human kindness

Why Kindness Doesn’t Change The World

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Why Kindness Doesn’t Change The WorldPaul Rosenberg – Everything we do changes the world, of course, and I remain a strong advocate for kindness. Nonetheless, we need to face the fact that the children’s book version of “be kind and change the world” hasn’t worked. Wars and crime proceed as they have since the Bronze Age, and long years of promoting “be kind” hasn’t changed it a bit.

And so we need to find out why kindness hasn’t worked beyond the personal and family level. If we don’t, our efforts to cultivate it will be empty dogmas that have no effect in the real world: Our preaching on kindness won’t go much farther than making children behave. Continue reading →

NYPD Officer Gives Boots To Homeless Man In Times Square

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The Washington Post | November 29 2012

Associated Press ~ NEW YORK — A tourist’s snapshot of a New York City police officer giving new boots to a barefoot homeless man in Times Square has created an online sensation.

Jennifer Foster, of Florence, Ariz., was visiting New York with her boyfriend on Nov. 14, when she came across the shoeless man asking for change in Times Square.

As she was about to approach him, she said the officer — identified as Larry DePrimo — came up to the man with a pair of all-weather boots and thermal socks on the frigid night. She recorded his generosity on her cellphone.

It was posted Tuesday night to the NYPD’s official Facebook page and became an instant hit. More than 410,000 users “liked” it as of Thursday evening, and more than 100,000 shared it.

Thousands of people commented, including one person who praised him as “An officer AND a Gentleman.”

The photo shows the officer kneeling beside the man with the boots at his feet. A shoe store is seen in the background.

The NYPD Facebook page on Thursday posted a comment from DePrimo saying, “I didn’t think anything of it,” and updated it with a photo of DePrimo taken in 2011.

“I have these size 12 boots for you, they are all-weather. Let’s put them on and take care of you,” Foster quoted DePrimo as saying to the homeless man.

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