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: Selena (1997)

Tejano Hope __ 8/10

SelenaNote: Potential spoiler for those unfamiliar with events surrounding the star in 1995.

So why should we watch a movie about the “Madonna” of Mexican Americans? (Actually, I made up that comparison, but I’m pretty sure Selena has been compared to Madonna many times in the entertainment media.) Well, all the conventional reasons:

  1. The movie features Jennifer Lopez in the title role, a definite career launcher
  2. The movie speaks the universal language of music, a unique, buoyant style that doesn’t make it into mainstream pop very often.
  3. In these days of Cider House Rules Immigration Policy, the film reminds us that people of Hispanic ancestry, particularly Tejanos[1], (regardless of government paperwork) are people, too.

The movie starts with Selena’s famous concert in the Houston Astrodome on February 26, 1995, where a record crowd of 61,000 young fans show up to listen and cheer.  She’s at the top of her form with Spanish-speaking fans all through Mexico and Latin America and around the world, as well as Anglos everywhere, too; she grew up predominantly in English-speaking society as she was born in Lake Jackson, Texas in 1971 to Mexican-American citizens. The issue of perceived identity—between Mexican culture and American culture—is a constant throughout the movie and something Selena comes to flow between naturally… less so her father and mother, who definitely consider themselves part of the Anglo world. Continue reading

Guest Column: Orlando Gay Community

Caught in the crossfire on an international stage
by Kevin Brant, excerpted from Facebook post to General Truth News

OrlandoCasting about on the Web and social networks, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the ‘Orlando incident’ is extremely fishy to say the least. I particularly appreciate this serious attempt to provide background. From a well-reasoned post on Facebook by Kevin Brant. — Ed.

Is there more to this story than meets the eye?

Evidence and recent history suggests yes there is:

A 2014 Human Rights Watch Report found that government agents were ‘directly involved’ in most high-profile US terror plots:

“Nearly all of the highest-profile domestic terrorism plots in the United States since 9/11 featured the ‘direct involvement’ of government agents or informants, a new report says.”

Why do governments inflict terror on their own population? Continue reading

Brian’s Column: Musings on the Week That Was

On Orlando, mind control, effective political action

Cover_Leaving_Sandbox_FrontOf course, everyone is saturated with the standard ZNN[1] coverage of the Orlando, Florida, incident. I say incident, because at this stage it’s difficult to say truly what happened at the Pulse nightclub where a lot of official-looking vehicles—though few, if any, ambulances—and public officials position themselves interminably, sucking up overtime pay. And newscasts stating “world-record massacre,” “Islam radical responsible,” “50 dead and 53 wounded,” “gun violence,” and so on. But nobody answers observations that any person with the IQ of a soup can might pose:

  • Too many bullets alleged to have been fired in the time allotted
  • Reports of multiple gunmen which we have seen in other false flags attacks
  • Absence of ambulances taking away dead and injured
  • Absence of any evidence of bloody carnage
  • Purported injured persons being carried toward the nightclub, in one scene the man being put down while those carrying him simply walk away
  • Victims simply standing around to be shot, rather than fleeing the club
  • A smiling policeman taking a position in the back row of a somber official briefing
  • No video footage from security cameras
  • No apparent interference from security personnel with the alleged gunman
  • The alleged gunman’s ties to and contacts with individuals and organizations involved in previous acts of state sponsored terror
  • G. Edward Griffin reports that a new would-be shooter, James Wesley Howell, emerges blowing the whistle on a larger government gay-club-shooting black op

Like Sandy Hook and Boston, anyone who thinks for himself knows that he’s being lied to by all the public officials on the scene, behind the scene, and by the media who are willing accomplices in the act of subterfuge for political purposes. Continue reading

Movie Review: Friday Night Lights (TV Miniseries: 2007-2011)

Friday Night Lights  (TV Miniseries) _ 9/10
The religion of Texas high school football
Review by Brian Wright

Written by Peter Berg and Buzz Bissinger (34 episodes)
Directed by Jeffrey Reiner (12 episodes)

Friday_NightLooking around Amazon.com for something for Mama for Christmas, it occurred to me she’s a huge fan of Kyle Chandler… esp. his role in the mid-1990s series, Early Edition, where he plays a young man who for mysterious reasons receives a newspaper every morning with news of events 24 hours into the future.  (An innovative idea with more plot possibilities than Star Trek!  Mom rarely missed an episode.)

So that settled it: I’d track down a DVD collection with Kyle Chandler in it.  Turns out CBS hadn’t yet released the DVDs on Early Edition, but the actor was heading up the cast of a critically acclaimed new series based on the book Friday Night Lights (FNL)… which had also been turned into a movie of the same name starring Billy Bob Thornton.  So with Mom also having spent some time in a small East Texas town (Tyler) and being fully aware of the fanaticism Texans bring to their high-school football experience—recall the incident of the mother in a town near Houston who wanted to kill her daughter’s rival on the cheerleading squad (made into a movie)—I figured Mom’d appreciate the first season of the Friday Night Lights miniseries.  Did I ever get that right! Continue reading

Guest Column: No Need to Panic about Johnson-Weld

After some mulling, I feel I’ve reached a reasonable analysis of the J-W ticket
by Kathleen Wikstrom [Facebook post here]

Kathleen Jacob Wikstrom's Profile PhotoI’ve been mulling over my best response to the Libertarian Party’s Johnson-Weld ticket, and I think I’ve finally settled on something.

For all the people who think this ticket has the potential to bring large gains for the libertarian movement, I will wish them luck and encourage their efforts. I hope Gary Johnson wins, if our only other choices are Clinton and Trump. But I am looking for more than this ticket will offer, so I will put my efforts elsewhere. Continue reading

Brian’s Column: A Retraction Regarding Johnson-Weld

We simply do not have the time… for being preoccupied and distracted

SM16_Buildasign_ProofIt’s been how many years? And how old am I? But as most of us who want to believe the best (and who know how hard the struggle has been to achieve true liberty in our time), I was sucked in by imaginings that the J-W ticket heralded a sea change toward uncharacteristic competence and effectiveness in the Libertarian Party at the national level. Please take a moment to review my earlier column: “The LP 2016 National Convention.”

Interestingly, the only part of that previous column that I have to retract is under the level 3 heading ‘This Time the Veep Candidacy was the Potential Foot Shot’. That is where I suggest that even though we have to keep an eye on Mr. Weld, the points in his favor are solid: 1) he’s VP, not P, 2) he brings lots of ATMM (access to money and media) to the table, 3) he speaks succinctly and incisively, with wit and humor, 4) his US attorney record of going after corrupt establishment Republicans (and Democrats) is solid, and 5) he wants the job.
Continue reading

Book Review: Dissolving Illusions (2013)

Disease, Vaccines, and The Forgotten History
by Suzanne Humphries, MD

IllusionsA libertarian friend, who as many of my Baby Boomer peers tends to accept conventional wisdom, academic authority, and mainstream media sources of information, posed these questions (after reading some of my more adamant commentaries regarding the public health nightmare that mass vaccination has become):

“Are you painting all vaccines with the same broad brush?

“How do you explain that small pox has virtually disappeared, or that polio is not the dreaded disease it once was?” Continue reading