Old School Trailers: Coyote Ugly (2000)

Source:The New Democrat

I’m going to be real honest here and take note of that, because it might be a while before you see me being honest again. And I go back to being a lying bastard till the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. I had never heard of Coyote Ugly until I saw this movie, well until I heard this movie was out some time I guess in the spring or summer of 2000. I didn’t know that Coyote Ugly was not only a real bar, but a national corporation with a chain or Coyote Ugly bars all around the country. Including Washington where I live around in Bethesda. Some times it takes a big movie like this for me to discover new things.

And then after the movie I see the show Wild On with Brooke Burke that was on E back in the day do a feature about Coyote about a year or so after the movie came out. TLC did a realty show about Coyote like in the spring of 2004 about a women who wants to become a Coyote dancer. And talent scouts I guess from Coyote show her the ropes. CMT launches a series in 2004, a contest really that gives tryouts for Coyote dancers and other employees with the winners getting jobs with the company. And that show lasts for about five seasons or so. And I still have several of those episodes on DVD.

This one movie completely got me into the world of Coyote Ugly. Not just because of the movie, but also because of all the shows about Coyote that came after. This post is not so much about the movie itself, which is a very good movie. But how one movie got a country interested in the Coyote Ugly bar and company. Their women, their dancers and everything that they are about and how they launch the careers of attracted sexy intelligent talented women. Who just need that one break to show the world what they can do.

Crime Mystery Shows: Wicked Attraction - Blood Brothers

Source:The New Democrat

If you are familiar with the Hillside Stranglers in the Los Angeles area, then the serial murderers of Leonard Lake and his buddy Charles Ng should sound familiar to you. Except Lake and Ng murdered in the San Francisco area, but what these four men have in common is that they are all pretty pathetic assholes really. Who had rough upbringings and were never very successful in life really at anything that they ever tried to do. Except for perhaps murdering, but go back to them being assholes, had it not have been for Charles Ng’s addiction to steal they wouldn’t have been caught at least when they did. Had Ng not have been a shoplifter knocking off convenient stores, they might still be in business today.

Shocking World: Wicked Attractio - The Witch Killers: Michael & Suzan Carson

Source:Discovery ID.

Source:The New Democrat

Of all the serial murderers that I know of and have followed in one form or the other, Michael and Suzan Carson have to be the weirdest. And that includes serial murderers like Jeff Dahmer and Charlie Manson. So you know I think you have to be out there to murder in the first place and then way out in left field to become a serial murderer. Good luck hitting a home run to left field in a ballpark of a serial murderer. But then throw in LSD and other mind-warping drugs and you have two people who simply live on a another planet. Visiting Earth to do their evil acts.

And the other thing that gets me about the Carson’s, that is similar to the Manson Family women is that the Carson’s came from good solid normal loving middle class American families. They were not Charlie Manson in the sense of someone who never really had a real home outside of jail. They weren’t people who grew up to abusive parents, or in awful neighborhoods and dropped out of high school to join the local gang of losers. These people had good upbringings and had the opportunity to be very successful in life.

I’m not sure this is a case of two people who were fairly normal and then one day snapped. Suzan didn’t have many of any friends growing up and perhaps as a young women as well. Michael showed signs of going off the lamb during his first marriage. They were both showing signs of mental instability before they even met. So in this sense at least they were sort of perfect for each other. Two people who didn’t fit in well anywhere, but in a horrible sense were perfect each other. Which meant anyone they didn’t like was in danger of losing their lives.

Greg Clemons: 'Brainwashing and Indoctrination of Our Children- US History'

Source:Greg Clemons- Diedre Clemons who narrated this video.

"Socialist / Progressive take over of schools with US History." 

From Greg Clemons

Unless you are on the Far-Right or you are some type of what I would call an Anarcho-Libertarian, where you don't want government doing anything outside of law enforcement and national security and perhaps not even those things as well and you are prone to considering or believing conspiracy theories, especially as they relate to communism and socialism, unless you are someone like this and if you are someone like this, your part of a pretty small minority, because you are prone to believing bullshit (to be frank conspiracy theories that imply that Communists are running our schools. 

Unless you are part of the John Birch Far-Right, you don't believe all public schools or perhaps even any are designed to teach about the positive aspects of socialism and communism. And you have more of a balanced view of our public education system. That we have some good public schools K-12 ,but a lot more good colleges, but we don't have enough good schools. Being 39th in the world in education should be a pretty good clue there. 

We need to improve our public education system, just because of the fact because what ever we do in education reform are public schools will always be there for good or bad. The overwhelming majority of students will still be getting their education from public schools. 

As much as Libertarians may want to eliminate the public education system all together, which is run by state and local government's, mainly local government's, they are mainly responsible for operating the public schools more than anyone else. 

The States and FEDS role is mainly about some extra funding, regulations to a certain extent, and research which may be the only thing that the U.S. Department of Education does well. Things that they aren't good at and I'll be brief but there's more unfunded mandates and passing on down mountains of red tape and regulations. 

Libertarians will never be able to eliminate the public education system from the Federal level. For one, not possible that would probably be unconstitutional or at least challenged in court. 

