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.

Brian’s Column: The Independents’ Qualification (IQ) Test

Posted on March 6, 2016 by Brian Wright

World’s Smallest Quiz of Whether One Thinks for Oneself

David Nolan, founder of the Libertarian Party (1971), developed a series of questions that measured a respondent’s liberty quotient, that is where he stood wrt economic liberty and civil liberty… which were plotted on an X-axis and Y-Axis, respectively. It became known as the Nolan Chart and the basis for the Advocates for Self Government’s ‘World’s Smallest Political Quiz.’ [https://www.theadvocates.org/quiz/quiz.php]

The Independents’ Movement leadership has come up with a dual-axis chart that measures one’s alignment with Independent psychology. Start at the zero point in the middle of the chart and proceed either positively (-> Indie) or negatively (-> Zombie). Here are some initial questions whose correct answers are all Yes: Continue reading →

Movie Review: Suburban Girl (2007)

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Brian Wright

Nice twist on the older man-younger woman tale (7/10)

Chloe, as they enter the library for a book signing:
“Why are we here?”
Brett: “Because I’ll never make full editor until I start mixing with the oligarchs… and he [pointing at Archie Knox] is one of them.”

Archie, on learning her name: “Let me guess, your novelist father named you after Brett Ashley in the Sun Also Rises.”
Brett: “My father’s a doctor. But yes, I was named after that character. My brother’s named Ethan… after Ethan Frome.”
Archie: “Well, as I always say, better to be named after a sensuous 1920s flapper than…”
Brett: “… than a tragic, desperate man with an ugly scar across his forehead.”

This one didn’t get much promotion, and you know the mass movie market has been restricted when the occupation of the principal character is copyeditor (sometimes called proofreader). Brett Eisenberg (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is a Manhattan literary assistant with dreams of a life doing what she loves: reading and editing books, being part of the great scene of New York idea culture. The movie intro shows her working on a manuscript using the standard proofreader markings, in pencil. Yer humble commentator once worked in these fields of the copy and deep editors, so I know the ropes or the “stets”[1] so to speak. Continue reading →

Guest Column: Trump vs. Newspeak

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Brian Wright

Why the elite media were completely wrong about his chances
by Jon Rappoport [full March 2, 2016, column here]

Because they live in a bubble of their own making. That’s why.

And in that bubble, everything about America is manageable. Things can get worse, but then they get better. Money is tight, then it’s loose. Employment figures drop, then they rebound. Wars start, and then they end.

Looking at the country and the population through the wrong end of the telescope, these media creatures feel themselves positioned high above the madding crowd. To them, phrases like “street smart” and “savvy” are the closest they get to anything real.

Occasionally, they remark that people are restless “out there” and looking for a change—as if Obama, with his massive slogans, somehow supplied that need for eight years and solved the whole problem for a while. As if the problem was simply a psychological kink that needed to be worked out. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: ‘Aggregate’ Doreen Hendrickson

Posted on February 28, 2016 by Brian Wright

A simple plan to get the word out about …
the story in World Net Daily re: Doreen Hendrickson’s historic free speech case

No, by aggregate I’m not suggesting we inflict some new form of collective belonging on our poor heroine. 🙂 Rather, let’s each of us pick one or three of the top ten political news aggregators—like the Drudge Report, who operate as search engines of top news stories worldwide according to a user’s preferences (that’s what an ‘aggregator’ does)—to pick up the historic Doreen story by courageous reporter Alex Newman of World Net Daily (WND). We the people MUST take charage in getting out the word. Because quite obviously, the mainstream media are in the business of systematically blockading any story promising any semblance of truth, justice, and liberty to the human race.

The Aggregation Procedure—Please, Everyone at least Submit to Drudge

This is a simple procedure that will work. Pete Hendrickson, Shane Trejo, and a few others have come up with this plan. So let’s all just submit the Doreen story, as a minimum, to the Drudge Report, which is one of the more liberty-oriented of the giant aggregators.

Go to the Drudge Report lead page here, then scroll to the lower right hand side, where you see a ‘Send News Tips to Drudge’ box.
In that box, enter a variation of the following message: “Federal judge-prosecution team suborns perjury of Michigan woman, Doreen Hendrickson, in historic First Amendment case that can bring down the IRS: http://www.wnd.com/2016/02/woman-jailed-for-refusing-federal-order-to-commit-perjury/.“
Press the Submit button.

Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Bucket List (2007)

Posted on February 24, 2016 by Brian Wright

Jack and Morgan hugely entertaining in terminal vehicle (8/10)

Edward Cole: I envy people who have faith, I just can’t get my head around it.
Carter Chambers: Maybe because your head’s in the way.

The Bucket List looked like one of several old-guy buddy movies in the vein of Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau in The Odd Couple II, Grumpy/ier Old Men, or Out to Sea or, more fittingly, Jack Lemon and James Garner in My Fellow Americans. But this one is more than just a frolic of buddy repartee and various sexual wannado’s; it’s actually a serious movie that strikes close to home (for Boomers and their aging parents) with a naturally humorous undertone.

From the special features we learn screenplay writer, Justin Zackham, came up with this idea of writing down a list of things one would want to accomplish should one learn one’s time on earth was short. Oddly enough, Zackham made “making a movie about a ‘bucket list'” one of the items on his own personal bucket list—though, so far as we know, Zackham doesn’t have a terminal affliction—and The Bucket List became his Hollywood breakout story. In the movie the Morgan Freeman character, Carter Chambers, comes up with the list idea: he remembers it from a philosophy class in college. Continue reading →

Guest Column: Doreen’s Case Publicized in WND

Posted on February 22, 2016 by Brian Wright

Woman jailed for refusing federal order to commit perjury
Case erupts over speech rights, due process and signature on tax forms
By Alex Newman, World Net Daily [Full original article here]

When a federal court and the federal government ordered Doreen Hendrickson to sign a form under penalty of perjury that she believed to be inaccurate, the mother of two initially refused to comply.

Eventually, she obeyed but noted that the sworn statement was being made under duress.

Now, because of that decision, she is sitting behind bars for “contempt of court.”

A federal appeal is being considered in what sources called an “unprecedented” case, with arguments from both sides presented last month.

The case has broad implications for free speech and due process.

Hendrickson’s saga officially began in 2006, when the Internal Revenue Service claimed that refunds it had issued to her years earlier were mistakes, according to the family and official documents reviewed by WND. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Donald Trump (Re)visited

Posted on February 21, 2016 by Brian Wright

A plus and minus perspective on the Trumpster as president, for libertarians

A sage, or at least hopeful, comment on an Infowars video—somewhat misleadingly entitled “Trump’s 9/11 Truth Moment at RNC Debate in SC“—I put up on Facebook:

“I wasn’t going to vote at all but I keep seeing the same crap being done to Trump that they did to Ron Paul, so now I am going to vote for him.”

The only briefly mention on 9/11 in the SC debate was “The WTC came down in his brother’s reign. Remember that. [Boos—it was a handpicked Republican insider crowd in South Carolina!] That’s not keeping us safe.”

But the bigger comments on 9/11 came from October 2015: “Trump said that ignores a crucial fact—that George W. Bush failed to stop the Sept. 11 attacks. Worse yet, Trump said on Oct. 20, 2015, that Bush knew the 2001 attacks were coming:” Continue reading →