A TALLY OF KINDNESS in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
1996-01-01 to 2012-05-01
Congressional Kindness
This is a serendipity tool. It contains 2674 mentions of the word kindness recorded in the U.S. congressional record from January 1, 1996 to May 1, 2012.
Recognition is kindness in recognition of a person, place, or event.
Remembrance is kindness in a eulogy.
Protocol is kindness when representatives thank each other for yielding time on the floor.
Prayer is kindness in the daily opening prayer.
Other is often a political use of "the kindness of strangers," a mention of human kindness during natural disasters or terorist attacks, or a mention of the kindness of American troops abroad.
More context and a story are available in the notebook.
Data Sources
The kindness mentions were sourced from the Capitol Words API, a Sunlight Labs project. You can search for your own interesting words using their very cool Capitol Words tool.
The underlying data for the Capitol Words API comes from the Congressional Record. If you have questions about the congressional record, try askGPO.
A text file of the data (1.2 MB).
A slightly larger file with more details (1.6 MB).
Credits
Conceived and built out of curiosity and close reading by Jen Lowe using Python + nltk for data collection, cleaning, and transformation and Processing for data visualization.
Jen is datatelling everywhere.
Thanks to:
Dan Drinkard at the Sunlight Foundation Labs, who answered detailed API questions (with a quickness).
Steve Shearer at the U.S. Government Printing Office, for fielding questions about the Congressional Calendar.
Acts of unselfish kindness for the common good or the benefit of others is not too much to ask in a nation which has so much.
... the most valuable thing we can give another human being costs us nothing. It is merely kindness.
I hope the other side of the aisle listened to that prayer carefully because I think what we need today is people to open their hearts with love and kindness, thinking about the American economy and our citizens and their 401(k)s and their futures.
It would be wonderful, Mr. Speaker, if all of this money that we were spending somehow magically turned into love and happiness and kindness.
Madam Speaker, we have become a society that places violence and aggression above hard work and acts of kindness.
A survivor recently informed me that on Holocaust Remembrance Day she wanted people to remember the kindness that she received during the Holocaust....She said that kindness helped her survive.
... the greatest creativity comes from inspiring others; the greatest technique of team-building is listening; the greatest innovation comes from devoting time to others' ideas; and the greatest wisdom is kindness.