I don't care if you don't care.

No, I am not referring to the lyrics of Green Day's Jesus of Suburbia. It is how I continually explain to my kids, my brother and even my parents that I will support, help out and get involved in various aspects of their lives, but they need to lead. It is their lives, their choices. If its important to them, then it is important to me. If they are not going to take a stake in something, make the required investment and demonstrate effort, then they should not expect me to take responsibility for it.

The other night my brother called up and asked me to come over and help him out with something. It was late, the streets were icy and it would have been really inconvenient for me to drive the 30 minutes over to his place. I asked him to look for something, with the intent of eventually trying to talk him through what needed do be done and then if he could not do it, I would come over. But it didn't happen that way. He got annoyed and told me that he was not good at this kind of thing and he didn't want to look for the wire that I asked him to find. So I said good bye and hung up.

The next morning he called again and told me that he didn't appreciate how I acted or spoke to him. He was really angry. I said to him, "if you don't care enough about your own situation to try and work through it, then frankly I don't care either. If you call me up and ask for my help at 10:00 PM but can't take the time or show some effort and look for the wire that you need to solve your problem, you can't possibly expect me stop what I am doing and come over to your place."

He calmed down and thanked me for explaining my position to him. So I told him what to look for and we began working through his problem. And it was my pleasure to help him out.

And he spoke...

Well the President, our President, spoke to some school kids today. I have not heard any reports of youngsters, lined up like lemmings, walking over to the edge and doing something unthinkable. Perhaps his hypnotic skills are waning, perhaps his subliminal messages were just a bit too subtle. Or perhaps this whole fuss is the most insulting, ridiculous load of b.s. to be offered up in long time.

The guy is our President. He was was elected. There were no hanging chads, electoral college mishaps or Chicago-style rumors of fraud. He is a good guy that inherited a sinking ship, shouldn't we be helping him bail out the water, patch it up and right the old lady?

His message was one of personal responsibility and individual achievement. Sounds like the kind of values that the Gipper would endorse. Maybe that's why I voted for both of them.

Are we worth remembering.

How is a society ultimately judged by history? One criteria is by the art left behind and how its most helpless, most insignificant members were treated. Think about the massive monuments created by the Egyptians and the stories of oppressive slavery. Or consider the Romans with their great architectural and engineering triumphs created in parallel with the persecution of Christians, Jews and other "barbarian" slaves.

How will we be remembered? As I write today, I am less concerned about our art and literature, however I am deeply concerned about how we so casually, rationally and systematically marginalize or even worse, ignore the weakest among us.

In 2009 America, the richest, most powerful, most free nation in the history of history, how many kids, no how many people go to bed hungry? How many people go to bed afraid of violence perpetrated inside the family and how many go to bed scared of the violence from without? How many live with not just the fear of getting sick but with the fear of not being able to get help?

Will we be remembered as a society that could have been more? That could been better but chose to turn a blind eye to mercy, empathy and caring for our own? A society that allowed the larger broader concepts of real justice and righteousness to be  institutionally obfuscated until the issues could be lacquered over or just swept away with the election cycle rhetoric?

It is usually really hard to look inward and be honest. It is often painful and upsetting. And the thought of it may be foreign and scary. But looking inward with an unbiased eye is essential to grow and become better.  To become something worth remembering. To create a society in which it is truly worth living.

What did you do today?

My friend Peter O'Grady expressed this so eloquently that I have nothing to add. Well, almost nothing.

"We still have a long way to go when even the documentations of a vast human tragedy are a target. "Never again!" Can't say that enough."

Never again. To anyone.  At anytime.  Anywhere. They are our responsibility as we are theirs.

Maybe we should have our kids ask us at dinner what we did to stop genocide today? Or end hunger. Or illiteracy. Or poverty. Or oppression. Or slavery. Or pollution and on and on........