Remembrance Day, 2009

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

- John McCrae

In Flanders Fields was written in May 1915 by Canadian physician and Lt. Col. John McCrae after he witnessed the death of his 22-year-old friend, Lt. Alexis Helmer, at the Second Battle of Ypres.

In January 1918, while commanding a Canadian General Hospital at Boulogne in Northern France, McCrae died of pneumonia at age 45. He was buried with full honours in the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Wimereux, just north of Boulogne.

Poll: Add grain of salt to kids’ answers

Every so often a student survey is trotted out to show the current generation’s lack of knowledge regarding history.

The latest comes from Scotland, where according to a recent poll, one in 20 Scottish children think Adolf Hitler was Germany’s national soccer coach, 21 percent believe Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was a “well-known Jew who wrote a diary in his attic” and 15 percent believe Auschwitz was a World War II-based theme park.

Here’s a question that wasn’t asked: How many students gave idiotic answers because they were either trying to be funny or simply didn’t care?

These kind of multiple-choice surveys are obviously imprecise, but they’re often held up as examples of a faulty education system, a society that doesn’t appreciate history, a citizenry that has forgotten the sacrifices of past generations, etc., etc.

“Some of the answers to this poll have shocked us,” said Major Jim Panton, chief executive of charity Erskine. ”Schoolchildren are the future of our country and it is important that we help them to learn about our history.”

Yes, it is important that children know and understand history.

However, if these results were gathered from testing that reflected on students’ actual grades, it would be easier to assess whether schoolchildren today really have a serious lack of understanding about the events of the 1930s and ’40s, or whether they’re just passing time by trying to be funny.

‘Spring’ – Konstantin Pankov

Born into a family of hunters in the far northern region of Russia in 1910, Konstantin Pankov became the first Nenets artist. He started to paint his landscapes in the 1920s, although he had never seen a single painting because of his family’s remote location and lifestyle.

He joined the Red Army as a sniper and scout at the outbreak of World War II and was killed in action in 1942.

Lindisfarne Gospels

‘The State’ of watchdog journalism

The State newspaper prides itself on watchdog journalism, but in reality the watchdog is little more than old, toothless canine whose bark and bite have seen better days.

The paper has been scooped repeatedly by the Columbia Free Times and local bloggers on happenings at Innovista, the University of South Carolina’s taxpayer-funded research campus boondoggle.

It got the goods on Gov. Mark Sanford’s affair with his Argentine lover, but only after sitting on salacious emails between the pair for months and after Sanford himself confessed at a press conference in June.

On life expectancy and health care

It’s nice to see a little common sense injected into the health care debate, no matter how infrequently it happens.

Take this letter to The Washington Post:

The Sept. 23 front-page article “For French, U.S. Health Debate Hard to Imagine” cited the longer life expectancy of the French compared with Americans as an indicator of superior health-care quality.

‘Last Ottoman’ buried in Istanbul

Ertugrual Osman, the 43rd Head of the dethroned House of Osman and regarded by Turks as the “last Ottoman,” died last week at age 97.

As the last surviving grandson of Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, who ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1876-1909, Osman would have been known as his Imperial Highness Prince Shehzade Ertugrul Osman Effendi.

Born in Istanbul in 1912, Osman spent most of his life living modestly in New York, according to The BBC.

Bank of SC Corp. suspends dividend

 

Officials with the Bank of South Carolina Corp. have opted to temporarily suspend the company’s third-quarter cash dividend, saying it will put the money toward its loan-loss reserves, according to The Charleston Post and Courier.

Executives said they expect to reinstate the dividend in the fourth quarter. The community bank had been paying a quarterly dividend of 16 cents per share.

“After a long-term evaluation of our significant loan and deposit growth, the economy, and listening to regulator expectations, we decided that additional funding to the provision for loan losses is the proper strategy in today’s environment,” Chief Executive Hugh C. Lane, Jr. said in a statement. ”This action is voluntary, and will further strengthen the position of the company today and into the future.”

Civil war marker to be unveiled

A Civil War battlefield in central Missouri has a new monument honoring 123 Union soldiers who died in one of the war’s lesser-known but grisliest clashes.

The monument in Centralia will be unveiled Sunday, the 145th anniversary of the Centralia Massacre and ensuing Battle of Centralia.

The battle came late in the war, in the fall of 1864, when the Confederates sought to influence the 1864 presidential election by attempting to capture St. Louis and the Missouri capital at Jefferson City. Led by Gen. Sterling Price, the Confederates launched an invasion of northern Missouri.

First Citizens acquires failed bank

First Citizens Bancorporation of South Carolina is the Palmetto State’s second-largest bank company, but it’s making a run for the top spot.

Friday, Columbia-based First Citizens assumed the deposits of $2 billion Georgian Bank, following the latter’s closure by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Atlanta-based Georgian Bank’s five branches will reopen Monday as branches of First Citizens, a closely held company with more than $7 billion in assets.