to view themselves as the real Patriots in the country and everyone who disagrees with them as Un-patriototic or in an American sense as the Un-Americans. That they the real Patriots as Nationalists, are deserving of our constitutional rights and protections and people who oppose them politically as Un-American and traitors who are not deserving of those same individual rights.

Alt-Right

Not all Nationalists are racists, sexists, homophobes, and people who hate other Europeans like Jews, Italians, Slavs, Latinos, or people of Spanish background, and others. But when I think of the Alt-Right at least I think of Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan and other European-American predominately Anglo-Saxon racist political and even political terrorist groups. Similar to Nationalists they see themselves as the true American Patriots and the real Americans, but not just people who disagree with them as being Un-American, but people who don't look like them as Un-American. And not just Non-European-Americans like African and Asian-Americans, but other European-Americans like Italians, Jews, Spaniards, Slavs, and other Europeans who have dark hair and olive complexion. And that these people should not just be disallowed to live freely, but in many cases shouldn't be allowed to live at all.

Collectivism, whether it's right-wing or left-wing is this belief that individualism and personal freedom and in the Far-Left's case economic freedom as well are dangerous things. That the world is a complicated place and therefor you need a big centralized government to set people straight so they live moral productive lives and are taken care of. Both right-wing collectivism and left-wing collectivism, are illiberal ( meaning anti-liberal ) because they oppose individualism and individual rights and that individual freedom needs to be severely constricted if not eliminated so we can have a moral productive society. That's what collectivism is whether it comes from the Far-Left or Far-Right.
Source:The Rubin Report

Oliver Wilson: Social Media: ‘Addictive, Frustrating But Here To Stay’

Source: Library Technology Launchpad- The big three on social media? 

Source:The New Democrat

“Social media: addictive, frustrating but here to stay.” I could leave it at what Oliver Wilson said in his blog post, but as a blogger myself I feel a duty to explain to my readers at least why I agree with that, but Oliver Wilson nails his piece with just the title of it.

As a blogger myself who has been blogging since 2009 or so I almost have to not just be online ( the only way to operate a blog ) but on social media. I mean if the blogger them self is not willing to share online what they wrote, why would anyone else. Doesn’t mean you have to officially like your own blog posts and hit the like button, but I do believe you have a duty to not only allow for people to subscribe to your blog, but then share it as well and allow for others to share your blog. Share options are critical for any blogger.

I have to be on social media as a blogger. A blogger without social media when you’re talking about a blog that you not only write for but personally own and manage, would be like a race car driver without access to a car. And I’m not just talking about race cars, but any cars in general not even a 1978 Ford Pinto. ( Sorry Millennials, for that history reference. I’m aware you’re not fans of history. ) Which means to be a blogger there a lot of benefits to that like people knowing what you’re thinking, at least your thoughts that you make public. As well as letting people know what you know, again your knowledge that you make public. But like with anything in life there’s pluses and minuses to anything you get involved with and social media might be poster child for plusses and minuses in life like the nonsense ( to keep it clean ) that comes to being a social media member.

Narcissism, is not new in America and has been around probably as long as we’ve been a country and I’ve been guilty of it myself. I could be watching a movie at home and I get a Twitter or Google+ notification on my I-phone that I’m really interested in looking at. Because someone just re-sahred, commented, or liked one of my posts. Or perhaps I just got a new follower on Twitter or Google+. With Facebook, which is my least favorite of the big three ( as I call them ) when I get a notification on the Facebook app unlike with Twitter and Google+ ( to paraphrase Oliver Wilson ) it’s generally someone posting in some group that I have very little interest in. And that’s when my Facebook app is working at all, the Twitter and Google+ apps are more reliable at least on my phone.

When I was brand new to Facebook about ten years ago a friend and I were talking on the phone and he was talking about his brother and saying that his brother has like only 5 friends or something like that on Facebook and making a big deal of that. Well, if you’re familiar with my friend’s brother you know the guy is rarely if ever on Facebook. Almost never posts. Facebook might be to him right now what sunny day to the rest of us. Something we see almost everyday ( unless you live in the Northwest ) and not that big of a deal.

As I told my friend several years ago social media to everyone is what everyone makes it to be for themselves. If it’s something you really like regardless of the network and you post a lot of interesting things like status updates, photos, links, etc and you do that daily, you’re going to be popular on that network even if you don’t personally know a lot of people and don’t have a lot of personal friends.

