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

LBJ Did Steal an Election

This is about LBJ cheating in the 1948 Democratic runoff for a US  Senate seat, cheating Coke Stevenson out of the Senate seat, and paving the way for 58,000 Americans to die in LBJ's bungled Vietnam war.

Edward Kosner, in his review of Working by Robert Caro, says Caro, "... follows a trail establishing that as a fledgling congressman LBJ became a power in 1940 by funneling campaign contributions worth $500,000 in today’s money from Texas oilmen to fellow Democrats. Chasing down the story of how Johnson stole his 1948 senatorial election, Mr. Caro finds an old Mexican immigrant named Luis Salas who grinningly admits that when he counted the ballots in his tiny district he boosted LBJ’s tally by hundreds of votes, then hands Mr. Caro his 94-page memoir about the episode. Later, Mr. Caro nails down that Johnson fixed student-council elections in college."

The book review was published in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday April 13, 2019, page C8 in the print edition.  Here is the link to the online edition (you have to be a subscriber):  https://www.wsj.com/articles/working-review-just-remember-turn-every-page-11555107427

I found it telling that LBJ was doing election fraud in college, fixing student-council elections. It was fascinating to read that Luis Salas wrote a 94 page memoir of the fraud.  It seems like a good idea to have a detailed record of important events, time plays havoc with memory. 

LBJs fraud involved a number of people.  The book review high lighted the part played by Mr. Salas. It you google, "LBJ stole election," then you will find a number of online articles:

THE MYSTERY OF BALLOT BOX 13 by Dan Balz, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1990/03/04/the-mystery-of-ballot-box-13/70206359-8543-48e3-9ce2-f3c4fdf6da3d/

How Johnson Won Election He'd Lost by MARTIN TOLCHIN, NEW YORK TIMES
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/11/us/how-johnson-won-election-he-d-lost.html

Wikipedia article Box 13 scandal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_13_scandal

Here is a YouTube video titled "LBJ Box 13":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjIBsVMIqhc

You will see that Lyndon Johnson had a large voter fraud organization.  He had probably practiced voter fraud in every election as a normal course of business.  That way he had a practiced organization able to pull off a big fraud.  He did not steal just 200 votes in Ballot Box 13.  He killed a lot of Americans with that theft.  A lot of Americans would be alive today if LBJ had not stolen that election and then made a mess out of Vietnam.

Cheaters make bad leaders.

 

Why is KERA TV off the air?

KERA TV, channel 13 in DFW, appears to be off the air.  It seems that the signal strength has dropped so some TVs cannot lock onto the signal.

The Signal-to-Noise-Ratio, SNR, for KERA was 9 tonight.  For comparison the SNR for CBS was 28 tonight, 3 times stronger.

So when they say they are broadcasting, that might be true, but for my house they might as well turn everything off and go home because their puny signal just cannot cut it.

Maybe they will fix their broadcast signal soon.  This will explain to you why KERA worked yesterday but not today.  There is nothing wrong with your TV.

Robert Canright
9 April 2019

KERA was essentially off the air for 2 days and then came back.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the U.S. Representative for New York's 14th congressional district, elected in the 2018 mid-terms.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a child of  privilege.  She won the birth lottery by being born to an architect. Ocasio-Cortez grew up in Yorktown Heights, New York, a town swankier than Plano, Texas.
Yorktown Heights medium family income = $137,580
Plano medium family income = $101,616
Her family home was sold in 2016 for $355,000, a solid middle class valuation.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez went to a private college, Boston College (annual tuition= $69,942), and she was an intern for Senator Ted Kennedy.  She was an organizer for Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign.

Ms Ocasio-Cortez follows the same pattern that the Weather Underground followed:  children of privilege turning to socialism.

Brother Martin Basketball Defeats Robert Parish in 1971

Since I graduated from Brother Martin High School I remembered that in 1970 our basketball team defeated Captain Shreve at Shreveport, Louisiana, with Robert Parish at center, by playing a full court press during the length of the game.  I double checked and found my memory faulty.  In 1970 Brother Martin did beat Captain Shreve 72-56 in the AAA basketball championship.  But Robert Parish did not play for Captain Shreve H.S., he played for Woodlawn H.S. of Shreveport (not the one in Baton Rouge).

Brother Martin did beat Robert Parish at center in the 1971 AAAA basketball championship.  The score was Brother Martin 65 - Woodlawn (Shreveport) 62.  My memory was that we won in triple overtime.  It was an amazing game.  We played a full court press 100% of the game.  Robert Parish grew to be 7 feet tall, 230 pounds and he played professional basketball for the 14 years for the Boston Celtics (1980 - 1994).  Defeating Woodlawn with Robert Parish at center was a great achivement.

Brother Martin has won the Louisiana basketball state championship 5 times:
2010    5A    Brother Martin    Scotlandville    55-54
2005    5A    Brother Martin    Thibodaux        86-70
2004    5A    Brother Martin    St. Augustine    48-47
1971    4A    Brother Martin    Woodlawn (SH)    65-62
1970    3A    Brother Martin    Captain Shreve   72-56


Brother Martin has lost the basketball state championship game 2 times, one being a heartbreaker:
2017    DI    Scotlandville          Brother Martin    53-52
2003    5A    Woodlawn (BR)    Brother Martin    80-63

Here is an article on how Cor Jesu H.S. merged with  St. Aloysius Academy to become Brother Martin.  The two schools when combined became a real powerhouse.  It was a great high school.

Robert

Horatius at the Bridge in the Movie Darkest Hour

In the movie "Darkest Hour", Winston Churchill is depicted as reciting a part of the poem "Horatius at the Bridge", by Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay.  Here are the lines quoted in the movie (stanzas 217 to 224):

Then out spake brave Horatius,   
  The Captain of the gate:   
“To every man upon this earth   
  Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better   
  Than facing fearful odds   
For the ashes of his fathers   
  And the temples of his gods,

This is the spirit of heroism.

Robert