We’ve been around this block how many times now?

 

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It is important to remember that we are covering the same ground we’ve covered countless times in our ancestors’ days. With that in mind, I found a Rudyard Kipling bit that strikes me as significant as I think about my time in the Third World:

Take up the White Man’s burden / The savage wars of peace-
Fill full the mouth of Famine / And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest / The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly / Bring all your hope to nought.

He wrote this on the occasion of the US taking possession of the Philippines. To fully appreciate the joke requires a dash of Philippine historical knowledge, a pinch of first-hand experience in the Third World and a little understanding of Rudyard Kipling’s perspective on things.

This is some of the best comedy the world never seemed to get.

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