In Good Vibrations —an animated whimsical crack-up about personal responsibility—a loose sidewalk paving stone throws people for a loop, and then some. As the accidental pedestrian pratfalls increase, so too does the group of spectators watching from a nearby high rise, smug in safety and seemingly lacking in conscience.

Questions suspend in mid-air:
Is passivity irresponsible?
Is group-think thoughtless?
When is it time to step up and act?

Good Vibrations delivers a good natured poke to remind us that complacency runs deep. And that sometimes it takes a jackhammer and a whole lot of shaking to get us to do the right thing.

Good Vibrations was directed by Jeremy Clapin.

For a discussion guide with questions, please click here.

But if you complain to your friends about your landlord via Twitter, should you be called before a court of law?

In a case straight from the uncharted cyber-territory of social networking and personal responsibility, a Chicago renter is being sued by her former landlord for referring to her apartment as “moldy” in a message she sent to a friend. Because the renter transmitted the message using the micro-blogging service Twitter, her landlord accused her of “maliciously and wrongfully” defaming his company “throughout the world.”

The bitter Twitter battle was on, but the court of law was quickly eclipsed by the court of public opinion. “Foolhardy,” was the verdict from a Harvard media law expert, who said the landlord was “inviting a PR nightmare.”

The renter only had about 20 Twitter followers, so her tweet got no notice—until the landlord filed suit more than a month later. After a law blogger posted news of the court action, The Chicago Tribune picked up the blogger’s story, Twitter users spread it, Facebook, Digg, and StumbleUpon repeated it, TV and radio outlets followed, and by the end of one week, the tweet was heard ‘round the world in media reports in Russia, Australia, France, Italy, and Japan.

“You guaranteed that way more than 20 people will hear about your moldy apartments,” was typical of reader responses during the story’s mega-media trajectory.

The landlord—a property management company for 1,500 Chicago apartments—denied the mold allegation. Whether or not the landlord prevails in court, the case itself has raised numerous questions about personal responsibility and new media. “What is a tweet anyway?” asked the law blogger who originally broke the story. “Is it really considered publishing? Is it a conversation between friends in a public forum, like the electronic version of a coffeeshop, where you can gripe privately but have your gripes overheard? No one considers that defamation.”

Tell us what you think: Should new media be held to old media standards? If you post a negative comment online—like a product review—should you be sued? In the case of the renter and the landlord, did either of them get it right?

After his victory lap, Coghlan requested that the milestone ball be returned for sentimental reasons. “I wanted to get it and give it to my mom,” he said. But the fan countered, “What’s the ball worth to you?”

The fan, 30 year-old Nick Yohanek, was legally entitled to keep the ball, but as a professional “ballhawk,” his stance was criticized all the way from the local Palm Beach Post to the Wall Street Journal, which described the business of ballhawks as “grabbing any ball that goes in the stands, especially milestone home runs like a player’s first or 500th. Most then refuse to give them back to the player unless he coughs up something valuable in return, from a signed bat or jersey to up to $10,000.”

A fan who caught and kept Ken Griffey’s 600th home run ball last year auctioned it for $42,000. And the man who refused to hand over Mark McGwire’s 70th homerun ball during the 1998 season later sold it for $3 million.

Negotiations to free Chris Coghlan’s treasured piece of memorabilia soon involved the Marlins manager, coach, media relations head, and team psychologist, and focused on free tickets to future Marlins games, a photo op, a signed ball, and two signed bats, one which Yohanek wanted inscribed, “To Nick, thanks for catching my first home run!”

Coghlan eventually got his ball back. “He wasn’t the most polite or respectful guy about the whole process,” Coghlan said, likening the ballhawk’s actions to holding balls “for ransom.”

Yohanek disagreed. “It’s my hobby, people,” he wrote on his blog, along with this summation. “QUESTION: Is it okay to catch a historic milestone home run and sell it at auction for $1 million dollars? ANSWER: If that’s what it’s worth to someone, hell yeah it’s okay.”

Tell us what you think: Ballhawking is legal, so does it matter if it’s responsible or not? Does baseball need new rules for fans?

While no report offered any proof that Jobs had acted improperly, the old question about access prompted a new question about altruism: with too-few organs available for too many patients, is it time to pay organ donors for selling their valuable body parts legally on the open market?

In the U.S., the sale of transplant organs is illegal, meaning that an organ needed to save a life can only be used if it was donated for free. On the thriving organ black market however, a liver costs $10,000, and a kidney—the most sought-after organ—goes for $30,000. Proponents of organ-selling say that with 80,000 Americans on kidney waiting lists alone, and 13 dying each day, it’s time to stop expecting donors to act solely for altruistic reasons.

“The surgeon who performed Jobs’s liver transplant, the hepatologist who diagnosed him, the anesthesiologist who managed his pain, the nurse…the pharmacy…even the driver who brought him to the hospital…were paid,” noted a Globe editorial. “Only the organ donor (or the donor’s family, if the liver came from a cadaver) could receive nothing except the satisfaction that comes from performing an act of kindness.”

“Women Sell Their Eggs, So Why Not a Kidney?” asked the headline of a news story that listed proposed organ donor incentives, including health and life insurance, tax credits, and contributions to the donor’s charity of choice.

“I’m on the fence, I have to say. I’m really torn about this,” said a bioethics professor who worries that even a legal organ-selling system might increase exploitation since most donors come from desperately poor countries and may be choosing between keeping their kidneys or feeding their families.

But a Yale psychiatrist who received a donated kidney several years ago, summed up by saying “we don’t think firemen are any less heroic because they are paid to save us.”

Tell us what you think: Should organ donors become organ sellers? What effect would legal organ selling have on altruism and doing the right thing? Is the satisfaction that comes from doing the right thing ever “payment” enough?

City workers in Staten Island, New York had just removed the manhole cover but hadn’t yet secured the area when a 15-year-old girl—focused on a phone—walked right in. “I felt this big drop,” she said. “It was four or five feet. It was very painful.” Apologetic workers helped the teen out of the hole, and doctors checked her scrapes before pronouncing her not seriously injured.

The girl’s mother declared she would sue. “Oh my god, it was putrid,” she said. “One of her sneakers is still down there.”

The latest tale of WWT—walking while texting—struck a nerve with those wondering where the all-thumbs effect of constant texting is leading. “This girl was just plain dumb. She should have been watching where she was going,” was typical of responses on blogs and message boards. “Open up all the manholes and send all the texting idiots into them,” said another. Others blamed the work crew. “No barriers, no tape, no cones = Negligence,” one said.

Teen texting has exploded. According to a recent study, American teenagers send and receive an average of 2,272 text messages each month —almost 80 messages a day. WWT incidents are on the rise as well. Two weeks before the manhole mishap, an Indiana teen crossing a road while texting was struck and killed by a car. In England, a 17-year-old walking while texting stepped straight into the path of a waiting thief who stole his phone.

“The deep, black hole of responsibility,” is how a newspaper editorial summed up the tumbling manhole texting incident, while posing the obvious next question: “Do we need ‘protect society from itself’ laws?”

Tell us what you think: Who’s responsible for the accident—the texter? The work crew? All of them? Should walking while texting be restricted by law?

