Day: November 11, 2010

Today’s Poster

Veterans Day originated as “Armistice Day” on Nov. 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the end of World War I. Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance, and Nov. 11 became a national holiday beginning in 1938. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation in 1954 to change the name to Veterans Day as a way to honor those who served in all American wars. The day honors living military veterans with parades and speeches across the nation. A national ceremony takes place at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

21.9 million
The number of military veterans in the United States in 2009.

1.5 million
The number of female veterans in 2009.

Source: 2009 American Community Survey

There were 1,700,000 fewer veterans in 2009 than there were in 2007, the last figures I posted.

A Holiday to End All Wars discusses the commemorations on November 11th in various countries.

Bank scoreboard

It’s been a while since I’ve reported on bank failures.

As of last Friday, the FDIC had closed 143 banks this year.

There were 140 bank failures in all of 2009. There were 25 in 2008. There were 3 in 2007. There were none in 2005 and 2006.

Clearly this is Obama’s fault.

Most Beautiful College Libraries

No major introduction needed here, as a picture is worth a thousand words. Here we take a look at some of the most magnificent university libraries across the country.

Comfort and atmosphere play a huge role in getting in a quality study session. The problem is that some of these libraries are so beautiful that they almost become too distracting to study in.

Most Beautiful College Libraries

Some stunning buildings and photographs.

Best book line of the day

“The ultimate Western is not Blood Meridian, it’s Thomas Berger’s Little Big Man, and right behind it is Lonesome Dove.

Allen Barra in a review essay, “Cormac McCarthy vs. Larry McMurtry: Best Western Novelist”

The essay is well worth any reader’s time, but the booklist is invaluable too.

The roundup of serious writers who have written Westerns over this span is impressive: E.L. Doctorow’s amusing revisionist take on the pulp Western, Welcome to Hard Times (1960), Thomas Berger’s epic Little Big Man (1964), Charles Portis’s True Grit (1968), which is soon to appear as a Coen Brothers’ film for Christmas release, Michael Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (1970), Ron Hansen’s Desperadoes (1979) and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (1983), Pete Dexter’s elegiac twilight-of-the-gods account of Wild Bill Hickok’s last days, Deadwood (1986), Daniel Woodrell’s Woe to Live On (1987), made into Ang Lee’s film Ride With the Devil, Susan Dodd’s heartrending fictional biography of Jesse James’s mother, Mamaw (1988), N. Scott Momaday’s juxtaposing of the legend of a young Kiowa boy with that of Billy the Kid, The Ancient Child (1989), David Thomson’s witty and original Silver Light (1990), which straddles the lines between fiction, film and history by mingling the destinies of real-life Westerners with film characters, Robert Coover’s phantasmagorical Ghost Town (1998), Philip Kimball’s sweet, sad and savage Liar’s Moon (1999), and, this year, Deep Creek by Dana Hand (pen name of Anne Matthews and Will Howarth), a grim and fascinating fictional account of the actual slaughter of Chinese miners in 1870s Idaho.

November 11th ought to be a holiday

Oh, wait, it is a holiday.

Three-time Oscar nominee Leonardo DiCaprio is 36 today.

Calista Flockhart, Mrs. Harrison Ford, is 46. (He’s 68.)

Demi Moore is 48.

Stanley Tucci is 50.

Jonathan Winters is 85.

The late Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born on November 11, 1922.

George Patton was born on November 11, 1885. From his New York Times obituary in 1945:

Gen. George Smith Patton Jr. was one of the most brilliant soldiers in American history. Audacious, unorthodox and inspiring, he led his troops to great victories in North Africa, Sicily and on the Western Front. Nazi generals admitted that of all American field commanders he was the one they most feared. To Americans he was a worthy successor of such hardbitten cavalrymen as Philip Sheridan, J. E. B. Stuart and Nathan Bedford Forrest.

His great soldierly qualities were matched by one of the most colorful personalities of his period. About him countless legends clustered–some true, some untrue, but all testifying to the firm hold he had upon the imaginations of his men. He went into action with two pearl-handled revolvers in holsters on his hips. He was the master of an unprintable brand of eloquence, yet at times he coined phrases that will live in the American Army’s traditions.

“We shall attack and attack until we are exhausted, and then we shall attack again,” he told his troops before the initial landings in North Africa, thereby summarizing the military creed that won victory after victory along the long road that led from Casablanca to the heart of Germany.