Day: November 20, 2017

Why Walmart isn’t North Carolina’s largest employer

“Despite the company’s obvious influence in the state where it was founded [Arkansas], Walmart is also the largest employer across the South in general. Whether it is Texas (171,531 employees) or Virginia (44,621), there are Walmarts aplenty….

“One notable exception? North Carolina, where the University of North Carolina system employs 74,079 people. However, that doesn’t mean that Walmart has zero presence in the Tar Heel State – it actually has 218 retail stores and 58,525 employees in North Carolina, according to its website….”

— From “Walmart Nation: Mapping the Largest Employers in the U.S.” by Jeff Desjardins at Visual Capitalist (Nov. 17)

 

That time Reynolds Price invited Robert E. Lee to Duke

“[Reynolds] Price hung a portrait of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, photographed a week before Lee died, almost at floor level in his office, where he could see it every time he rolled by. Lee’s portrait made Reynolds think of King Lear and stimulated both a dream and the long poem ‘The Dream of Lee'(1979).”

— From “Dream of a House: The Passions and Preoccupations of Reynolds Price” by Alex Harris and Margaret Sartor (2017)

In his poem Price has driven Lee from Lexington, Va., to Duke, where he will conclude his visit with a speech to students: “He faces his crowd and says ‘I shall read from my poems tonight.’ Slightly chilled, I think ‘The Poems of Lee’ — is there any such book? Before I decide, the great voice starts — ‘First a poem I composed two days ago for  my friend Mr. Price’…. ”