Two of the world’s most notorious murderers—a Manson follower and a terrorist bomber—recently requested “compassionate release” from prison because they are dying of cancer.

61 year-old Susan Atkins—serving a life sentence in a California prison for her role in the Charles Manson cult killings—petitioned authorities for compassionate release. Diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, she believed she should be allowed to die at home.

In Scotland, the man known as the “Lockerbie Bomber”—convicted in the terrorist deaths of 270 people aboard Pan Am Flight 103—sought compassionate release as doctors declared he had only three months to live. He has terminal prostate cancer, seven years into his life sentence.

In each case, relatives and supporters of the victims opposed release, saying murderers who showed no compassion for those they killed should receive no compassion now.

But the prosecutor who originally put Atkins behind bars almost 40 years ago argued in favor of her death-bed freedom, saying it was wrong to believe that “just because Susan Atkins showed no mercy to her victims, we therefore are duty-bound to follow her inhumanity and show no mercy to her.” Atkins’ husband said California should consider the $17,000 a month they’d save in medical bills.

Atkins’ request was denied, and she died less than a month later. However, the bomber, Abdulbaset al-Megrahi, was released from prison and flew home to a hero’s welcome in his native Libya. Scottish officials said they were “bound by Scottish values” in making a morally responsible decision. “Our justice system demands that judgment be imposed, but compassion available,” said the country’s senior justice official.

A life sentence in prison “ought to mean until you’re dead, which neither Atkins nor al-Megrahi is,” countered an American newspaper columnist. “It’s hard to see why people who have committed violent crimes deserve any consideration beyond fair trial and sentencing they have already gotten. Compassionate release is compassionate only to criminals, not their victims.”

Tell us what you think: Do we have a moral responsibility to release terminally ill prisoners? Should a life sentence be commuted for any reason other than the innocence of the convicted? Should state-financed medical costs ever play a role in the decision for compassionate release?

When a noticeably thinner, seemingly photoshopped version of pop singer Kelly Clarkson recently appeared on the cover of “Self” magazine, many fans wondered if the popular American Idol was friend or faux.

Admitting that the photo had been retouched, Self’s editor explained that the digital diet was to help Clarkson “look her personal best.” She continued, “A snapshot is different than a cover. A cover’s a poster. And the thing about a poster is you want it to capture the essence of you at your best.”

The perfection-as-responsibility equation hasn’t been limited to this year’s cover girls. After Dream Girl Jennifer Hudson delivered a flawless Super Bowl performance of the national anthem—her first major singing appearance since the deaths of her mother and brother—her producer let slip that her crooning was perfect because her performance was canned. “That’s the right way to do it,” the producer insisted about the use of pre-recorded Hudson vocals. “There’s too many variables to go live. I would never recommend any artist to go live because the slightest glitch would devastate the performance.”

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Itzhak Perlman faked their performance at President Obama’s inauguration, pretending to play in a quartet, while the audience—and the world—was treated to a recording instead. Mr. Ma soaped his bow so it would slide soundlessly across the strings. “It would have been a disaster if we had done it any other way,” said Mr. Perlman, explaining the virtue of the virtual performance. “This occasion’s got to be perfect. You can’t have any slip-ups.”

Perhaps it’s no surprise then that the President’s nominee for Surgeon General, Dr. Regina Benjamin, has caused a flap over her undisclosed but noticeably non air-brushed Rubenesque weight. In an image battle of BMI vs. IQ, a newspaper editorial pondered airbrushed perfection as it might apply to the White House, noting that “a thin, male smoker” is considered “a physical role model as president.”

Tell us what you think: Can we achieve our personal best only when we’re faked? Do we have a responsibility to appear to be perfect?

The Sound I Saw takes all our moral certainties and throws them in our face, with a jolt.

White lies.
Short-cuts.
Blind spots.
He said.
She said.
Who.

Who will step forward after the moment of impact and accept responsibility based on what they saw—or think they saw? Who is responsible when accusations and recriminations spiral out of control? Is that the sound of innocence you hear, or guilt you see?

Full of tension and gathering speed, The Sound I Saw reminds us all to look both ways before we cross the street.

For a discussion guide with questions, please click here.

The Sound I Saw was directed by Tony Goldwyn.

About grunting.

Tennis officials are considering a crackdown on high-decibel player grunts increasingly heard on courts from Paris to London, trying to determine if the exhalations are natural or naughty.

Chief grunter non-gratis is 16-year-old Portuguese tennis star Michelle Larcher de Brito, who was so noisy during the recent French Open that her opponent complained and an unofficial warning was issued.

Unlike tennis’s early grunters—including Monica Seles and Jimmy Connors—Larcher de Brito’s shrill sounds are seemingly unprecedented in volume and duration, extending well after she hits the ball over the net, leaving opponents sometimes struggling to hear anything else. “You depend on the sound that the ball makes when it hits your racket, and then you see it,” explains tennis great Martina Navratilova, who objects to the unfair advantage and spreading vogue of mega-grunting players. “They’re making noises as if they’re lifting…300 pounds,” she says. “The ball is not that heavy.”

A British sports writer observed, “I went to watch Michelle Larcher de Brito, aka, ‘The Princess of Wails’ practice the other day, and she was quiet as a mouse.” So, the writer wondered, is the gist of her grunting “a form of gamesmanship or is it simply a release of tension

Larcher de Brito’s wail has been measured at 109 decibels, a whisker beneath a lion’s roar of 110 decibels. Tennis champ Maria Sharapova, also the subject of grunter gripes, clocks in at 101 decibels. “Noise hindrance” is being considered by The International Tennis Federation as an addition to its code of conduct, and grievous grunters could find themselves forfeiting points, a game, and possibly an entire match.

Larcher de Brito insists she’s not being irresponsible, and that rules prohibiting grunting would be too restrictive. “I don’t think it would be fair if you’re not allowed to shriek or scream or grunt,” she said. “It’s part of the game.”

Tell us what you think: Does excessive grunting give tennis players an unfair advantage over opponents? Does pro tennis need a no-grunting rule?

But in Boston, the story of a man using his Blackberry to record the potentially dangerous actions of a bus driver has raised a question about whether communications technology can ever compel someone to be responsible.

The bus was in route from Boston to New York, when front row passenger Shelomo Alfassa became alarmed. The driver had his eyes off the road and both hands off the wheel while he tore, folded, and processed tickets. The driver also used his cell phone for calling and messaging.

Alfassa says he called the bus company in route, but was unconvinced they would do anything to stop the driver’s behavior—or the bus, which was speeding down the highway with dozens of passengers.

So Alfassa recorded 20 minutes of video with his Blackberry. After arriving in New York, Alfassa says he tried to speak to the bus company several times, to no avail. Two weeks later, he posted his edited video on YouTube, supplying captions about the driver: “He is either texting or reading e-mail on his cell phone.”

“My goal is not to get this guy fired,” Alfassa said. “My goal is to get these guys, as a corporation, to be responsible.”

But many readers of the Boston newspaper that reported the incident said Alfassa’s actions had little to do with responsibility and everything to do with technological tattling and video vigilantism. “This looks like a case of overreaction by someone who feels empowered with a cellphone,” wrote one. “Is the busybody passenger who taped this incident a professional driver?” asked another. “Sit down, shut up, read, sleep, whatever,” blurted one more, “but leave the…driver alone. Did he not get this ‘hero’ to his destination unharmed?”

