About Brian Wright

Hello, I'm Brian Wright, the proprietor and chief content provider to this Web opinion and review site. The Coffee Coaster (thecoffeecoaster.com) has been around since late 2006, and in early 2012 I finally decided to give the site a major makeover with this Wordpress implementation. My views are 'wholistic libertarian,' meaning focused on the spiritual--I like to use the word: essentual--evolution we will need, individually, in order to reach the New Paradigm of peace, freedom, and abundance. Let's help one another in the process.

Movie Review: The Apostle (1997)

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Brian Wright

Scary, heartwarming, or both? __ 9.5/10

You can search far and wide for movies that are authentically American, yet so unique that they defy being categorized. The Apostle would be on a very short list, possibly the only entry. You’re struck by what in the heck was going on in writer-director Robert Duvall’s life to create such a revealing and deep story of the Best of the Bible Belt.

Are these people of faith the best? Is the leader of this Fort Worth, Texas-based, richly funded evangelical church an example of the best of the best? Or are they sinners like everyone else? I’ll answer that question without giving anything away: they’re sinners like everyone else, and Sonny clearly more so. But it isn’t obvious, nor can I pass judgment on the man without fear of contradiction. Indeed, you will find that among freethinking secular persons—such as yours truly—a lively discussion emerges as to whether the preacher man Sonny Dewey, later Apostle E.F., exemplifies destructive or constructive qualities of character. Continue reading →

Guest Column: Operation American Spring

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Brian Wright

A line in the sand, the non-shot heard round the world

In case you’ve been living under a rock or freeze-dried and doing hard time—or only paying attention to corporate-state media—over the past few days: On Saturday, April 12, 2014, in Bunkerville, Nevada, the federal government (an assault force of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)) surrendered to We the People as a consequence of the Cliven Bundy Ranch standoff. Later in the day, the feds announced a full retreat as a band of citizens stood against them in protest of federally-engineered cattle theft and an armed siege of a (legally presumed) innocent rancher. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Organic Marketing, What Would Jesus Do?

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Brian Wright

Approach your market as a gardener grows a plant

As it happens, I’ve been associated as editor and publisher, even author, with some astounding books of nonfiction that advance crucial ideas or simply tell inspiring stories. [You may go to my Free Man Publishing site for a listing of these books and authors.] As inherently interesting, professionally composed, well-written, and utilitarian as many of these authors’ works are, the sad reality is none has broached anything like a mass-market appeal, much less a mini-mass-market appeal (say, sales in the low thousands). Why? This column wrestles with imaginative spreading of creative seeds of thought that more than a few people will find likable to the point of buying. Continue reading →

Book Review: Carved in Granite (2008)

Posted on April 11, 2014 by Brian Wright

Stimulating collage of short stories and reminiscences by budding Free State writers…

2008, SciArt Media, 134 pages (as PDF)

This is a book of short stories from mostly young, certainly aspiring, New Hampshire writers that I helped to market for a fellow Free Stater five years ago. I don’t believe many of the links remain valid, so good luck finding this particular little collection. You can try locating James Maynard perhaps via the Free State Project organization Continue reading →

Movie Review: Silent Running (1972)

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Brian Wright

For its time a bold, clever cry for Nature __ 8/10

Announcer: On this first day of a new century we humbly beg forgiveness and dedicate these last forests of our once beautiful nation to the hope that they will one day return and grace our foul earth. Until that day may God bless these gardens and the brave men who care for them.

Freeman Lowell: It calls back a time when there were flowers all over the Earth… and there were valleys. And there were plains of tall green grass that you could lie down in – you could go to sleep in. And there were blue skies, and there was fresh air… and there were things growing all over the place, not just in some domed enclosures blasted some millions of miles out in to space.

Freeman Lowell: [gesturing toward a picture] Look on the wall behind you. Look at that little girl’s face. I know you’ve seen it. But you know what she’s never going to be able to see? She’s never going to be able to see the simple wonder of a leaf in her hand. Because there’s not going to be any trees. Now you think about that. Continue reading →

Guest Column: Money, Debt and the End of the Growth Imperative

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Brian Wright

By Thomas Greco

Like a cancer, the political, interest-based, debt-money system corrupts everything it touches. It’s time it was replaced. This is the fifth article in our series on the role of money in the transformation of society.

When I was born, the world’s population numbered something like two billion people. Today it is estimated to be well over 7 billion, more than three and a half times the level of one lifetime ago. This is but one example of exponential or geometric growth, meaning growth that proceeds at an accelerating rate. Continue reading →

Book Review: The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder (2008)

Posted on April 4, 2014 by Brian Wright

“When impeachment hardly seemed enough”[1]
by Vincent Bugliosi
Reviewed by Brian Wright
2008, Vanguard Press, 322 pages

“In many states and federally, the innocent agent doctrine is codified. Title 18 United States Code, §2(b) provides: ‘Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him… would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal.’

“In other words, if Bush personally killed an American soldier, he would be guilty of murder. Under the law, he cannot immunize himself from this criminal responsibility by causing a third party to do the killing. He’s still responsible. George Bush cannot sit safely in his Oval Office in Washington D.C. while young American soldiers fighting in his war are being blown to pieces by roadside bombs in Iraq, and wash his hands of all Continue reading →