An arm and a leg  means a large, possibly exorbitant, amount of money.  The tale is that portrait painters used to charge more for larger paintings and that a head and shoulders painting was the cheapest option, followed in price by one which included arms and finally the top of the range 'legs and all' portrait.  As so often with popular etymologies, there's no truth in that story.  Painters certainly did charge more for large pictures, but there's no evidence to suggest they did so by limb count.  It is in fact an American phrase, coined sometime after WWII.  The earliest citation I can find is from The Long Beach Independent, December 1949:  Food Editor Beulah Karney has more than 10 ideas for the homemaker who wants to say "Merry Christmas" and not have it cost her an arm and a leg.  'Arm' and 'leg' are used as examples of items that no one would consider selling other than at an enormous price.  It is a grim reality that, around that time, there were many US newspaper reports of servicemen who had lost an arm and a leg in the recent war.  It is possible that the phrase originated in reference to the high cost paid by those who suffered such amputations.  A more likely explanation is that the expression derived from two earlier phrases:  'I would give my right arm for...' and '[Even] if it takes a leg', which were both coined in the 19th century.  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/arm-and-a-leg.html 

Playing-cards were seen by the Kings and Queens of England as a ready source of revenue, particularly when there were wars to be paid for.  So the makers, and later the purchasers, paid a tax on each pack.  Instances are recorded of taxes being raised in 1588, 1628, during Queen Anne's reign, and from 1711 onwards, until the tax was finally abolished in 1960 since by then it was more trouble to collect than it was worth.  http://i-p-c-s.org/faq/ace-of-spades.php 

Boogie-woogie  A style of blues music, with close links to jazz forms like ragtime and stride, usually played on the piano.  The origin of the term 'boogie-woogie' is uncertain.  The most likely explanation is that it is a reduplication of 'boogie', which was the name given to a rent party in early 20th century USA.  These parties were impromptu affairs, set up (pitched) to raise money to pay rent, at which a small entrance fee was charged.  Brian Rust, in his exhaustive directory of recorded jazz music - 'Jazz Records 1897-1942', records this line from from a 1929 piece:  "We're gonna pitch a boogie right here."  The term boogie-woogie is first recorded in print as the title of Clarence 'Pinetop' Smith's 1928 recording, Pinetop's Boogie Woogie, which includes these lyrics:

I want all of you to know Pinetop's Boogie Woogie

I want everybody to dance just like I say
And when I say 'hold it there'  I want all of you ... to stop
And when I say stop - don't move   And when I say git it
I want all of you to do a boogie-woogie  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/boogie-woogie.html   

The repeating of parts of words to make new forms is called reduplication.  There are various categories of this:  rhyming, exact and ablaut (vowel substitution).  Examples, are respectively, okey-dokey, wee-wee and zig-zag.  The impetus for the coining of these seems to be nothing more than the enjoyment of wordplay.  Willy-nilly is over a thousand years old.  Riff-raff dates from the 1400s and helter-skelter, arsy-versy (a form of vice-versa), and hocus-pocus all date from the 16th century.  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/reduplication.html 

One of the great cultural jewels of the West is back, with a wonderful new polish.  When the Huntington Library in San Marino reopened its main exhibition hall on Nov. 8, 2013 for a special press preview after a 17-month renovation, you could almost feel the presence of  its namesake at the front door.  Henry Edwards Huntington was a railroad baron who assembled one of the most magnificent collections of books, manuscripts and letters in private hands.  Entering the old hall (built in 1920), one turns to the left and encounters one of the oldest books in the collection, a manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” (written circa 1400). Huntington bought it from the Earl of Ellesmere in 1917, and it’s the source of most editions of the “Canterbury Tales” available today.  A few paces away there’s a Gutenberg Bible, and a first edition of John Milton’s 1667 poem “Paradise Lost.”  On the other side of the 3,400-square-foot room, largely unnoticed during the preview, rests a First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s collected plays, opened to the title page, with its iconic engraving of the bald bard of Stratford himself.   Near the back of the room there are Henry David Thoreau’s scribbles on the galleys of “Walden.”  Huntington died in 1927, but thanks to a big endowment his library has kept on collecting books, photographs and posters and other ephemera.  Not long ago, for example, it obtained the papers of the novelist Octavia Butler.  For two years, as they planned the main exhibition hall’s renovation, the Huntington Library staff faced a unique problem.  As Karina White, the designer of the new exhibit put it:  “How do we choose from 9 million objects?”  Working with the Huntington’s curators, White designed the new exhibit around 12 “key objects.”  In addition to the aforementioned works of Shakespeare, Milton and others, there is a map of Tenochtitlan that the conquistador Hernan Cortes had made after he destroyed that Aztec city; letters by Abraham Lincoln and Susan B. Anthony; and the manuscript of a Jack London novel that met a strange fate.  Hector Tobar  http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-a-first-glance-at-the-new-look-at-the-huntington-library-20131108,0,1050640.story#axzz2kAZacqnS 

The greatest spiritual practice is to transform love into service.

You must pass your days in song.  Let your whole life be a song.

Love one another and help others to rise to the higher levels, simply by pouring out love.  Love is infectious and the greatest healing energy.  Life is a song - sing it.  Life is a game - play it.  Life is a challenge - meet it.  Life is a dream - realize it.  Life is a sacrifice - offer it.  Life is love - enjoy it.
Sathya Sai Baba (1926-2011)  Indian spiritual leader, philanthropist and educator   http://www.vivaquotes.com/quotes/by/sai-baba?feature=qshow_rel_authors 

in memory of the "Commander" 

Maya Lin, Vietnam Memorial by Marla Hochman

Concern for the planet has always been a part of Maya Lin's life and is clearly reflected in her work as a designer, architect, and sculptor.  Growing up in southeastern Ohio, Lin was greatly affected by the rolling hills and serpent burial mounds of the Hopewell and Adena Indians.  Respect for the land and its safety and protection has provided an impetus for herto create works that compel people to become more aware of their surroundings.  Often her work is both aesthetic and political, and seeks to extend beyond present time to reach future generations.  Through words and images, Lin communicates our thoughts and ideas to those who have yet to inhabit the land.  As an undergraduate student at Yale, Maya Lin entered and won a competition to design a memorial for the veterans of the Vietnam War.  Almost immediately, controversy engulfed the decision to choose her entry.  In addition to personal attacks regarding Lin's Asian heritage, her design sparked anger among many veterans.  Lin proposed to cut a wedge in the land and to place within it two long, horizontal, perpendicular granite walls that appear to grow out of earth.  The two walls converge at their highest points, and inscribed on their surfaces in chronological order are the names of nearly 60,000 men and women who lost their lives during the conflict in Vietnam.  One end of the Memorial points to the Washington Monument, while the other aligns itself with the Lincoln Memorial.  The violent act of cutting open the earth and the healing process that would eventually occur parallel the violence of war and the healing that would await visitors to the Memorial.  In time the wound would heal, yet the cut would remain, symbolized by the large, flat surface of the wall.  See image at http://www.greenmuseum.org/c/aen/Issues/lin.php 

November 11:  Armistice Day in Belgium, France, New Zealand and Serbia; Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth; Independence Day in Angola (1975) and Poland (1918); Veterans Day in the United States  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_11