Be kind, be kind, be kind

Today is 40 years since the death of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. I still hold him and his ideals in great regard, of course, but I also admire his eldest daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, whom I've neither met nor have ever had any contact.

She and I have much in common - a strong committment to volunteerism, fathers who were cut down in their early 40s at the hands of madmen, and an unshakable belief that from grief - from which we agree there is never closure - we must find hope, effect change, and always always push forward.

I once heard her convey a massively important piece of advice she said her father often repeated - be kind, be kind, be kind - shorthand for the Golden Rule - the root, the essense, of civility. Indeed, just about two thousand years ago, the great scholar Hillel, demonstrating he could teach the entire Torah standing on one foot, needed cite only the Golden Rule.

Today's headlines detail the colossal challenges left in the wake of $139-a-barrel oil, with kindness unfortunately not the cure. So I'll focus on the almost matter-of-fact, race-and-genderbending achievements of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and their new-found detente, made possible via respect and civility. America will recover from our economic mess. There's hope, there will be change. We are most definitely pushing forward.