I have little patience for poets. More often than not, my attitude towards this admirable artistic medium runs more along the lines of, "Spit it out, already!" than, "Oh, what a beautiful metaphor!" The same cannot be said of the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling (of The Jungle Book fame ). Reading it, I felt transported to a different era. Published in 1895, the poem represents the author's advice to his son on what makes a man. It reminded me of the letter my mother wrote my 17

Why is classical architecture almost universally beautiful, while anything "modern" is some shapeless monstrosity of concrete, steel, and glass? Take the classically-inspired Cook Library from the University of Michigan, for instance... Image via Town and Country Compare it to the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago, which looks like a cyborg pimple: Image via Barton Malow Or this alien prison masquerading as an institution for public learning formally