By the way, personal friends and Facebook friends aren’t the same thing. Personal friends are people that you actually know and have not just met in person, but hangout with in person and talk to on the phone. Facebook friends, are people you meet, well on Facebook. But to sound nasty here, if you have a life outside of social media and have plenty of things that keep you busy like work, family, your personal friends even, or are just someone who is fairly private and only want to share your news with people you personally know and trust, you’re probably not going to be very popular on your social media networks, unless you have a lot of personal friends on those networks.

The other thing that  agree with Oliver Wilson here has to do with smartphones. My point earlier being that narcissism isn’t anything knew in America. Donald Trump, is not the inventor of narcissism, but perhaps just the king of it. What social network have done for narcissism has exploded it to the point that it’s everywhere now. If you go to a coffee house today and you’re not staring at your I-phone, you’re the outsider and the stranger at that coffee house, bus stop, train station, grocery store, whatever place you want to use as an example, bar would be another one. Social media and smartphones, both came out at about the same time which is the early and middle 2000s, unless you count blackberry’s as smartphone because people have internet access on their blackberry.

And because of this smartphones and social media have  made high school teenagers out of people in their 40s now and have given a lot of middle age Americans the need to be popular. Except high school, is over for most of those people ( you would think anyway ) and now they’re teenagers in their 40s with social media and a smartphone. Gaining 10 new friends on Facebook ( or whatever the big number is ) is like their OMG moment of the day that they just have to share that or won’t be able to get through the rest of the day. Even if they’ve never even met a single one of their new FB friends and don’t even live in the same country with any of them, let alone short flight away from them. But being de-freiended by one person on FB during that day, is something that sends that person to their shrink or pouring a bottle of pills down their throat because they simply can’t deal with it. Or they go into a swearing rant on FB, to try to look cool again.

As I told my friend, social media regardless of what network or networks you prefer is what you personally make of it. For me Facebook, is just a place to posts my blog posts and to follow my favorite entertainers, as well as the real news, sports, etc. Especially since Facebook no longer allows their members to connect their Twitter with their Facebook page. Just another one of my annoyances with Facebook. If you really want to know what I’m up to online follow my blog, or my Twitter or Google+ pages. Where I also post my blog posts.

I just prefer Twitter and Google+, because they don’t have as many rules and you don’t have to friend request someone you personally don’t know just to follow them. With Twitter and Google+, you can follow anyone you want until they block you. Unless you’re an asshole or follow assholes, you’re probably not going to get blocked on Twitter or Google+. Plus ( no pun intended ) the communities on Google+ are great and are very active and is a great way to post your blog and get real reaction about what you’re writing with the GP communities. But for too many other people social media perhaps especially Facebook, has become a way of life. They can’t go to bed without knowing about everything that their so-called friends are doing and what they said on one of their own posts and it’s very sad to see people become so addictive to things that are just supposed to be hobbies and places where people can meet and talk.

Source: Austin Evans: Twitter vs Facebook vs Google+- Social media junkies?

The Daily Beast: Simon & Schuster- Rick Wilson- 'Everything That Donald Trump Touches Dies Today'

Source: The Daily Beast- Republican strategist, as well as contributor for The Daily Beast and CNN Rick Wilson, with a new book about President Donald Trump. 

Source:The New Democrat

I'm going to take you down my memory lane and talk about the Republican Party that I grew up with as a kid in the 1980s and early 90s and see if anyone remembers that GOP ( when they were the GOP ) and if that party makes sense to anyone and then I'll go from there.

The Republican Party that I grew up with, was a party that was about limited government especially at the Federal level.

A party that believed in fiscal responsibility and that deficits and debt were bad, except for Ronald Reagan of course and the other father's of supply side economics who are a big part of the Donald Trump Republican Party today.

A party that opposed both right-wing and left-wing authoritarians and authoritarianism. Whether it was Communist Russia and their supporters in Europe, Communist Cuba just to the south of us. Or right-wing authoritarians like the theocratic regime in Iran and the monarchies in Arabia.

The GOP use to be a party that believed in immigration and even cultural and racial diversity. Ronald Reagan, the man who coined the phrase that America is the city on a shining hill and that we welcome immigrants from everywhere. Not just from Britain and Scandinavia. Because they believed that immigration was a plus to our economy because immigrants from third-world countries would do the work that Americans wouldn't do and would also bring skills to the high-wage jobs that Americans don't have the skills for like in new technology.

