Having a Yogi Berra Moment

Everyone knows the Yogi Berra quote "It's like deja-vu, all over again." Rummaging around the internets on the instigation of Unreal Nature with her post on a wonderful photograph of Native Americans that brings in that most interesting character, Rudyard Kipling (who, strange as it may seem, lived in Vermont for four years where he wrote Jungle Book.)

It is strange how some one's reputation changes over the years. My father, a Roosevelt Democrat, was enamoured with Kipling. But then, my father was born in 1901. Now, I see Kipling mainly as an exponent of empire, the Indian version of it in particular. All of this is coming home to roost with Obama in his Afghanistan policy. Of further interest was that Kipling's son was killed at the battle of Loos in Belgium. One site of dispute was the Hohenzollern Redoubt. One can read about it in the Australian newspapers of the time. Right next to the description of the fight, in all the rhetoric of the time, is this little piece about Baghdad.(click to expand)



As Yogi says....but I repeat myself.

P.S. Stay tuned for a similar thread suggested by JSBlog.