Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” lists the attributes of a rational human being. Paramount is to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…  That’s a tall order these days.  Robert Reich, famed economist and liberal commentator, lost his head recently. Furious

Rudyard Kipling’s poem IF  is a tribute to Leander Starr Jameson, a Victorian war hero who led the failed Jameson Raid against the Transvaal Republic.  I know this history because in the 1960s I taught at Jameson High School in Zimbabwe. The school was named in the man’s honor

Of late, Donald Trump’s favorability rating has jumped to a high of 49 percent in one major poll.  I admit, I am puzzled, like a salmon swimming upstream while numbers of my species are headed toward the sea. Where are they going?  What are they thinking?  Okay, I get

Recently, House Representative Maxine Water’s exhorted right-minded  people to  confront President Donald Trump’s cabinet members in public places to protest his unconscionable policy on immigration.  (Click) Several Facebook friends agreed.  One man remarked if others weren�

IF ONE COULD TALK WITH RUDYARD KIPLING Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” offers advice on character building and how to weather the vagaries of one’s fellowman. Unfortunately, it says nothing about coping with electronic devices, which is natural enough as the man died in 1936.  

Mark Twain said of Rudyard Kipling, whom he admired, “I am not acquainted with my own books, but I know Kipling’s books.” (Hello Goodbye Hello, by Craig Brown, excerpted in The Week, 11/30/12 pg. 41). His remark surprised me the moment I read it. Surely this was excessive praise