CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #616
For as long as I can remember, I believed that the trajectory of humankind arced toward improvement. Yes, we may have begun in ignorance and brute force, but I fervently believed we were slowly and inexorably evolving into creatures of greater intelligence and compassion.
I was wrong.
It appears as if the only thing that's inexorable is stupidity and violence. Sadly, Nature or God - take your pick - has designed an ecosystem in which intelligence and compassion are anomalies. (Martin Luther King Jr. said the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. He was right about most other stuff.)
Now if you've been reading my vanity cards over the years, you know I rarely end them with words of pessimism and despair. So let me leave you with what I hope is an uplifting sentiment:
While we all know that a person can go mad, so can a small group of people, or a town, or a state, or a nation, or a world. But the madness always begins with one, dark, deranged soul.
Make America Great Again!