I was looking for a single word that was the opposite of “kindness”…couldn’t find one.  I wrote it out in big, block letters and held it up to a mirror…that didn’t make the point.  I suppose it’s telling that it’s not so simple.  You have to put some effort into such behavior.  Being unkind is overt.  Hardly is such an act unintended.  Aftermath excuses, “I didn’t mean to…”, “I didn’t know…”, “I never intended…”, rarely hold water.  I’ve never met anyone who didn’t eagerly embrace an act of kindness and yet the preponderance of its elusive antithesis is the root of every evil and yet, we seem to be inconceivably leaning more and more in that direction.

The atrocities perpetrated against so many innocents, based on feckless adherence to zealous misinterpretation of religious dogma, manipulated tribal obeisance, ethnic xenophobia, arbitrary caste assignation and uncontrolled testosteronal stimulation have become the soul-numbing norm of life on Earth.

Ukraine, Myanmar, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Nigeria, Rwanda…heartbreaking.

And, this week alone in the US…Senator after Republican Senator taking turns to use newly acquired Roget synonyms for the most awful ways to lie about a perfectly lovely woman now headed to our highest court, while their henchmen colleagues in Florida and Texas and Alabama and Oklahoma were legislating kindness out of their state constitutions and Tennessee, probably in an effort to provide fodder for years of Country lyrics, passed a law eliminating age requirements for marriage.  I’m not sure if that’s exactly unkind…I’ll have to talk to a few seven-year-old girls in Knoxville or Pigeon Forge, see what they have to say.