Category Archives: Whole Site

A Presummer’s Night Dream

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A plush memorial-garden setting sets off a  barrage of heavenly imagery

Here’s the dream note from 6/1/16:

Godwithin7Williams [an engineering firm I worked for 35 years ago] has a memorial garden measuring 1/2 mile by 1/2 mile inside a full square mile grounds including the Michigan design and production facility. And I run into some of my engineering buddies nearby. Men whom I only knew remotely are speaking of my work for the company as splendid and caring, showing integrity. I feel poorly that I haven’t been more friendly to these men who obviously think exceptionally highly of me; though when we worked together, I was always courteous and complimentary. The garden is this amazing natural retreat, complete with a raging river with rapids into the corner of it, all so beautiful and full of life. It reminds me of heaven—a living heaven. There’s a spirit to it, yes of Sam [Sam Williams, the company founder], but also of everyone who chose to take part in his journey. I feel fulfilled and worth something far more than I customarily regard myself. I want Rose [former wife] to share this with me, and I also see on reflection just how beautiful my own soul is, how utterly amazing—despite the rough edges and early addictions—my creative work has been.

Synchronicity

Gerry_HermanIt happens that one of the finer persons I ever met at Williams was a tall, bright Kansan[1] named Gerry. When I first arrived at Williams back in 1977, I went to work for the accessories group—lube pumps, fuel controls, start cartridges, electronics. There were only four of us at the outset; Gerry was the head ramrod of the electronics… and anything else that required more than simple arithmetic. He was, shall we say, the brains of the outfit… and without peer in that quality for most of his career at the company. Continue reading →

Book Review: Little Pink House (2009)

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One woman’s historic battle against eminent domain
A true story of defiance and courage
by Jeff Benedict
Review by Brian Wright

Kelo_Pink_HouseIt’s with the greatest pleasure that I review this epochal action-crime drama of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Little Pink House is the exhilarating literary ride about the Kelo vs. City of New London eminent domain case that shook the country. It’s chock full of heroes (Susette Kelo and her many partners in the freedom fight) and villains (the several local, state, federal, and corporate poobahs who think nothing of bulldozing the poor and handing the vacated land to the looting rich… minus a healthy commission for their thuggery). If you ever entertained doubts about the confiscatory evil of eminent domain (ED), this book will dispel them: ED = Erector-set Dysfunction. The book makes crystal clear that public takings are nothing but expropriation of some persons for connected, well-to-do other persons… and those who participate in the action are the slimiest scum: cowards who steal under protection of law. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Alongside Night (2015, updated version)

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An impressive and important artwork in the libertarian cultural oeuvre (8/10)[1]
Written and directed by J. Neil Schulman, produced by Patrick Heller
Reviewed by Brian R. Wright

Alongside_NightPatrick Heller of Liberty Coin Service, who financed this film, is a personal friend of mine and political ally going back to the early 1970s. To use a military analogy, back in the day of Rampant Campus Collectivism we charged up a lot of the same hills under heavy fire… and continue to fight for reason and liberty in our much more sinister Era of Polished Global Fascism. I’d say we’ve managed to secure some beach heads for what we (with others)—and certainly the writer/director of Alongside Night, Mr. J. Neil Schulman—see as the ultimate if not imminent victory of Worldwide Liberty.

In 1979, when Neil’s novel was written, only a handful of authors had emerged to work Ayn Rand’s corner (philosophical individualism) or, say, Robert Heinlein’s hard science fiction path—Heinlein had a more martial-society ideal for the heroic person. [Yet, Heinlein came up with any number of mindbending plot devices and convincing tech innovations.] Anyway, Alongside Night along with L. Neil Smith’s Probability Broach were the ones most of us contemporaries in the modern libertarian movement read and discussed.  Continue reading →

Guest Column: In Loving Memory of Harambe

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The same child ‘saved’ by killing Harambe the gorilla will be systematically poisoned by clueless humans wielding toxic vaccines and cancer causing junk foods

Harambeby Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) It’s important to point out the outrageous hypocrisy of the shameless murder of Harambe the gorilla, a conscious, aware, intelligent being who showed no intention of trying to harm the child that fell into his exhibit at the Cincinnati zoo. #JusticeForHarambe

The very same stupid, idiotic humans who carry out these murders to “save a child’s life” will turn right around and have their own children injected with brain damaging mercury in the form of vaccines. They’ll feed their children cancer causing chemicals like sodium nitrite in bacon, sausage and hot dogs. They’ll routinely commit chemical violence against their own children at every meal, yet when a gorilla is near some child, it’s so scary to ignorant humans that they haul off and murder the primate out of nothing but ignorant fear.

Humans are stupid. Harambe is no villain, and he didn’t deserve to die.
Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: The 2016 LP National Convention

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Libertarians nominate presidential ticket Gary Johnson/William Weld,
now actually standing a chance of winning the 2016 election… IF…

SM_Johnson-Weld… they continue to avoid shooting themselves in the foot (as was ever their wont) and rise to the challenge of The Truman Prophecy… by committing themselves to the Snowden-Manning political program. [In a phrase, the Libertarians “have to bring real truth and real justice to real people.”]

Note: From Shane Trejo’s column here, I realize that Weld, with some disturbing specifics to his background, could be a colossal mistake. But I don’t think so. As I try to point out in this column, what matters isn’t who our candidates are but the political program they will effect. And WE, the truth-justice-liberty warriors, will be—or certainly can be—the driver of what they do. They represent us; we have to insist they embrace the Snowden-Manning program, or else! ALL parties and ALL candidates.

It was a cliffhanger from what my Rose—watching CSPAN—was telling me with regular updates this afternoon. Gary Johnson won the presidential nod this morning on a second ballot, handily. But his preferred vice-presidential candidate, William Weld—another former two-term Republican governor in a largely Democratic state (Massachusetts 1991-1997)—had to duke it out with a handful of presumably fine individuals yet having the political notability of the dogcatcher in Enid, Oklahoma. Continue reading →

Book Review: Mother’s Stone (2013)

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

Mothers_StoneThe 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)

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

Night_MuseumNever 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 →