The GOP that I grew up with wasn't just a party that believed in a strong but limited national defense, but who also trusted our defense and intelligence communities. Unlike I don't know, let's say the current President who takes the word over President Vladimir Putin ( the dictator or Russia ) over his own intelligence community and national security officials.

The Republican Party today is a party that believes deficits don't matter. How do I know that? The Trump Administration inherited an economy that was growing at 3% with a 4.5% unemployment rate that created 12 million jobs during the previous 8 years and a budget deficit that was cut in half during that same period, so what do they decide to do with that?

The GOP tried to pass a plan to fund a southern border wall that no one who didn't vote for Donald Trump wants and even some Donald Trump voters don't want and after Mexico of course said they wouldn't pay for it announced they would borrow 50 billion dollars from other countries to try to pay for the wall that almost no one wants. And then passed a trillion-dollar tax cut again on the backs of American taxpayers who are going to have to pay for that tax cut even if they received any of it from interest payments to the national debt, because the tax cut wasn't paid for. It's George W. Bush borrow and spend economics all over again, but this time coming from the self-proclaimed king of debt Donald Trump.

A party that once called America the city on a shining hill and is open to immigrants from around the world, that America is a country of immigrants, now calls Latinos animals, insects, yes shitholes coming from the President of the United States. And complains about America not looking the way it use to and not being the America that they grew up with because it's now less Anglo and even European. And of course they blame that even on legal immigration because we're no longer seeing high rates of immigration from Britain and even Europe in general, because those countries are developed countries and don't have people trying to escape those countries because they can't find work, get an education, or fear for their safety, unlike Central America and parts of Mexico.

The GOP that was once a party that was hawkish towards authoritarian regimes even Russia post-Soviet Russia, now call Kim-Jung Un ( the dictator of North Korea ) an honorable man. That takes the word of right-wing Nationalist dictator President Vladimir Putin of Russia, word over the American intelligence community when he said his government didn't interfere in the 2016 American elections and didn't want Donald Trump to become President of the United States. With President Trump saying that President Putin is fine and is someone we can work with. And now views our European allies like Britain, Germany, and even Canada, as the opposition, while they view Russia and China as allies.

The title of this piece is "Everything that Donald Trump Touches Dies", which of course is Rick Wilson's title from his book and I'm going to get to that, but everything that I've written here Rick Wilson agrees with just from his own commentating on CNN. And I'm going to get to that by saying just looked at the people who use to work for President Donald Trump and where they are now.

Sean Spicer, just two years ago was a well-respected GOP Washington insider who ran the communications department for the Republican National Committee. Now he's trying to sell the book he wrote about being President Trump's Press Secretary, because he can't get a job with a major news devision or network or another job working for another Republican politician  or official, because he shot to death his own credibility working for President Trump.

Tom Price, who before he became President Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services was a well-respected U.S. Representative from Georgia, as well as doctor who chaired the House Budget Committee before he became Secretary of HHS. Was asked to resign as HHS Secretary because of his bad traveling habits and taking overly expensive travel flights at taxpayers expense.

There's a whole book that will be written about Scott Pruitt who again just two years ago was a well-respected as Attorney General for Oklahoma and is now accurately viewed as a crook who used his job and power to make his own personal life more comfortable, as well for his family.

And then you could talk about people who had credibility and characters flaws before Donald Trump becomes President and yet found themselves working for President Trump, because they fit in perfectly with Trump's lack of character and credibility. Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Manigault-Newman and unfortunately many others. These people will probably never work in government again at least at the Federal level, unless they're elected by very forgiving or factually ignorant people, or people who simply don't care about character and credibility, if they like that person's politics.

Every government job that anyone could take comes with a lot of sacrifice and even risks. You're underpaid at least for what you're expected to do and the hours you put in. Your personal and family life suffers, because you put in so many hours just at the office and you're traveling a lot. But when you work for someone like Donald Trump, you put the rest of your life at risk ( not physically ) and you're ability to financially support yourself, because you're constantly put into positions where you either have to deny the obvious or act like you're simply out of the loop and don't know what's going on even in areas where you work in and have jurisdiction over. Take Secretary Kirstjen Nielson, who struggles to answer basic questions about immigration. And anyone with any self-respect and dignity, honesty at all, has to know those things even when they're considering working for someone like Donald Trump.

Source: James Wilson: CNN Tonight With Don Lemon- Rick Wilson: 'Everything That Donald Trump Touches Dies'- CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, is one of the best shows on CNN.