Book Review: Edge of the Dreaming

SuzyAn Australian Memoir
by Dr. Suzy Kruhse
Reviewed by Brian Wright

Edge of the Dreaming is a remarkable tour de force of storytelling on so many levels—dealing with one’s roots, one’s family, one’s sexuality, and one’s survival and determination to make something of oneself… in a maxed out ‘harsh realm.’ That realm, where Suzy grew up, is what we Yanks sometimes call the Outback, but is technically the Northern Territory of Australia… as the old saying goes, “where men are men and sheep are …” well, you get the picture. It would be difficult to imagine more of a man’s world than Suzy’s place(s) of origin. Continue reading

Movie Review: Australia (2008)

Big budget movie is an artistic gem _ 9/10

AustraliaNullah: Missus Boss, I sing you to me.
Lady Sarah Ashley: And I will hear you.

Magarri: If you’ve got no love in your heart, you’ve got nothing… No dreaming, no story, nothing.

First the conventional large-budget blockbuster, which was disappointing at the box office: It’s fascinating, the effect of corporate marketing on a film, so much of the success of the effort depending on how the executives represent it. I remember the fuss the marketers made about the supposed epic love story between characters played by Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman—both major Hollywood stars, both born and raised in Australia, and both 10s on the physical attractiveness meter. First, the movie is fundamentally not a love story. Second, the true leading characters are an Aboriginal old man named King George (David Gulpilil) and a mixed-race pre-teen boy named Nullah (Brandon Walters). Continue reading

Guest Column: We Are Not Your Enemy

An Open Letter to the World from an American
by Chuck Smith

Chuck_SmithThis video and manifesto by a Texan named Chuck Smith—whom I had never heard of until two days ago—can save the world if it breaks thru to millions of people. It’s the most succinct, precise, and heartfelt illumination of the enormous central problem Americans and humanity face today. Continue reading

Brian’s Column: Shakabuku Choo Choo

The Launch

GandhiYes, this is going to look a bit like last week’s column, Shakabuku 9-1-1. But I’ve done some more development and set up a formal launch site to move forward as a key salient of what Gandhi referred to as Satyagraha (universal truth force). You know what Satyagraha did… it sent the British Empire packing—at least in that former colonial corner of the globe. I have created a Website here for the Shakabuku ‘system,’ which I aim to be a simple grassroots exercise—mainly through personal email communication and iteration of the Shakabuku-Satyagraha message: “Be all you can be by breaking free from the Old Paradigm as individuals, en masse, to the New Paradigm of a Society without Coercion.”    Continue reading

Movie Review: It’s a Wonderful Life

Not just a Yuletide feel good movie __ 10/10

It's a Wonderful LifeGeorge Bailey: Just a minute… just a minute. Now, hold on, Mr. Potter. You’re right when you say my father was no businessman. I know that. Why he ever started this cheap, penny-ante Building and Loan, I’ll never know. But neither you nor anyone else can say anything against his character, because his whole life was… why, in the 25 years since he and his brother, Uncle Billy, started this thing, he never once thought of himself. Isn’t that right, Uncle Billy? He didn’t save enough money to send Harry away to college, let alone me. But he did help a few people get out of your slums, Mr. Potter, and what’s wrong with that? Continue reading

Doreen Hendrickson Goes to the Mat

One of Doreen Hendrickson's jurors did not give in to evil!… and Wins Round One

In yet another bizarre and outrageous assault on liberty and the law, Doreen Hendrickson, wife of noted educated-tax denizen, Pete Hendrickson, has been subjected to desperate attacks by the federal prosecutocracy for—get this—heresy. That is, she was charged by the US courts with contempt for refusing to sign a form stating she agreed with something that she did not in fact agree with. Folks, it don’t get more whacked out than this… Continue reading

Brian’s Column: Shakabuku 9-1-1

Shakabuku 9-1-1
A Truth Paradigm… “if you can keep it”
by Brian Wright

FlowThis is a complementary column to my piece roughly a month ago about how we can leverage the recent imminence of nuclear holocaust [following the White House proposed attack on Syria for—of all black kettle things—war crimes. :) ] That previous column was entitled, “New Paradigm Rising… over the 900# gorilla,” and it was a good one. Nineteen Likes grace its Facebook icon. But far too analytical and long for the average Internet user to take time for. Consequently, I decided to create a new form of column or article: I call it a syllograph. Continue reading