Alfassa answered back unequivocally: “This is not ‘video vigilantism’, this is being a responsible citizen.”

Tell us what you think: Did Alfassa do the right thing? Can technology ever force responsibility, or enable it?

Until K.C.—who’s never hit a long-haul homerun—comes to bat. She connects with the ball, but that’s not why this true story captured headlines and hearts when it happened in 2008.

It’s because it redefined true sportsmanship.

And reminded us that winning isn’t everything.

And that doing the right thing sometimes means throwing out the rule book.

Because it’s never over until it’s over.

For a discussion guide with questions, please click here.

The Home Run was directed by Ron Shelton.

For information about creating positive sports experiences for kids, log on to ResponsibleSports.com. Sponsored by Liberty Mutual, the site offers parents and coaches tips, tools, and advice designed to help maximize their kids’ youth sports experience. Parents can also take part in online discussions, asking questions and sharing experiences about how best to help kids apply the life lessons of sports—on and off the field. Because, as The Home Run reminds us, there’s more to the game than winning.

There’s a vacant lot near my home that’s been sitting empty for a long time. I’m interested in trying to start a community/co-op garden. It would be an attractive place instead of an empty lot. We could possibly get some local businesses to donate equipment and topsoil. People could grow their own organics and, if they sell some, put a percentage of the money back into the co-op. People without a cash investment can contribute their time instead. The city could add this to one of its “green” spaces. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of time to organize this, I’m relatively new to the community, and I grow nice houseplants but know almost zilch about farming.

I think it’s possible to enlist the city and some local businesses, and I really don’t think it would be difficult to sign up participants, but I’m not sure how to start. Any suggestions?

—Amy, San Francisco

Sandy:

First, a disclosure: I’ve been known to kill cacti. Office plants have been removed from my desk by caring colleagues. And I have a balcony’s worth of dead succulents.

Still, even with my black thumb, I know that there’s more to community gardens than the locavore hype. Studies show that every $1 invested in a community-garden plot yields $6 worth of produce. Community gardens can help raise property values, reduce crime rates, and improve the health of those who participate. They also help provide food for neighborhood residents and surplus produce that can be donated to local food banks and shelters.

You’re lucky. San Francisco happens to be one of the very best places in the United States to start a community garden: There are apparently more than 5,000 vacant lots to choose from and a robust urban gardening community. The city manages 40 gardens (and that number is growing), while the American Community Gardening Association lists another 12. San Francisco even has a one-acre demonstration garden with free or low-cost classes on urban composting and gardening.

The city’s Recreation and Parks Department has a one-page how-to sheet on how to start a community garden. It’s specific to San Francisco, of course, but its basic advice applies to pretty much any urban area. It lists three necessary ingredients for success: space, funding, and interest.

Space
Assuming that you don’t already know who owns the plot, check with City Hall before you start digging. If it’s public property, you can apply to the Parks Department for approval. ACGA’s helpful guide suggests that you make sure the site gets at least six hours of sunlight a day, consider past uses of land (in case there’s a chance of contamination), and do a soil test. Also make sure that you have easy access to water and, especially if you plan to be a city-run garden, wheelchair access. If it is privately owned, your best bet is to identify the owner and ask for either a longer-term lease (preferably at least three years), or free, temporary use of the lot. For either, you will likely have to agree to assume all liability—and even then it might be a tough sell.

Funding
While the cost of your garden will depend on the size, design (Want ideas? Check out the White House garden plans), and how many in-kind donations you receive from local businesses, the Parks Department says to estimate $20 per square foot in construction costs. Urban Harvest, a community-garden nonprofit in Houston, provides a helpful list of items to include when planning your budget. If the cost becomes daunting, you can start looking for funding elsewhere. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a competitive grant program for Community Food Projects, granting nonprofits approximately $5 million in 2009. And more funding may be on the way. The Community Gardens Act, a bill to provide additional funds for establishing community gardens, was introduced last month by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash.

Interest
Since there are already so many community gardens in the Bay Area, make sure that yours actually fills a need (and that people will help you!). Send flyers around your neighborhood and approach established groups, such as community centers or churches. Talk about your idea at a community meeting. Congress proclaimed August “National Community Gardening Awareness Month”; go ahead and use the publicity to help drum up support for your cause.

Starting a community garden is no easy task, so no one will fault you if this sounds like more than you bargained for. In that case, you can get involved with an existing community garden, such as Alemany Farm in southeastern San Francisco or Free Farm Stand, a volunteer-run organization that offers backyard produce free to the public (especially low-income residents of the Mission District). Or join a group that is harvesting and donating food from local fruit trees, such as Village Harvests or SF Glean.

Finally, if you have backyard space in addition to the ugly vacant lot you’d like planted, consider contacting MyFarm, one of the few for-profit urban gardening groups. MyFarm will design, plant, and maintain an organic vegetable garden in your own backyard for an installation cost and modest weekly charge. With that kind of service, not even I would be able to kill the tomatoes.

Sandy Stonesifer is the project manager for a national study of the consequences of unintended pregnancy based in San Francisco.

The blog, The Moral of the Story, by New York Times ethics writer Randy Cohen a case that women are vastly more responsible than men when it comes to guns. According to Justice Department statistics, women were responsible for only 8.7% of gun homicides, while men perpetrated 91.3%.

With that enormous discrepancy between the sexes, Cohen posited the following in jest: “I propose curbing gun violence not by further restricting the availability of guns, but by expanding and reorienting it. Men would still be forbidden to walk the streets armed, in accordance with current laws, but women would be required to carry pistols in plain sight whenever they are out and about.”

“Feminizing gun ownership,” Cohen wrote, “could ultimately reduce its appeal to men, making gun-toting as unmasculine as carrying a purse.”

Bang. The comments came shooting in. “Brilliant,” wrote one reader. “Clearly it is men who cannot be trusted to make sound, reasoned decisions, not women.” Another wrote, “Paint the guns bright pink too. This will insure that tough young men will not steal them since it proves that they stole them from a chick.”

Other comments took different aim. “Arming a single class of citizens is foolish in all regards,” said one. “As the quote goes, ‘I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy.’” What may be effective pragmatically “would be circumvented by the U. S. Constitution: Equal protection of the law,” noted another. And this: “This isn’t gender equality; it’s sexism.”

Perhaps the most insightful comment was “Is this a joke?” Well, yes, Cohen fessed up in a follow-up. “I tried to make it a good one, a way to see the question afresh.” But the disclosure left some readers up in arms about the use of satire in a discussion of gun control. “I don’t find this topic funny,” wrote one. “How sad it is that a NYT blogger would turn an issue of women’s personal safety into a big droll satiric joke,” said another. And there was this shoot-the-messenger response: “The discussion of ethics is too important to be left to a comedy writer.”

Tell us what you think: Are women more responsible than men when it comes to guns? In discussions about serious topics like gun control, is the use of satire irresponsible?

