Brian’s Column: Healthcare Cider House Rules

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Brian Wright

Suppose they gave a law and nobody came
by Brian Wright

This column was originally written and posted on March 22, 2010, and you can see not much has happened to date the analysis. Obamacare isn’t even in place yet, but everyone knows it’s going to be pure hell:

Lots of activity on the Web, as you might expect, following the rather “intravenous heading toward Pluto” outcome from DC yesterday. My goodness, HR 3962 “Health Care Nationalization” passed by a 219-211 vote. What’s a mother to do?
— bw Continue reading →

Donut Hole: We’re Off to Leave the Wizard

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Brian Wright

Dorothy and Toto dispel the illusion of power
by Brian Wright

Sometimes I wonder whether the moral allegory of The Wizard of Oz is all we need to set the world straight. Remember the timeless movie we Boomers grew up with as a spring ritual on TV: A girl on the threshold of adventurous maidenhood finds herself in a daydream that turns into a nightmare—until she realizes everything she needs is right here at home. Symbolism is rampant within the original turn-of-the-19th-century novel by Frank Baum, and in the movie none more so than the scene where Dorothy, her dog Toto, and her three farmhand-surrogate protector-friends enter the chamber of the Great Oz: Continue reading →

Book Review: Collapse (2005)

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Brian Wright

How societies choose to fail or succeed
by Jared Diamond

One of my most visited Coffee Coaster pages is the book review I wrote on Jared Diamond’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. In that review I criticize Dr. Diamond for failing to note major Western ideas:

… Diamond does not properly attend to the above political achievements [reason and the concept of individual rights], nor to the concept of individual rights within the framework of large communities with common understanding. The effectiveness of the Founding Fathers’ creation of liberty within community, especially with the federal concept, is relevant to guns, germs, and steel… not to mention production, trade, peace, and benevolence. Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Great Waltz (1938)

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Brian Wright

Definitely a classic; soprano Korjus is special treat

Carla Donner: You probably deserve him more than I do, but he’s going with me.

Back into the wayback machine, another reason not to give up on your basic cable with Turner Classic Movies (TCM) or to make sure one of your Netflix favorites groupings is Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) musicals. I’m not sure this particular movie is regarded as a musical per se: it’s more of a children’s story about Johann Strauss the Younger, who plays across from this ingenue who has this simply indescribable operatic voice (and a bubbly, fetching personality).

Continue reading →

Guest Column: April 1 Cyberwarnings

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Brian Wright

“Be vewy vewy afwaid,” sayeth Uncle Elmer
by Electronic Frontier Foundation

FBI Issues Reflection Warnings

Starting this week, department stores will begin affixing “FBI Anti-Piracy” stickers to mirrors, warning consumers that placing a reflective object in the same room as a television could constitute a violation of U.S. copyright law. In a related lawsuit, EFF is representing Dana Auerbach, a ballet instructor who was caught watching The Black Swan in her dance studio while on lunch break. She faces a $750 to $150,000 penalty for each of her infinite charges of infringement. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: The National Boycott

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Brian Wright

“Who’s in charge here?”
by Brian Wright

Boycott: the act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country [government] to further an economic or humanitarian objective, usually in a social or political context.

My column today is a first sketch of a US national movement I am founding to withhold personal moral, political, and/or economic sanction from the US federal government (USG) until it ends a modest number of its most blatant and extreme acts of aggression—all unconstitutional—in three broad categories, to wit: Continue reading →

Donut Hole: Facebook to Merge with Hooters?

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Brian Wright

Strange ads for audio language training system
may presage new alliances in mind control via titillation
by Brian Wright

Okay, look at the combination graphic I recomposed from several of my Group pages on Facebook on the right hand side there. What’s the first thing you notice? Oh, all right, if you’re a heterosexual man with no geometry handicaps—what springs into your mind in a nanosecond? Right, the fact that every one of the pictures contains an extremely ample bosomed woman in her 20s… smiling, happy, and/or self-confident. And what’s your first urge? Like a four-year-old at Christmas handed a gift-wrapped toy… right?

Sorry for the poor quality of the graphic, but the (super)womanly imagery more than gets the point across. [Let’s dismiss the the video game advertisement on the bottom. Kind of old hat, you expect modern video game companies to use sex with righteous abandon to ply their wares to pubescent males via primordial hormonal incentives.] Continue reading →