Brian’s Column: And the winners are…

A look forward at Campaign 2012 media coverage
by Brian Wright


And the Republican nomination goes to…

Tampa Bay ForumSeptember 3, 2012, Tampa, Florida. Today at the Tampa Bay Times Forum, the assembled delegates of the Republican Party chose their nominees for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States.[1] Reporters from every major news organization were on hand from the dropping of the gavel on August 27, documenting the leading candidates’ activities and would-be policies if they should win back the White House from the Democrats. Continue reading

Book Review: January 2012 Double Header

Red or Blue by Bob Jackson
Enough is Enough by Brendan Kelly
Review by Brian Wright


One of my main objectives with the Coffee Coaster is to encourage discussion and review of salutary (healthful) new ideas coming from the literary world [not much point in reviewing bad books]. As my preference:

  1. These good ideas must always either complement or further the nonaggression principle that I have spent my political life in evangelizing.
  2. As a side benefit, it also helps that the presentation be artful, structured, and imaginative. Continue reading

Movie Review: Burlesque

Holding on to family values ____ 7.5/10
Review by Brian Wright

BurlesqueAli Rose: Jack, why did you leave Kentucky?
Jack: Well, why did you leave Iowa?
Ali Rose: Because I looked around and realized there wasn’t one person whose life I wanted.
Jack: Exactly.

Right, family values. Song and dance and the suggestion and celebration of sex, which is what, after all, does make families and all those family values that make the world go ’round. In the early scenes, Ali (Christina Aguilera), coming from Iowa to the bright lights of LA, asks Tess (Cher), proprietor of the Lounge, whether the establishment is a ‘strip club.’ Tess does a double-take, exclaiming that burlesque is to strip clubs as a carriage is to the bacteria on the underside of a snake crawling in the ruts of the carriage’s wheels. It puts me back into the memory banks: I suppose if you’re younger than 50 you may not even know what burlesque is… Continue reading

Book Review: The Medusa and the Snail

More notes of a biology watcher
by Lewis Thomas
Review by Brian Wright


Medusa and the SnailThe highly scientifically and medically distinguished Dr. Lewis Thomas—attended Princeton University and Harvard Medical School; became Dean of Yale Medical School and New York University School of Medicine, and President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute; his formative years as an independent medical researcher were at Tulane University School of Medicine—writes in the crystal clear, sparsely elegant style of a great master of literature. For one reason or another, in the late 1970s, The Medusa and the Snail came to be a book that the ‘intelligentsia’ simply had to read. Or anyone striving to be well rounded and embracing a life of the mind. I remember the joy of reading this book rather than the content; I thought some day I’d like to be able to write so intelligently about various subjects of philosophic and political interest. Continue reading

Movie Review: Limitless

Superb science fiction for Humanity+ __ 8/10
Review by Brian Wright
Limitless

Eddie Morra: [at a party] … Well sure, you’d get a short-term spike, but wouldn’t that rapid expansion devalue the stock completely in two years?
Kevin Doyle: No, ’cause there are safeguards!
Eddie Morra: Against aggressive overexpansion? There aren’t because there are no safeguards in human nature. We’re wired to overreach. Look at history, all the countries that have ever ruled the world – Portugal, with its big, massive navy… All they’ve got now are salt cods and cheap condoms.
[crowd laughs]
Eddie Morra: And the Brits? Now they’re just sitting in their dank little island, fussing over their suits. No one’s stopping and thinking, ‘Hey, we’re doing pretty well. We got France, we got Poland, we got a big Swiss bank account… You know what? Let’s not invade Russia in the winter, let’s go home, let’s pop a beer and let’s live off the interest.’ Continue reading

Brian’s Column: All Aboard the Ron Paul Freedom Train

Free State 1.10 => Dr. Yes to White House 11.6
by Brian Wright


Ron  Paul Predictions 2002Yes, as in Success. Success of an unstoppable movement seeded in the minds of the Scottish Enlightenment and pioneer souls who crossed the perilous ocean in order to live by no one’s leave. Then later through ideas spawned in the colonial cauldron of American self-government finding expression in the taverns of Williamsburg and Boston… on to the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia followed by the clash of arms defeating English tyranny on American soil. ‘Our country’ then took root in an imperfect, yet best-available, instrument known as the Constitution (USC). Continue reading

Brian’s Column: 2011 ‘Percolations’

Special stories from 2011:
In 2012 we topple the sacred cows
by Brian Wright


Gadsen FlagWhat a promising year has passed! The Truth and Freedom movement has forced the the Unspeakable Controllers into a nothing little corner of the universe from which they will not escape. Their only option is to push the self-destruct button… which they already have done with a) their barbaric response to OWS, b) planned takeover of the Internet via SOPA, and c) staging for martial law by authorizing indefinite detention without trial. The Unspeakables have ‘shot their wad’ and no one listens, only the sheeple obey, and everyone will soon know the Treasonous Ones are impotent… due for transfer to Orange-Jumpsuit Land. The following 25 videos and Webpages, drawn from my 2011 Perks (from the Percolations newsletter), have been particularly inspiring and insightful: Continue reading