My fiance and I are getting married this summer. We appreciate how blessed we are, and we would like to ask family and friends to donate to a charity in lieu of gifts. We also plan to donate any and all cash gifts we receive for the wedding to a local charity. My question is about directing and thanking people. How can we (nicely) ask guests to do this? How should we thank them? My fiance would like to tell people in the thank-you card that their gifts went to support a wonderful cause, but I am concerned about how the givers might perceive this.

—Emma

Sandy:

First comes love, then comes marriage—then comes the china set you’ll lug around for the rest of your life. For a variety of reasons, such as couples living together before marriage and marrying older, wedding gifts just don’t seem as necessary as they once did. You can only have so many toasters, after all.

As a result, more couples are deciding to trade in their china for charity. There are a lot of great ways to have your wedding reflect your values, but make sure you don’t alienate your guests while you’re at it. If your pet cause is particularly controversial, throw in a few less contentious choices for guests to choose from. Still, many of your guests may want to celebrate your union by giving a tangible gift to help you share your life together. So why not have two registries?

While Miss Manners may disagree with including information about gifts in your invitation, I couldn’t care less. Everyone knows weddings equal gifts, so why not be upfront with your desire to have guests donate instead? If that makes you queasy, direct people to a personalized wedding Web site (de rigueur nowadays) that explains your dual registry or request for donations only.

The I Do Foundation makes it easy to integrate charity into every wedding. If you want to get gifts while doing good, it has a gift registry where up to 10 percent of the total amount of guests’ purchases from partner retailers are donated to charity (at no additional cost). If you’re just looking for an easy way to direct guests to your charity of choice, it offers a charity registry where you can inform your guests about your charitable preferences and allow them to make their donations online. The foundation even has information about sending leftovers from your reception to a local shelter, donating your wedding dress to charity, or giving alternative wedding favors to your guests. JustGive.org has a similar charity registry with a broader range of charities to choose from.

I went to a wedding a few years ago where the bride and groom asked for donations to Heifer International. I loved the idea of buying a menagerie of animals in their honor and even made them a card with a duck and a goose walking down the aisle. Heifer, like many other large charities, has its own gift registry service.

If you don’t want to request donations but you do want “do good” wedding favors, there are lots of options. This wedding blogger took a cue from Whole Foods’ bag tokens (bring your own bag, get a token to deposit in one of three charity buckets) and gave her guests the choice of how to donate their party favors. It’s a nice way to encourage people to learn about a charity you admire, though you may prefer that your wedding conversation steer clear of the perils of dengue fever.

As for thanking your guests, I think that once you’ve given people the option to donate in your honor, I wouldn’t necessarily tell folks who give you cash or a coffee pot that you turned around and donated it to a starving child in Africa. You can always donate gifts (or the item they duplicate in your kitchen) to Goodwill or a local organization that provides temporary housing or otherwise helps families in need. If it isn’t polite to tell people you regifted their present, it probably isn’t nice to tell them you gave it away, either.

Sandy Stonesifer is the project manager for a national study of the consequences of unintended pregnancy based in San Francisco.

Increasingly chronicled in newspapers, blogs, books and TV, finding your bliss is finding its way once again into our conversations and our consciousness.

“Many of us think we have a responsibility to be happy, but that’s insane,” says Eric Weiner, author of The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World. “It’s why we Americans suffer from what’s called ‘the unhappiness of not being happy.’”

Nonetheless, mountains have been trekked, wisdom imparted, and the source of our current distress identified: “Greed. Insatiable human greed.”

That anti-Gordon Gekko echo comes from the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, where the Prime Minister has declared greed to be the cause of the current global economic meltdown, and by extension, our great global unhappiness. “We need to think Gross National Happiness,” insists the Prime Minister.

Gross National Happiness is the Bhutanese government’s official alternative to what it considers the “broken promise” of Gross National Product, the traditional measure of a country’s economic output and worth.

Last year, Bhutan adopted a new Constitution centered on Gross National Happiness, with agriculture, transportation, and foreign trade programs now being judged not by their economic benefits, but by the happiness they produce.

“Essentially, I agree with the Bhutanese Prime Minister,” says Eric Weiner, who visited Bhutan to learn about GNH first-hand. “But I think that the source of our unhappiness is expectations. Greed fulfilled makes us ‘happy’ for awhile, but when our expectations are no longer met, we’re miserable.”

That same sentiment was also expressed by the actor Michael J. Fox, who traveled to Bhutan for his TV special, “Adventures of an Incurable Optimist.” Diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease 18 years ago, Fox was intrigued by Gross National Happiness, and offered his own take on personal happiness: “Your happiness grows in direct proportion to your acceptance, and in inverse proportion to your expectations.”

Tell us what you think: Do we have a responsibility to be happy? Is human greed really the cause of our discontent? Would an official policy of Gross National Happiness work in the U.S.?

Should he now become a father?

In a case that has raised as many eyebrows as ethical questions, Nikolas Evans’s mother went to court and obtained a judge’s order allowing her dead son’s sperm to be collected so that she could have a surrogate produce a grandchild for her.

“I just thought about how much I loved my son and how much I loved raising him, and how sad I was that he wasn’t going to be here anymore,” Marissa Evans said. “And if I could find a way to have a grandbaby to raise, that it might make my heart heal a little.”

Ms. Evans—who also has a 22-year-old son—said Nikolas often spoke of having three boys, and had even chosen names for them: Hunter, Tod, and Van. “As the mother of a son I knew so well,” she said, “I feel he would have wanted me to do this.”

While Nikolas Evans may have told his mother he wanted children someday, a philosophy professor said, it’s wrong to assume he also would have wanted to father a child posthumously if he died prematurely. “This is a tough way for a kid to come into the world,” said a university ethicist. “As the details emerge and the child learns more about their origins, I just wonder what the impact will be on a ‘replacement child.’”

Though legal experts and medical ethicists say the case may be precedent-setting, for many it remains unsettling. “Imagine a close relative strip-mining your body for the material to create children you never consented to have,” said a Texas newspaper editorial. “Privacy rights end when you die, of course, but to have one’s next of kin making such a profound, and profoundly intimate, choice for one after death will strike many people as a gross violation of personal sovereignty.”

Tell us what you think: Is pursuing a grandchild in this manner responsible? Should there be laws to govern the use of a deceased son’s sperm? If so, what should the legal boundaries be?

With an estimated 50 million blogs thriving or wavering on the Web, some recent headlines signal changes in the blogosphere: Blog and Beware…Blogger Jailed… Blogger Signs Off With Apology.

Do bloggers need to be regulated to be responsible?

“There’s this Wild West mentality where people think they can do anything on the Web and not be held liable,” says a Harvard legal expert.

Increasingly now, bloggers are being held liable. One blogger was ordered to pay $1.8 million to a Florida man he referred to in a post as “a failed lawyer.” Another blogger was slapped with a $129,794 judgment for falsely stating that a woman’s property was “haunted.”

When a food blog in Los Angeles recently ran an anonymous item accusing a wine bar of health code violations and serving inferior food, the bar’s owners forced an apology from the blogger for the unfounded report. The incident spurred other bloggers to devise a Food Blogger Code of Ethics, in an effort to get culinary blogs to adhere to ethical standards including fact-checking, plagiarism, and conflicts of interest.

“There comes some responsibility with the things you say,” said one of the Code authors. But many food bloggers shrugged off responsibility, saying, “I’m not a journalist, this doesn’t apply to me.”

