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Tip of the hat, wag of the tail

Dear Annie: I live out in the country and have found a consistently wonderful kennel for my dog. The people who work there are the owner and two helpers; all are kind, efficient and obviously dog lovers. The kennel costs $40 per night. My question is, how much of a tip to leave? Sometimes, one of the helpers is working when I pick up my dog, and sometimes it’s the owner. Should I tip differently for the helpers versus owner? Please advise. I want to do right by them! — Asking for a Tip on Tips Dear Asking for a Tip: Thank you for your kind words. You sound like a thoughtful and ...

Nationalism, rightly understood, is a necessary ingredient of political success

Nationalism has a bad name. For many Americans, mention of the word summons up visions of Hitler and Nazism. Some condemn nationalism as thoughtless bragging that your nation is better than others, which should be discouraged just as second graders are told not to brag, lest they hurt classmates’ feelings. Historical and international perspective is supplied by one of the conveners of the well-attended National Conservatism conference in Washington last month, Israeli think tank head Yoram Hazony, in his 2018 book, “The Virtue of Nationalism.” Hazony argues that nationalism ...

Picture causing worry

Dear Annie: Recently, I got married after being single and a widow for 23 years. My husband and I are in our late 70s and very active. We went on a tour to the Midwest. There was a very attractive 70-plus woman with whom I noticed my husband flirting, and she with him. I mentioned that I did not appreciate the attention he was throwing her way, and he assured me it was all in fun. He later needed help with the photos on his phone. As I was helping him, there was a picture of her and her alone. Not in a group. I questioned him as to why he had a picture of her in his phone, and his ...

America’s drug crisis happened because we let it happen

Here’s some good news. Last year, for the first time since 1990, deaths from drug overdoses actually dropped in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports it wasn’t a big drop — about 5% fewer deaths. But might this indicate a trend? Let’s hope so, because even with that decline, a staggering 68,577 Americans died from overdoses in 2018. Some died from street drugs like heroin, fentanyl and cocaine, but a majority OD’d on prescription opioid painkillers. Last year’s death toll was higher than all the U.S. fatalities during the Vietnam War. ...

Bed-training twins

Dear Annie: We are grandparents who have adopted our twin 9-year-old grandchildren, a boy and a girl. They have lived with us permanently since they were 2 years old. They have separate bedrooms upstairs but have always slept together. The past year, they have chosen to sleep on the main floor in the guest bedroom. It is at the point in their lives where they’ll soon grow into puberty, so within the past two months we have been trying to get them to sleep upstairs in their own bedrooms. Every night we find them in the middle of the floor in various places: bathroom floor upstairs, ...

Rough seas on a friendly cruise

Dear Annie: My wife and I are approaching 50 years of marriage. Recently, we went on a cruise with her childhood friend, “Cindy,” and her husband, “Rob.” They have been friends since elementary school and Cindy was the maid of honor at our wedding. During the cruise, Rob made a joke of a comment Cindy made, and I laughed at the delivery, no malice intended. Rob laughed, too. A few moments later, Cindy told me that I was rude and had always been rude. This took me by surprise because I’ve known her and thought we were friends for more than 40 years. I apologized for hurting ...