Movie Review: True Grit (1969)

John Wayne classic still majorly entertains (9/10)

True_GritTrue Grit is a special movie at the end of the 1960s (1969) when Vietnam had become a major issue and crime was a concern for many Americans.  I was 20.  Initially receiving a II-S (student) deferment then subsequently drawing a high number in the draft lottery, I managed to avoid that expedition to the southeast Asian tropical paradise.  Grit was two Duke movies after The Green Berets, a cartoon piece of corporate-government propaganda likening US military aggression on the Vietnamese people to nourishing the roots of the Liberty Tree.  In that time I was a sucker for movies like Beret, and seriously considered volunteering when I walked out of the theater after watching Patton in 1970!

I grew up believing John Wayne was a god, and even had a letter to the editor published in Time Magazine—actually, I recall the letter was in response to a critic’s praising of True Grit—where in my young prose I exclaimed how the “John Wayne kind of hero” is essential for our great country.  The movie was controversial, mainly because John Wayne was not a “John Wayne” kind of character, and back in the day I wasn’t sure what to make of that.  What I now realize is how magnificently textured Rooster Cogburn was drawn in this suis generis film and how exactly the real John Wayne fit the character. Continue reading

Guest Column: ISIS attacked Brussels?

The US created ISIS? Therefore?
by Jon Rappoport (full column here)

RappoportI want to acknowledge two researchers and reporters, whose work cuts deeply into the ISIS mirage: Tony Cartalucci and Brandon Turbeville. In a half-sane world, Cartalucci would be the international editor of the New York Times, if the Times were a real news outlet.

If we accept the premise that ISIS attacked Brussels, then the next question is: what is ISIS?

Who is behind it? Who supplies it? Who funds it? Who sustains it?

Brandon Turbeville, writing at Activist Post (“Congress Votes To Fight ISIS By Funding ISIS To Fight Assad”, 9/19/2014), states:

“Obama’s plan [is] to ‘detect and degrade’ ISIS…the reality is that the plan is nothing more than a plan to…destroy the Syrian government to benefit of ISIS and other fundamentalist groups that the United States has created, funded, trained, and directed since the very beginning of the Syrian crisis.” Continue reading

Brian’s Column: Firewalling Tyranny the American Way

Interlode in The Truman Prophecy on Nullification

NullificationNullification: The Rightful Remedy

Sean was beginning to appreciate the Big Picture, Hiram Chance style. At the same time, he had already become one of Michigan’s leading young liberty activists—nom de guerre Shane Trejo—by focusing his energy on projects that produced nearer-term tangible successes. This was nowhere more true than in the nationwide effort to uphold the 10th Amendment of the Bill of Rights via an individual-state legislative process called Nullification.

Interestingly, again as if destiny were taking a hand, Chance’s mother had passed along to Chance her uncanny political wisdom that federal tyranny—the publicized and rampant domestic evils, anyway—prudently were stopped by the states just saying “we’re not doin’ it.”

The 10th plank in the Bill of Rights is exceptionally clear: Continue reading

Movie Review: Juno (2007)

Special odd-cute movie on teen pregnancy (8.5/10)

JunoThis is one of those movies you can’t say too much about without giving away what’s meaningful and what happens.  That being said, let’s start with the setup: Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) is 16 years old and in a moment of curiosity decides it would be good to check out the sexual intercourse experience with her similarly artistic, offbeat, low-key, precocious boyfriend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera).  We’re somewhere in Seattle-land, and I read that the movie was filmed near Vancouver, BC, Canada. [What is it with the movie industry making so many movies up there?  Do they get cheap motel rates?]

Of course, she really does like the boy and she’s smart enough to know that sex without protection can lead to pregnancy, but for some reason the biological consequences of her curiosity in these matters do not occur to her.  The beginning scenes are filled with Juno in the process of discovery and in the process of distributing the awareness of her condition to friends and family. Continue reading

Guest Column: It Shouldn’t Matter Who the President Is…..

… and it doesn’t have to
by Jeffrey Tucker, c/o Foundation for Economic Education (full column here)

FEE_TuckerFreedom lovers everywhere are biting their nails during the election season, wondering how the damage can be limited. Depending on who gains control, we could have trade wars, nationalized health care, the pillaging of Wall Street and Main Street, more wars in the Middle East, a VAT tax, surveillance of your smartphone, mass deportations, internment camps, and worse.

Read that sentence slowly in a deep voice and it sounds like the trailer to a dystopian film.

Another Way

Let’s take a step back and ask whether it has to be this way. What if the power of government were so limited that it didn’t matter who occupied the White House? Wouldn’t that be a vast improvement? Continue reading

Brian’s Column: “Not like the others…”

Interlode: “Not like the others…”

Truman_Front_2_for_ColumnEditor’s note: Drawn from finishing touches of my novel, The Truman Prophecy. The review edition of the book will be available here on Amazon—you may also click on the book image right—on or after March 28, 2016. Interlodes are illustrative vignettes of connective tissue to move the plot forward. —bw

As for the previous year, the fantasy football league (FFL) started in the late 1980s under auspices of ACME Geeks, Unlimited, held its 2015 draft in the man cave of one Eddie Falkowski, team name the Falcon Eddies (after the world’s scariest TV villain in Rich Man, Poor Man).

Chance had fallen in with the ACME league years ago, and stayed thru thick and thin, near and far, finally keeping settling on his team name Freedom Riders. In FFL practice and vernacular, team owners are known by their team name or nickname. Eddie was Falcon, Chance, Freedom. ACME was an eight-team league, notable other team names/owners as follows: Continue reading

Guest Column: Stop Bill Schuette and Friends

… from stomping on medical marijuana patients and businesses
by Shane Trejo

Bill_SchuetteJoin Michigan Moms United for a ‘Stop the Raids’ protest in Lansing at the state capitol. Tuesday, March 22 at the Michigan State Capitol Building, 100 N Capitol Ave, Lansing, Michigan at 12 Noon.

Friends,

We have fallen on tough times. Michigan bureaucrats have recently started an egregious witch hunt against medical marijuana, which was approved in 2008 by the voters in overwhelming fashion.

With the Flint water poisoning scandal garnering national attention, our corrupt scumbag bureaucrats need a scapegoat. And this time the scapegoat is innocent medical patients and their caregivers. Continue reading