With voluntary ethical efforts like the Food Code falling flat, many are wondering if the government can—or should—force bloggers to abide by mandated guidelines. Currently in the cross-hairs of the Federal Trade Commission are bloggers who often write glowingly about new products often without disclosing a freebie, a payment, or a business relationship with an advertiser or corporate supplier. The FTC says it will soon act to make traditional truth in advertising guidelines apply to bloggers, too.

“If you walk into a department store, you know the (sales) clerk is a clerk,” said an FTC assistant director. “Online, if you think that somebody is providing you with independent advice and…they have an economic motive for what they’re saying, that’s information a consumer should know.”

Tell us what you think: Should bloggers be mandated to follow a code of ethics or other guidelines? Can bloggers be responsible to self-police? How much control should the government have over what bloggers write?

Liberty Mutual is a sponsor at the BlogHer conference in Chicago on July 24 and 25, 2009. The Responsibility Project booth will be an open forum for bloggers and other attendees to come share their viewpoint on “responsible blogging” – either on camera or by filling out a survey. The video content of the interviews will be available after the conference on The Responsibility Project website at www.responsibilityproject.com/blogher.

New saying: If you can’t pay for the time, don’t do the crime.

Straddling the intersection of recession and responsibility, a Missouri county prosecutor wants to start charging local jail inmates $45 a night for room and board, saying “It doesn’t make sense that our citizens should have to pay for the irresponsible behavior of others in these tough economic times”

In cash-strapped municipalities across the US, a pay-to-stay trend has emerged behind bars, shifting costs from taxpayers to the convicted. Salt Lake County Metro Jail is charging inmates $40 for each day spent in lock-up. At the new Springfield, Oregon lockup, convicted prisoners will be dinged $60 a night. And a county jail in Iowa even considered making inmates pay for toilet paper.

“If they are in jail, they should be responsible for their own expenses,” says one law enforcement official. “Once you start looking at things, you’re like ‘Why haven’t we thought of this before?’” A county sheriff says, “When they’ve been found guilty of a crime, they’re ordered to pay restitution back to their victims. Why shouldn’t they pay restitution back to the taxpayers?”

Critics of such plans warn that saddling inmates with big bills for jail housing could backfire. “Many of these individuals have a difficult time re-entering society anyway,” one said. “We don’t want them so burdened with debt that any legitimate attempt at re-entry is impossible, and they turn back to crime to pay the fees you just imposed on them.”

“Really,” said a law professor, “it’s a poor person’s tax.”

Tell us what you think: Should people convicted of a crime be forced to pay the costs of their jail stay? If there was no recession, should they pay? Do we as taxpayers have a responsibility to cover the costs of running our jails?

Two-time Tony Award winner Patti LuPone halted her show in Las Vegas recently, waving her hands to silence the orchestra before “chewing out some doofus in the third row” who was using an unspecified electronic device.

“What were you doing?” demanded Ms. LuPone as the entire audience looked on. “I promise not to be mad at you. Just tell me. What were you doing—videoing? Taking photos? Texting? I really want to know.” The fan, who failed to answer, was threatened with exile by Ms. LuPone, who then resumed singing “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina.”

From Broadway to Burbank, actors are increasingly losing their patience with rude rogue audiences who click, flash, and chomp their way through shows, distracting performers and annoying everyone around them. The actor David Hyde Pierce recounts seeing a family passing a bucket of chicken down the front row.

In Ms. LuPone’s case, what happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas. News reports focused on her show-stopping soliloquy and pointed out that it was a repeat performance of a similar episode in January, when she broke character in “Gypsy” and, according to The New York Times, began “berating an audience member who tried to take pictures of her.”

“What do you expect me, or any performer for that matter, to do?” Ms. LuPone shot back at The Times. “Do we allow our rights to be violated (photography, filming and audio taping of performances is illegal) or tolerate rudeness by members of the audience who feel they have the right to sit in a dark theater, texting or checking their email while the light from their screens distract both performers and the audience alike? Or should I stand up for my rights as a performer as well as the audiences I perform for?”

Tell us what you think: Have too many people checked their manners—instead of their cell phones—at the door? Should performers be responsible for policing unacceptable audience behavior? Did Patti LuPone do the right thing?

According to school officials at Centerburg High, a senior hacked into teachers’ computers and shared stolen tests with perhaps half of the other 90+ seniors. Authorities said that even students who didn’t use the test had “cheated” because they knew of the scam, but failed to report it.

When the Centerburg School Board learned of the situation just days before graduation, it abruptly cancelled the ceremony for the entire senior class. It was impossible “to separate the wheat from the chaff,” declared the school superintendent, so collective punishment was necessary.

“I am alarmed that our kids can think that in society it’s OK to cheat, it’s a big prank, it’s OK to turn away and not be a whistle-blower, not come forth,” the superintendent said, adding that seniors would receive their diplomas through the mail.

“We worked 13 years to get to this point,” said one upset would-be graduate. “This isn’t the way we should be remembering the end of our senior year.”

Opinions on message boards were divided. “I don’t think the kids who knew and didn’t report should be punished,” one person wrote. “They are not the school’s police and it wasn’t their job to act like police.”

Others thought the school wasn’t harsh enough. “Should make them redo the senior year,” one wrote. “They go on to cheat in college, cheat on their spouses, and then in the work force.” And still another insisted, “The school should be named Bernie Madoff High School.”

But the citizens of Centerburg disagreed. Angry parents improvised a graduation ceremony in a local park, and all along Main Street people stopped to cheer the Class of 2009, as 93 seniors in crimson robes filed past, smiling.

Tell us what you think: Was collective punishment appropriate or not? Did students who knew about the scam without taking part have a responsibility to turn in their classmates? What responsibility does the school administration bear?

That’s one of the questions at the core of a recent federal lawsuit challenging the right of a company to patent—in effect to own—human genes.

The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against Myriad Genetics, which owns the patents for two genes linked to hereditary breast and ovarian cancers. The ACLU contends that patenting genes is unconstitutional and hinders research into a cure for cancer.

“Patents were designed to protect human inventions, and you can’t invent the gene,” said an ACLU attorney. “What they have really patented is knowledge.”

Myriad also owns the patent for testing the two genes, which means a patient can’t get a second opinion test—before a mastectomy or ovarian surgery—because no other company can legally perform the $3,000 analysis. Six breast cancer patients have joined the lawsuit, suing along with 100,000 scientists, pathologists, geneticists, and women’s health groups, all opposed to gene patenting.

Myriad says it will vigorously defend what it calls “our intellectual property rights.” The company noted that it held 23 genetic patents, all awarded by the U.S. Patent Office, which has been granting genetic ownership rights for years. “It may be a shock to people outside the industry,” said a genetics expert, but “this has been the established way of doing business.”

The sticky helix of ethical questions prompted newspaper readers to weigh in. “If you create a novel gene from scratch, patenting makes sense,” wrote one. “But patenting something you’ve just taken a look at? It seems an awful lot like patenting gravity.”
“The plaintiffs’ real motivation is that they want cheaper access to this technology,” wrote another, which “we wouldn’t have but for the promise of patent protection,” which requires massive amounts of money risked in research and development.