Two, that would also violate Libertarian principles of states rights, local control, as well as constitutional rights. 

Libertarians are also not in charge of any government at least not any major government in the country. So my point being if its education reform you are interested in, then public education reform needs to be part of that picture, since the overwhelming majority of students go to public schools today, into the near future and the future going forward. 

So what we need to thinking about in education reform, is how we reform our public schools. And that gets to choice, competition, accountability (good and bad) rewarding good educators and retraining or firing low-performing educators. 

And we also need to set up a system where public schools and low-income communities that have the resources to do a good job. Just like schools in high and middle-income communities.

The Week: Jeff Spross: 'Three Reasons Why Work Requirements For Food Stamps Are a Bad Idea'

Source:The New Democrat   

Here’s a big area where the Democratic Party disagrees. Where the Center-Left liberal New Democrats such as myself, disagrees with the more further left lets say Progressives and our quite frankly Far-Left. Our more social democratic least Democrats in the party. It is in the area of the role of government and more specifically our social insurance system and what should be expected from our citizens from themselves when it comes to managing their own affairs.

The difference being between Liberals who believe in independence, including economic dependence and for people to have the freedom over their own lives. Versus lets say Social Democrats in the party who have a more collectivist approach and don’t see a problem with people having to have long-term public assistance, even if they are able-bodied and mentally able to do that for themselves, if they just had the skills to do so, in order to survive. Even seeing it as a good thing that people have government taking care of them. Instead of people having to do that for themselves.

Bill Clinton, perhaps the most famous New Democrat in America now has a somewhat famous saying and campaign theme which was part of his 1992 presidential campaign, which was public assistance shouldn’t be free. That it should be an investment in people and not simply charity. And you can argue that simply giving people public assistance checks is an investment in them, because they’ll have that money to eat and everything else in order to live. And of course that money will go directly back in the economy right away. But that is not what then Governor Clinton meant.

What Bill Clinton was talking about was investing people’s human capital. Empowering them to be able to get the tools and skills that they need to actually get off of public assistance. Because now they have a good education, which may even include life training and can use those skills to get themselves a good job that pays their own bills and no longer need public assistance and private charity to survive. A much different approach from simply cutting people off simply because they’ve been on public assistance for a long time. Or saying that they don’t have to do anything while on public assistance, other than to use that assistance to pay their bills.

To tell people who are on public assistance, but are low-income workers that they have an option, but not requirement to get education and job training assistance as part of their government assistance and probably a lot of them will take that as well if they want to actually get out of poverty and become economically independent. But you tell them that they have to do nothing while on public assistance other than to stay out of trouble and oh by the way the way they aren’t eligible for education and job training assistance anyway as part of their public assistance, very few of them will ever leave poverty. Because they won’t be able to get themselves the skills to do so.

Work requirements are the incentive that unfortunately a lot of Americans who didn’t finish high school and haven’t shown a lot of responsibility and positive decision-making with their lives, need in order to take control over their own lives. And to build a positive future for themselves and their kids. But they aren’t a magic bullet and with them you also need education and job training assistance and even requirement so people aren’t leaving Welfare and other programs to go work a minimum wage job, multiple minimum wage jobs. You need both of those things working together.

The Dean Martin Show: The World is Coming to an End in Five Minutes

Source:The New Democrat

Hum with my pointer finger at my head, I wonder who was the star of The Dean Martin Show and who The Dean Martin Show was named after? Boy I gotta hand it to the boy genius’ at NBC for coming up with such a cleaver and original name for a show. Aw the hell with it, maybe I’ll find that out by the time I figure out what color is red and what’s the number for 911.

As far as the world coming to an end in five-minutes. Don’t give me so much time to prepare. I mean just think how much time I could waste freaking out, or pointing at my head about what to do. Should I spend the time freaking out, or thinking about what I should do in those five minutes, perhaps spend four minutes coming up with something and hoping I can get it done before I blow up or something. See if I can get one of the last tickets to the Moon or Mars. Perhaps call Star Trek and have them beam me up. All the decisions one would have to make in that amount of time.

Bayard Rustin & James Baldwin: Freedom Fighters & Friends

Source:The New Democrat

James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin both had two strikes against them and really in Bayard’s case three. But I guess he didn’t strike out because the umpire felt charitable or what have you. But they were both Black and of African descent and if that is not bad enough for Caucasian racists, they were both gay as well. Which would be like someone who is an Atheist, Socialist and a Communist and perhaps even supporter of Islāmic Jihad against Americans all in the same package. These two men were considered devils by anyone who had excuse the expression, shit for brains and not smart enough to know better.

But these two men were two of the best freedom fighters that America has ever produced, because they both knew what they wanted and were intelligent. Confronting people who weren’t intelligent and saw African people as animals and devils who should still be slaves. All they wanted was the same freedom as any other American. The right to live their lives and the right not to be discriminated against based on race. To have their constitutional rights enforced as equally as Caucasian-Americans. Nothing more than nothing less and if you look at the U.S. Constitution, that is a lot of what it is about. And a big part of the American dream.