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Tuesday, 06 June 2006 13:23 |
 It is with a heavy heart that we must report that kindness is dead in Asheville ?? sort of.
In a press release dated May 31, a spokesperson for the Kindness Campaign announced that the group??s Asheville division ?®will be scaling back its operations?∆ as of June 1.
For the unacquainted, the Kindness Campaign is a nationwide movement to ?®restore a sense of community and neighborliness?∆ through the promotion of kindness between people.
Apparently, the people of Asheville are just not ready to embrace kindness.
Though the campaign??s local staff has offered to continue to help
promote kindness ?®on a consulting and advisory basis,?∆ the full-time
operations undertaken by them have been suspended for now.
Among the reasons for the campaign??s suspension were insufficient funds and a lack of volunteer support.
What is to become of our city?
If kindness was unable to make it on the mean streets of Asheville, perhaps some new values could be given a chance?
We urge the people of Asheville to step up to the plate and try out some new values.
First of all, we recommend avoiding all values that sound too much like
kindness. There??s no reason to expect that a ?®niceness campaign?∆ or a
?®neighborliness campaign?∆ would fare much better than their kindly
predecessor.
And let us disdain anything too lofty. ?®Compassion campaign?∆ has a
certain New Age pretentiousness to it and ?®Enlightenment campaign?∆ is
already taken by Sedona, Ariz.
No, Asheville needs its own unique campaign ?? perhaps promoting a value more lacking in this community.
How about a ?®get real campaign??∆ As in, ?®Be kind, but be real about it.?∆
We could make pins ?? as the Kindness Campaign did ?? and give them out to people whenever we feel inspired to do so.
Just imagine sitting in a coffeehouse, hearing someone talk about the
mystical vortex around the city and how it is a landing beacon for
aliens.
And without even breaking from sipping your mocha latte, you hand him a pin that reads, simply, ?®Get real!?∆
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