Tell us what you think: Should human genes be patented? If a company spends millions of dollars cracking a genetic code, what should its rights be? Where would you draw the line between what can and cannot be patented?

Resume inflation—with its over-written under-achievements—has long set the workplace standard for autobiographical unacceptability.

But is resume deflation just as irresponsible?

Employment agencies and job recruiters are reacting to the growing numbers of unemployed workers they see dumbing down their experience and credentials in an effort to land a job for which they are over-qualified. Their deflationary techniques include “hiding advanced degrees, changing too-lofty titles, shortening work experience descriptions, and removing awards and accolades” from their resumes.

The new bio-degradable biography isn’t sitting well with some employers. “I’d never feel comfortable putting a really high-level candidate into a lower level position,” says an employment agency recruiter who now sees doctoral degrees listed at the bottom of resumes instead of at the traditional top. “How do I know I can trust them later down the road,” she asks, “if there’s something on their resume they decided to take off so they could have a better chance getting that job?”

For over-qualified job seekers, “scaling back the truth—or at the least, some of their experiences—can feel like the only chance at an interview.” The new semantics include downgrading titles like “manager” to “staff” and “office support.”

Job seekers are frustrated and confused by which face to show the new workplace. One under-employed, over-experienced, executive-level resume-sender deleted details of her speaking engagements and board positions. Another complained that when she minimized her experience on paper, a potential employer called her references, only to find out she was over-qualified.

Yet another laid-off worker with years of executive experience sent out thousands of accurate resumes, only to receive zero job offers. “But I can’t dumb down my resume,” he says, “because that would be lying.”

Tell us what you think: Is dumbing down a resume unethical? Should survival trump responsibility, and if so, where do you draw the line? Is it more responsible to state your true experience, or to land a paycheck?

But Vick’s new role—campaigning with the Humane Society to end dog fights—unleashed a torrent of public skepticism, from infuriated animal lovers to sports and opinion writers.

“People won’t easily forgive a man at the center of a ring that killed dogs that failed to fight well by hanging, drowning and electrocution,” stated one newspaper editorial. “A nation that fawns over Bo and Barney and queues up for ‘Beverly Hills Chihuahua’ and ‘Marley and Me’ will understandably be skeptical about giving Vick a second chance.”

As people pondered whether Vick was truly sincere, genuinely remorseful, and/or accepting responsibility for his actions, an assistant sociology professor at Tulane University declared that Michael Vick had been punished for “our crimes” as a “nation of outraged lobster-boilers.”

“What did Michael Vick do that is morally reprehensible?” asked Professor Shayne Lee, writing in The Philadelphia Inquirer. “Some of us forget that dogs are mere animals, and that animal mistreatment is as American as Apple iPods. Like Vick, most of us shamelessly abuse and kill animals”—for science, “leather jackets, ham sandwiches, or horse-racing.”

Noting that Vick’s actions “did not lead to the abuse of one single human being,” the sociologist said, “I think we have it backward. Let’s give the federal sentences to athletes who harm humans by beating them or jeopardize their safety by driving drunk. And let’s give slaps on the wrist to animal abusers.”

His conclusion: “If Vick is guilty, then we all are.”

Tell us what you think: Are we all guilty—or responsible—as charged? Michael Vick did the time for the crime, so should he be forgiven? Was his sentence too harsh?

Party Guest takes a sneaky look inside a dinner party where a man and a woman meet, flirt, and are drawn into a game of calibrating their moral compasses.

What happens when the GPS satellite starts to wobble?

When desire is inexplicably short-circuited?

When the science of certainty crashes in a near-miss?

What happens when we judge others, but we’re not sure of all the facts?

Watch Party Guest and ask yourself if what you think you saw is what really happened.

For a discussion guide with questions, please click here.

Party Guest was directed by Michael Apted.

Significant genomic accomplishments in the past year have increased the possibility of bringing back to life two extinct creatures: woolly mammoths and Neanderthals.

“I laughed when Steven Spielberg said that cloning extinct animals was inevitable,” said an expert on ancient DNA who consulted on Jurassic Park. “But I’m not laughing anymore, at least about mammoths. This is going to happen. It’s just a matter of working out the details.”

The genetic details of the woolly mammoth—yielded from carcasses buried in the Siberian permafrost—have been painstakingly decoded by scientists who have now unlocked 70% of the animal’s genome, including much of the data needed to clone one.

The genome of the Neanderthal—driven to extinction 30,000 years ago—has been completely reconstructed. According to a leading genome researcher at Harvard Medical School, a Neanderthal could be brought to life using current technology for about $30 million.

But questions of ethics and responsibility nag at the nucleus of changing science fiction to non-fiction.

If we cloned our relatives the Neanderthals, asked one expert, “Are you going to put them in Harvard or in a zoo?” And woolly mammoths, notes a paleontologist, were highly social animals. “Cloning would give you a single animal, which would live all alone in a park, a zoo, or a lab—not in its native habitat, which no longer exists. You’re basically creating a curio.”

A science writer asked his readers, “Should we try to resurrect a Neanderthal? And if so, what kind of precautions should we take, and what kind of lives should we help them lead?” Many respondents expressed concern about a cloned Neanderthal’s quality of life. “What kind of life is that?” asked one, to be “raised from birth with the knowledge that they exist solely for the sake of a scientific experiment.”

“They’d have more important lessons to teach us than what we’d have to teach them,” wrote another, worried that our egos “would not see the wisdom in a species who are perhaps uglier, slower, and clumsier than us…They’d be miserable. Leave ‘em be.”

“How about making another Einstein or Bach or Rembrandt?” suggested another. “Wouldn’t that be more challenging and more scientifically useful?”

Tell us what you think: Is cloning an extinct animal responsible?

I am the lucky one in my big family: great job, great income, solid savings. Not all of my siblings are so lucky, and some really struggle. How should I think about their needs in the context of my giving plan? And when it comes to family gifts, should it be “even-steven” or “each according to his needs”?

—Natalie

Patty:

When humans have excess resources, they first hoard a bit for a rainy day. Then they share the surplus with immediate family (partners and children), then the next circle of family, then those who share their lives in other ways (preachers, teachers, community leaders, and services they value), and so forth through greater and greater circles. This is an admirable human trait and one that helps make the world go ‘round. So the question isn’t “Should I share what I have?” but rather … how much and with whom?

Here is what I think: To the extent that your sharing addresses “freedom from want,” filling a basic need for shelter, security, sustenance, or education, then supporting family members should be thought of as a top priority way to share your wealth. But if your sharing goes beyond basic want (and I’m not saying it shouldn’t), to help with that long delayed and much needed vacation for your sister, or that new car for Mom, or that retirement nest egg for your brother, then you need to think about it differently. In those cases, it falls into the personal choices bucket and should not be counted in your “leave the world a better place” giving plan.

We don’t have to use all our resources to leave the world a better place, but we should be committing some portion of our time, our money, and our voice to that broader goal. If, after you’ve met your basic needs and fulfilled that better world obligation, you want to give part of the rest to family members as gifts—go for it.

Sandy:

Even-steven? As the youngest sibling, I was annoyingly concerned with equality: Who changed the channel, who sat in the front seat, and who chose the cookie half first? My parents instituted an even-odd day rule. My brother ruled on odd days, I on evens. In an argument, he (or she) whose day it was prevailed. I remain convinced there are more odd days.

