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.

Book Review: Mother’s Stone (2013)

Posted on May 27, 2016 by Brian Wright

The end times and extraordinary life of Phyllis Joy
by Brian Wright (reviewed by the author)

The idea of this book stems from a series of columns I wrote as a diary of my mother’s ‘end times.’ She was victim to a genetic illness known as polycystic kidney disease (PKD). As a patient she traversed the modern medical bloodletting system, availing herself of the best technology health insurance covers… and survived it in style for three-plus glorious years. Moreover, the universal meaning of her life ‘as a whole’ transcends the short period of her end times and is what I have aimed to capture as a message from the sages: health lessons learned and freedom lessons shared.

I originally speculated that Mother’s Stone might serve as a focal point of national and international (and non-national) discussion on how to achieve ‘better outcomes’ in medicine—at least kidney surrogate technology. I feel the diaries of Part I do a fair job of showing how the system works (and doesn’t work) today. It’s not all bad and we can do a whole lot better. But in “Part II: The Life” I take off the gloves: the restoration/reconstruction of such a marvelous life as my mom’s offers not only inspiration but a healing balm. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Night at the Museum (2006)

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Brian Wright

Solid family fare that edifies, inspires, and entertains 7.5/10

Never a huge Ben Stiller fan, I was pleasantly surprised after picking Night at the Museum out of the Netflix mailer and firing it up on the DVD player. It’s a story about a fellah in a busted marriage just trying to get by in the Big Apple. Larry Daley (Stiller) has a creative, inventive orientation—he supposedly developed a light that turns on when you snap your fingers—but his inventions are always scooped, ahead of their time, or missing capital funding. Thus he’s always running low on rent money and his ex (Kim Raver) wonders if he’s a positive influence on their boy Nick (Jake Cherry).

In the beginning of the movie, Larry drops by the plush apartment of his ex and her new fiance Don (Paul Rudd)—a techno-business geek (emphasis-added) bond trader—with whom she and Nicky live. These opening scenes are easy to dismiss because many have seen the previews and are waiting for the dinosaurs to come alive and wreak havoc at the museum; but these instances of humanity are key to story. Stiller shows the kind-hearted angst of the aspiring father who, because of some bad breaks and naïveté, has been ejected from his son’s life and replaced by a cipher. Rudd is perfect, too, as the shallow, good-natured stepfather to be. Continue reading →

Guest Column: Important Petition on Common Core

Posted on May 23, 2016 by Brian Wright

Please sign this petition to support two repeal bills
by Shane Trejo

Friends,

The fight against Common Core continues. Right now, we are building pressure for the two bills to repeal Common Core that are currently active in Lansing. They are Senate Bill 826 and House Bill 5444.

We have to make sure that our public officials know that they must stop Common Core and replace it with a proven, student-centered alternative. That is exactly what these bills would accomplish!

The team at Stop Common Core in Michigan have started an important petition which can be accessed here: http://citizengo.org/en/signit/34651/view.
Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Open Letter to the US Political System 2016

Posted on May 22, 2016 by Brian Wright

Embrace the Snowden-Manning 2016 10-Point Political Program…

… as if our lives depended on it… because they do. The SM16 political program consists of 10 steps for fulfilling the Truman Prophecy and bringing truth, justice, and liberty to the country we love.

Special Note to Libertarians at the Orlando 2016 National Convention

Whoever you select for the presidential ticket this year, the party MUST proceed with a radical (government-)crime fighting agenda—if there is to be any hope of our liberty and, actually, our physical survival. The rogue global-junta forces running the United States government are embarked on a program of full-spectrum dominance in a succession of high-crime assaults on the people.

Only the Snowden-Manning 10-Point Political Program will end these high-crime assaults. If you are a delegate to the LP national convention, please insist that every candidate read and commit to implement the SM16 program immediately. And for heaven sakes’ now is the time to spread the word everywhere with an attractive Snowden-Manning 2016 bumper sticker to adorn your wheels… or living room picture window. 🙂

To take the meme viral, simply go to the Snowden-Manning site, buy and post a bumper sticker or other signage, then bear witness further. The simplest and most powerful method is to enter a statement in replying to any of a number of comments in the social media… in the following form:

“It’s not the <candidates, budget, Party, etc.>, it’s the political program: http://snowden-manning.org.”

Here are the 10 points of the program (I’ll expand each in a later update): Continue reading →

Movie Review: That Hamilton Woman (1941)

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Brian Wright

Magic classic with unforgettable performances 8.5/10

They told us your splendid victories, but not of the price you paid. — Emma Hamilton

Whoever came up with the idea of Turner Classic Movies—well, it was Ted Turner with the help of Robert Osborne and Carrie Fisher, of course—should have a statue or a movie studio named after him. Readers may recall a couple of other occasions when my movie-of-the-week review hailed back to a simpler time when cinema was a more straightforward theatrical presentation and a bag of popcorn, even adjusted for inflation, cost somewhere around a nickel (with no refills). Follow the Fleet and Seven Men from Now are two such reviews that came on the heels of my presence at Mom’s while the dial was turned to TCM. In both cases I was pleasantly surprised an old flick could be so good without being Casablanca.

And that same sort of pleasant surprise just happened the other day with That Hamilton Woman, starring Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh—though for different reasons. In fact, the main attraction for me about this film is twofold: a) the magic of the actors and b) the unforced romanticism of the cinematic effort. Continue reading →

Guest Column: Gene-Changing Vaccines

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Brian Wright

New vaccines will permanently alter human DNA
Why is the government so maniacal about injecting vaccines?
by Jon Rappoport [full column here]

Consider this article in light of the accelerating push to mandate and enforce vaccination across the planet.

The reference is the New York Times, 3/9/2015, “Protection Without a Vaccine.” It describes the frontier of research. Here are key quotes that illustrate the use of synthetic genes to “protect against disease,” while changing the genetic makeup of humans. This is not science fiction:

“By delivering synthetic genes into the muscles of the [experimental] monkeys, the scientists are essentially re-engineering the animals to resist disease.”

“’The sky’s the limit,’ said Michael Farzan, an immunologist at Scripps and lead author of the new study.” Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Going on the Offensive with Virtual Grand Juries

Posted on May 15, 2016 by Brian Wright

Some thoughts how ‘we the people’ can eliminate[1] corrupt public officials…
and those complicit in their crimes

My first thoughts—especially having attended on May 11 a judge’s peremptory dismissal of Dr. Georgetta Livingstone’s countersuit vs. the homeowners’ association that is driving Georgetta out of her Clarkston home (for working around DTE’s outrageous shutoff of her electrical power)—were “Aren’t they all?” Corrupt, that is.

No, I can name ~half a dozen current or former state legislators—say, like state rep Tom McMillin from the Rochester area (who was ironically term-limited out)… and reps Gary Glenn, Jim Runestad, Martin Howrylak, Sen. Patrick Colbeck (all maybe 90% proliberty record from what I can tell)… and I’m sure there’s another one or two that just don’t come to mind—and perhaps a couple of dozen honest and mainly libertarian local officials. Can you say drop in the bucket?

As I left the courthouse, chatting with a few of Georgetta’s supporters from the anti ‘Fry & Spy’ meter cause (also here, and here), it dawned on me once more, strikingly, how the system is antihuman. [Just walking into the courthouse, as when I go to the state capitol, I feel I’m walking into some Medieval torture chamber administered by priests high and low, who mainly just go through the motions, follow a domination script set in stone by some unapproachable, ancient deity. Continue reading →