"Percolations" is emailed as a newsletter to the list of Coffee Coaster subscribers. (Normally, this newsletter-ette is sent Wednesday night or Thursday mid-day.) Percolations usually begins with the movie review for the weekend, then opens a brief general whassup section. — bw

Excerpt
It's Complicated
Story of rich, aging "yuppie love" __ 7/10

Most Americans will also exclaim, "These people on the screen live in a world of luxury that I can't even imagine! How can I possibly relate to this? So a man and woman, who raised a perfect family in a 10-acre ocean-front model home in California, fall in love a second time; it's complicated and some feelings are getting hurt. My goodness. How will I sleep tonight? 'Buddy, the bank is about to foreclose on my house. Now that's a real problem!'" That's my sense of how a lot of viewers will regard It's Complicated, at least subconsciously....

...Sorry, I'm making way too much out of this well-to-do business. It's a good movie with top-notch, hardworking actors. And it's a first-rate comedy to boot. If you go with the flow, you'll find yourself sympathizing with Jane more than Jake—but Jake does grow on you. For men out there who want to trade in their original wife for a newer model, It's Complicated provides plenty of food for second thoughts: [Full Review]

FROM THE COFFEE COASTER

Speaking of life being awfully complicated, the Coffee Coaster column for the week advocates a simple 'solution' to solve the great majority of spiritual, political, and practical problems that people face:

"The Solution"
A life-flourishing system for normal humans
by Brian Wright

A lot of serious discussion has been devoted in the past two or three decades to what constitutes a good life. Some philosophers have used the word 'flourishing' to most fully express what a rational person sees as success. And I agree. American Heritage defines the term:

flourish (v.): 1) To grow well or luxuriantly, to thrive. 2) To fare well; prosper. 3) To be in one's prime. [from Middle English and French usage, to bloom... as a flower]

So to flourish suggests more than having wealth, more so the ability to savor and enjoy one's good fortune. Further, people can be seen as flourishing who acquire deep satisfaction with what they do—say, in service to a cause—and are at peace, regardless of material circumstances. [My column proposes a 'flourishment system' for regular people like us.]
[full column]

COFFEE COASTER WEEKLY PERK LIST

1. A huge percentage of US mortgages written during the Bush era were fraudulent, in violation of lending laws and/or so carelessly handled the banks can't find the paperwork. If you or someone you know is facing foreclosure on a Bush era mortgage and they want to keep their home, find someone who specializes in auditing real estate loans and if you find malfeasance (or gross incompetence), get a lawyer and stay put. Note that other reasons exist, such as a corrupt money and lending system, for mortgage relief, as identified by Mr. Dean Hazel in this column and others.
   
   
2. For those of you who are concerned about the progress or regress of the Objectivist movement, this column in "The Intellectual Activist" reveals a serious disease of intellectual authoritarianism coming to a head inside The Ayn Rand Institute, particularly with Leonard Peikoff assuming the aura of a Catholic pope, even issuing encyclicals of approved belief. My own judgment is that virtually every thinker hanging with the Objectivist movement missed far too many trains of knowledge that left the Ayn Rand Station while she was still alive: e.g. life extension, left libertarianism, the deep bankster-driven corruption of American society and government.
   
   
3. Speaking of corporate criminality, it's always good to bring up the role of General Motors (and accomplices) for destroying a fully functioning American mass transit system in the middle part of the 20th century. To paraphrase Jane Jacobs, author of Death and Life of Great American Cities, "the public transportation system(s) available to millions of Americans did not die, they were murdered... by sociopathic looters in the corporate boardrooms."
   
   
4. Later in the previous week I received this link from Correspondent Free State Dan... to an Antiwar.com column from Stefan Molyneux that matter-of-factly considers whether governments of the world, in return for allegiance, actually work to protect their citizens. Check out "The Fantasy of State Protection" here. Stefan's strong point is walking the reader thru the most elementary logic to reveal the unvarnished, obvious truth of things.
   
   
5. Bob Barr is usually a good source of news, and I provided a reference to an earlier editorial revealing the generosity of the taxpayer to government worker pay. This week Mr. Barr follows up with this expose—unfortunately it doesn't seem to feel any military personnel are overpaid—of how we're giving government employees far too many perks, e.g. bonuses (!), in addition to fat checks. The author of the piece, Joe Seehusen in Liberty Guard, suggests some practical steps to fix the problem.

Good news on the front in Michigan: Two new bills were introduced in Michigan this week! HB 6480 is an industrial hemp farming bill and HB 6479 is an industrial hemp study bill. Both were introduced by Representative LaMar Lemmons and were referred to the Committee on Agriculture. Two months ago HR 314 was introduced and was referred to the Committee on Commerce. The bill is a resolution that asks Congress and the administration to recognize industrial hemp and remove barriers to farming the crop once again. Ref. VoteHemp.org.

To lighten up a little bit, see this video in which Steven Colbert strikes again. This time his targets are the unsmiling horses' behinds in Congress, whom he addresses in testimony on immigration.

Also, I've been meaning to refer to this link from Correspondent Randy, who shows us a recently developed life-saving practice that many more people need to be made aware of: Continuous Chest Compression CPR.

Please check out a recent open letter from our valiant leader in the educated tax movement, Mr. Pete Hendrickson. I have posted under this title: "Tax Truth from the Front: Timely clarity on income tax from Pete Hendrickson."

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. — Thomas Paine

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