All that’s to say, family members can be inordinately obsessed with “even-steven.” In cases of true need, I have to believe (or hope) that most understand the need to help those who are struggling—even if it means that money is not distributed equally. When it comes to addressing your sister’s desire for a new car, however, that comes down to personal preference. Any giving above and beyond basic needs should be thought of as a present. And, as with all presents, you should give out of desire, not obligation.

Patty Stonesifer is the chair of the Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents and a senior adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where she was president, then CEO for 10 years. She spent the first two decades of her career in the technology business, where her last job was senior vice president at Microsoft.

Sandy Stonesifer is the project manager for a national study of the consequences of unintended pregnancy based in San Francisco.

Dear Patty and Sandy,

My husband and I donate to several charities but get very frustrated with the constant deluge of what I call “Thanks for the money. Send more” letters. Do charities actually expect that people who donate once a year will start donating every month?

Plus, it is obvious that some charities sold our name to other companies. Is there some way to avoid that when we make a donation? Most charities don’t even address that in their literature.

—Sally

Patty:

Sally, I share your pain, but we aren’t surprised when we get six renewal mailings starting months before our magazine subscription expires. Why should nonprofit direct-mail strategies be any different from the Economist’s or Time’s? The business of using direct mail to ensure recurring commitments may be a pain for the recipient and a heavy burden for the recycle bin, but it works. Especially in today’s economy, nonprofits need to do what it takes to advocate for your limited charitable contributions.

Sandy:

Return labels, glossy annual reports, quarterly update letters—it’s enough to drive the Green Lantern crazy. An article in the “tips” section of Charity Navigator claims that this is one of the top questions the site gets from donors. In order to avoid tree-high stacks of pleas at your door, Navigator suggests a few simple steps to minimize excessive, hassling contact: Pay close attention to charities’ privacy policies and make sure you “opt-out” if possible; write directly to the charity; register with the Direct Market Association’s list of individuals who don’t want to receive unsolicited mail; avoid giving small donations to many charities or just give anonymously. Charity Watch has a sample letter to send to charities advising them that you don’t want to receive certain kinds of solicitations.

You should also remember that while you and your husband may be dutiful donors, many people won’t remember to donate to even their favorite charity until they get that call or wall calendar. As my mom said, charities aren’t doing this to drive you crazy; they’re doing it to keep themselves afloat and serve their mission. It doesn’t make the pleas any less annoying, but it should keep you extra nice the next time you tell a fundraiser that you would really rather not hear about global warming during the American Idol finale.

Another good way to avoid piles of mail, and to get your donation processed faster, is to start donating online. The Network for Good site is a donation clearinghouse that allows you to choose from more than 1 million charities and keep your donation records in one handy place—all paper-free.

Patty Stonesifer is the chair of the Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents and a senior adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where she was president, then CEO for 10 years. She spent the first two decades of her career in the technology business, where her last job was senior vice president at Microsoft.

Sandy Stonesifer is the project manager for a national study of the consequences of unintended pregnancy based in San Francisco.

Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

But are any of them meaningful?

Since President Obama’s inaugural call for “a new era of responsibility,” and his subsequent, frank admission— “I screwed up”—about the vetting of a Cabinet appointee,
the market in mea culpas has risen as steadily as the Dow has dropped.

One by one, people have been supposedly sorry for brazen bonuses, Ponzi ploys, steroid secrets, bloodying their girlfriends, and other assorted blunders of judgment, some even boldly echoing the President’s words.

“I screwed up, big-time,” declared baseball icon Alex Rodriguez at a press conference where he discussed his past use of a banned steroid. Asked if he thought he had cheated, Rodriguez replied, “That’s not for me to determine.” He didn’t think the drugs he injected for three years were steroids, he said, then added, “I knew we weren’t taking Tic Tacs.”

The audacity of dope.

Sports writers scoffed at A-Rod’s A-Pology, declaring it more strategy than sincerity. PR and leadership experts saw it as the empty new fashion of confession.

“It was lacking in authenticity,” said one. “Like most apologies in the public sector, there was no mention of amends, and an apology without amends is just public relations.”

The apology plague has spread beyond borders, catching the attention of the Singapore newspaper The Straits Times, which recently rated the sincerity of some well-known apologists on a scale of 1-5. Olympian Michael Phelps’ mea culpa for bad bong behavior—“I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way”—was awarded a 3.5 for showing he’s “man enough at 23 to take responsibility for his mistakes,” according to the newspaper.

Singer Chris Brown scored an anemic 1 for his formulaic written statement—“Words cannot begin to express how sorry and saddened I am…”—after charges of assaulting his pop star girlfriend Rihanna. “We’re not impressed,” hissed the Straits Times.

Wall Street bankers were smacked down by the newspaper as well, earning a measly 2. Morgan Stanley chief executive John Mack’s insistence that he was “especially sorry what’s happened to shareholders” and was “taking responsibility” prompted this reaction from the newspaper: “Three words: Return your bonuses.”

Which brings us back to A-Rod. in a YES Network interview after his less-than candid press conference about steroid use, the Yankees third baseman threw in the towel about the public’s perception of him, post-apology. “I feel like right now that not too many people like me, so I’ve given up on that,” A-Rod said. “I’m not very good with words,” he continued, “but no matter what I sit here and tell you today, it’s not going to express how truly sorry I feel for what I have done.”

No word yet on how the Singapore Straits Times would rate this latest apology.

Tell us what you think: If love means never having to say you’re sorry, does apologizing now mean you never have to accept responsibility?

I was briefly president of a nonprofit with a large board. During my tenure, I discovered that the board often steered the organization away from its stated objectives. One example was a black-tie fundraising dinner for economically disadvantaged youth. A few articulate kids were brought in to give testimonials during the dinner, but they were not allowed to sit or mingle with the donors during the festivities. Instead, they were consigned to pizza backstage. Recurring incidents like this caused me to leave after a fairly short time.

What do you think of organizations that use their clients to raise money? And is there a right way to do it?

—Robert

Sandy:
Those Christian Children’s Fund commercials asking us to donate so doe-eyed Maria doesn’t go hungry and events where lovable clients tell stories of how the organization helped them triumph over adversity—they work. There’s no question that individual stories are powerful tools for fundraising. There is clear evidence that stories and images that cause us to feel negative emotions, such as guilt or sadness, are found to be most successful at soliciting donations.

I don’t see anything wrong with smart marketing, but I do take issue with organizations that compromise their mission—or their clients’ well-being—while they’re at it. This is where it sounds as if Robert’s organization went wrong.

In a past column, my mom mentioned an aboriginal quote she has hanging above her desk in Seattle: “If you have come to help me, then you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” If the organization is committed to empowering these young people, then every way it interacts with them must be done with empowerment as the goal.

