Robert Canright's Communications Strategy

Dear Friends, Neighbors, and Family,
I am making a small change in how I communicate.  As many of you are aware, I post articles and essays on the internet in a set of blogs. 

Since everyone is using Facebook now, and many people use Twitter, my new strategy is to notify through Twitter and Facebook that I have published an article in a blog.  I plan to use the same notification in Twitter and Facebook so you only need to use one to be alerted.  I will also bring to your attention an occasional article from the Wall Street Journal, Epoch Times, or New York Times that you might find interesting.  My plan for Twitter is to  a very streamlined and compact presentation for your convenience; I will do this by not "Liking" other tweets, and by not re-tweeting.   So if you go to Twitter and search "@RobertCanright" then you will only find links to my articles.  If you look for me on Facebook then you will find I am not the only Robert Canright in America.  This is my Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/robert.canright.10

Here are the blogs I write.  I invite you to go and look, browse.
Plano Parents   https://planoparents.blogspot.com/
Robert Canright's Personal Blog  https://robertcanrightsblog.blogspot.com/
Texas Ascendant   https://texasascendant.blogspot.com/
Canright on Software and Programming  http://canrightonsoftwareandprogramming.blogspot.com/

I should explain the Texas Ascendant blog: the idea behind it, and some tips on how to read it.  It is multi-threaded.  A thread is a series of related posts.  It has 12 years of articles.  I have organized sets of articles as projects.  If you read the introductory article you will see I started writing after the economic meltdown of 2008, often called the sub-prime mortgage crisis or the Great Recession.  It actually has many names.  Wikipedia calls it the Financial crisis of 2007–2008:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%932008
Here is the introductory article to Texas Ascendant:
What is Texas Ascendant?  https://texasascendant.blogspot.com/2018/07/what-is-texas-ascendant-campaign.html
Here is the list of projects within Texas Ascendant:  https://texasascendant.blogspot.com/2009/09/list-of-projects.html

I write because the articles and op-ed pieces in all the major papers are not very good, not helpful.  There has been a noticeable decline in objectivity and quality, deteriorating steadily over the last 20 years.  Our society is complex and there are enormous pressures upon our society.  I work hard to make sense of the complexities in our society:  the turmoil and conflict, the repeated economic and political crises.  I share with you what I perceive and hope my thoughts and observations might be a help to you.

Your friend and neighbor,
Robert Canright

Remembering the Bagpiper of D-Day

Today is the 76th anniversary of D-Day, the Normandy invasion to end World War II.  You might not have heard the story of the Bagpiper of D-Day.  Bill Millin was a trained commando, but his commanding officer wanted him to play the pipes through the invasion.  They were Highlanders and they were going into battle with bagpipes playing.  Yes, he marched back and forth on the beach playing his bagpipes.  Many German soldiers had him in their sights, but did not shoot.  In interviews the Germans said they thought he was crazy and that is why they did not shoot.  It strikes me as the protecting hand of God.  They  put up a statue to him on the Normandy invasion beach.

Here are a couple of articles about him.
One of first soldiers to charge the beach on D-Day was a bagpiper  https://www.insider.com/bill-millin-d-day-bagpipes-soldier-survival-story-2019-6

The bagpiper of D-Day  https://www.history.co.uk/article/the-bagpiper-of-d-day

Wikipedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Millin

We have a truly great civilization.  This is courage with a special sense of style; it is elan.  We must never lose heart when things go wrong, because we are a great people, regardless of how many petty people try to tear us down.  Take heart. It is always dark before the dawn.

Robert

War of the Worlds - 1953

When I was a kid I got to see The War of the Worlds on TV, the 1953 version.  I just got a copy on DVD and enjoyed it very much.  Here is what the cover art work on the DVD box looks like.

This DVD version has Korean subtitles that you can turn off.  I enjoyed the show immensely.  It received 3 Oscar nominations and won an award for Best Special Effects.  For 1953 the special effects were very good.  It was a well done film that I remembered the rest of my life!
Here is what Wikipedia says about it:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(1953_film)
This is a classic Science Fiction film.  Here's what IMDB says about it.

This is a film the family can watch.

Brad Thor Speaks

I just finished "Use of Force" by Brad Thor, the 16th in his Scot Harvath action/adventure series.  I listened to it on audio book and it had a bonus at the end of the recording:  Brad Thor talked to us for about 15 or 20 minutes.  It as a very nice feature of this audio book.  He talked to us about how he did his research and how his career got started.  He mentioned that he went to USC and studied creative writing, so he did not fall into writing as a second career like Tom Clancy.

In this chat Brad Thor mentioned his favorite action adventure characters and their authors.  Here is what he said:
Painter Crowe  written by James Rollins
Cotton Malone written by Steve Berry
Mitch Rapp written by Vince Flynn, called the gold standard by Brad Thor

He mentioned he likes Robert Ludlum.  Mr. Thor said when he is stuck in his writing he sometimes pulls down a Robert Ludlum, finds the start of a chapter and reads to see how Mr. Ludlum started the chapter.  That sounds like a great compliment.

I was very glad Mr. Thor recommended other action adventure series because I am coming to the end of his series of books.

You would think Mr. Thor, interested in the military and special ops, would be a political conservative, but he is not.  He was a left-leaning Republican but has changed to Independent now that we have a conservative President.  This is not surprising when you learn that his private high school is based on the progressive education philosophies of John Dewey, the Marxist.

There are a number of successful Republican politicians who were social liberals, Nelson Rockefeller being the most notable example.

This chat by Brad Thor at the end of "Use of Force" was a real treat

Robert

A Socialist Ran the WTO

I was shocked to learn that from 2005 to 2013 a French Socialist ran the World Trade Organization.  This was Pascal Lamy.  He appears in this article:  EU Steps Up to Fight Coronavirus Crisis by  Daniel Michaels and Laurence Norman, WSJ, April 5, 2020 [1].  Lamy did study economics in college.  It seems as though the economics profession is over-run by socialists.  I suppose that makes sense since the same man who wrote the Communist Manifesto also wrote Das Kapital:  Karl Marx.


Robert

[1]  This was page A10 in the 4/6/20 print edition.

The Farnsworth House, Mies van der Rohe's Glass House

There are two famous Glass Houses in America.  The first was the Farnsworth House designed by Mies van der Rohe, a leader in Modernist architecture.  There is a fabulous book review in the Wall Street Journal about the Farnsworth House:  ‘Broken Glass’ Review: Letting the Outside In by Witold Rybczynski, WSJ, March 20, 2020. In the print edition, it is in the Review Section in the Saturday 3/21/2020 edition, page C7.

What a great story!  The owner was Edith Farnsworth and you learn about her and her experiences in having the house built and in living in the house.  It is quite a story.  I'm sure the book is great, Broken Glass by Alex  Beam.  The next best thing is to read the book review!

I'll mention that there is another famous Glass House, the one by Philip Johnson might be better known.

Key words: architecture, glass house

The Farnsworth House in Winter.
 

Nassim Taleb and the Black Swan

Ben Zimmer in the Wall Street Journal wrote a nice description of Nassim Taleb's description of the Black Swan in finance.  Mr. Zimmer gives a very nice description of the how the term "Black Swan" came into our vocabulary and how Nassim Taleb has used that to describe rare events. Here is a link to Mr. Zimmer's article:
‘Black Swan’: A Rare Disaster, Not as Rare as Once Believed by Ben Zimmer
https://www.wsj.com/articles/black-swan-a-rare-disaster-not-as-rare-as-once-believed-11584645612


Key words: economics, finance