Patty:
Robert, as the president you should have used your power to pull these kids into the event in a way that worked for them and for your fundraiser. I have real concerns about do-gooders who conduct themselves as if the “giver” (the board in this case) is in a different stratosphere than the “receiver.” I struggled with the tricky balance between giver and receiver during my time at the Gates Foundation. Going to see the work we funded in Africa, India, and Asia, I was often met with gracious presentations, welcomes, and accolades—and even gifts of flowers or other local products—meant to show gratitude for the efforts we were funding. Yet the people doing the really hard work were the ones who were praising me. I went home to a hotel room each night while they put in additional hours of hard work to improve their lives, their families, and their villages. Why should I get the accolades? Of course, the problem isn’t when you receive praise; the problem is when you begin to believe you deserve it.

Every nonprofit leader or board member would benefit from spending a few hours every year considering how they are leading. Are they “walking the talk” and pursuing their goals in a way that empowers those they seek to serve? Or are they unintentionally doing things (such as at Robert’s dinner) that disempower or disrespect their clients? Every nonprofit manager should follow the leadership concept known as “servant leadership.” Wikipedia describes it as leadership that emphasizes collaboration, trust, empathy, and the ethical use of power. In his seminal article defining servant leadership, Robert Greenleaf spoke of the need for us to use the following test in determining whether we are really performing as servant leaders: “Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”

This should be the test for all fundraisers who wish to use those they serve as part of their marketing efforts. Do they, while they are being served (or while they are presenting their story to a room full of donors), become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servant leaders? If the answer is yes, then go right ahead. Done right, partnering with your clients or beneficiaries is a blessing for all, from the donors, who will better be able to understand the work their dollars are funding, to the clients, who will be better prepared to lead in the future. Done wrong, you have a troubling fundraising dinner such as Robert’s.

Patty Stonesifer is the chair of the Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents and a senior adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where she was president, then CEO for 10 years. She spent the first two decades of her career in the technology business, where her last job was senior vice president at Microsoft.

Sandy Stonesifer is the project manager for a national study of the consequences of unintended pregnancy based in San Francisco.

A group of soccer parents in Bethesda, Maryland was recently ordered away from the game and exiled to a nearby hill, where they needed binoculars to see their daughters play.

The banishment was punishment for the adults’ “unsportsmanlike” conduct at a Washington Area Girls Soccer League match, where a parent loudly accused a referee of making a bad call. The league has levied fines against parents in the past for over-the-top behavior, but some have simply paid the money without lowering the volume.

So when the parent raised his voice at the ref, and others piled on in an “aggressive” tone that culminated with one yelling at the referee’s daughter, “Your father should be fired,” the league’s disciplinary committee deemed that collective punishment was in order. All parents of girls on the Bethesda Legacy team were sidelined to the hill for two games, guarded by an additional ref who made sure none ventured within 100 yards of the playing field.

“For parents to be shrieking on the sidelines and belittling people goes against everything we’re trying to do,” said the league president. “It’s not acceptable behavior.” The disciplinary committee’s report noted that parents’ “egregious” behavior has “no place in youth sports.”

Chastised parents were tight-lipped. “It’s embarrassing,” said one. “This is seventh grade soccer.”

“We’ve got to shut up and keep going,” said another. “You just have to sit on the sidelines and not say anything.”

But some questioned this latest entry into the parental playbook. “Since when did it become a crime to yell at the referees for a bad call?” a Bethesda resident wrote in a letter to the newspaper editor. “In my view, parents are simply expressing their passion.”

Tell us what you think: Is it irresponsible for parents to yell at their kids’ referee? Where do you draw the line between expressing “passion” and unsportsmanlike behavior? In this case, does the crime fit the collective punishment?

For information about creating positive sports experiences for kids, log on to ResponsibleSports.com. Sponsored by Liberty Mutual, the site offers parents and coaches tips, tools, and advice designed to help maximize their kids’ youth sports experience. Parents can also take part in online discussions, asking questions and sharing experiences about how best to help kids apply the life lessons of sports—on and off the field. Because, as The Home Run reminds us, there’s more to the game than winning.

But the story of the fed-up New York lawyer/mother who kicked her bickering daughters out of the car and onto the curb of a suburban street spread faster than flu, as parents around the world weighed in on whether the action was irresponsible—or irresistible.

“They had it coming. Give her a medal,” was typical of comments in support of Primoff, whose 12-year-old daughter managed to get back in the car, while her 10-year-old—in tears—was picked up by a stranger who bought her ice cream before calling the cops.

The family was three miles from home when Primoff made good on one of parenting’s most oft-repeated threats: Stop fighting or I’ll stop the car! “As a responsible parent, she gave her children a choice,” said another supporter, “and when they ignored her, she followed thru. I say good job!”

But the police said You’re under arrest. Primoff was jailed overnight and charged with endangering the welfare of a minor, an action many supported in online comments. “If the girls were acting up, then punish them when they get home,” wrote one. “You do not leave a child on the side of the road alone. Ever.” Another said, “It’s our job as parents to protect our children…Maybe she should put herself in time-out next time she has a mommy meltdown.”

There’s something larger going on, argued a prominent mom-blogger, who saw Primoff’s actions as a “mommy misdemeanor” and cautioned that her story “should not result in a free-for-all vilification of a mother-gone-bad.” Primoff made a bad choice, she continued, “but should she be condemned to wear a scarlet M? I’m not interested in judging her. I’m more interested in hoping that the public scrutiny fixated upon her will further expose motherhood for the truly complex job that it is.”

Tell us what you think: Were Madlyn Primoff’s actions irresponsible, irresistible, or something else? A “mommy misdemeanor” or a “mommy felony?” Does her right to decide how to deal with her squabbling kids have to conflict with the law?

In America they’re called “boomerangers”—adult offspring who return to live with their parents, sometimes bringing a spouse and children, unable to financially make it on their own.

Everywhere they have been the stuff of sitcoms and punch lines: irresponsible losers adding to the sofa’s sag while subtracting from the kitchen cupboards.

But the freeloader image may be inadvertently falling away, a welcome casualty of the ongoing recession, which, in some cases, is helping reshape what it means to be a responsible American family in an era of mounting crises.

A married Utah couple who could no longer make ends meet moved into his parents’ basement. “Staying close to your family in times of need, that’s the most important thing in the economic crises,” the husband said. His wife added, “It’s sad that people feel like they can’t turn to their families for help, or they feel like there’s something bad in doing that.”

Boomerangers are now more likely to help than loaf, splitting the costs of food and shelter in their parents’ homes and sharing domestic responsibilities. “As Americans face tougher economic conditions, we’ll likely see more of this,” said a vice president for AARP, which recently analyzed census data and recognized some new changes in families. In the past year, more than a third of retirees have had to help their offspring pay bills. More adult children are living with their parents, continuing an upward trend since 2000. And the number of multi-generational households has increased from 5 million in 2000 to 6.2 million in 2008.

“Kin is becoming the safety net of last resort,” wrote one reporter, “in part because overwhelmed social service agencies are reaching their giving limits.” A social services expert added, “Families, friends and social networks are becoming more important ways that people are coping.”

Tell us what you think: Is it still parents’ responsibility to launch self-sufficient adult children into the world? What would you do if your adult kids wanted to move in and be bailed out?

Those stinging public assessments of Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle resurrected one of the oldest rules of responsibility—Don’t judge a book by its cover—and set off an ongoing debate about what judging others reveals about ourselves.

As much of the world knows, the unemployed Ms. Boyle—thick of brow and middle of age—has a voice that went viral after singing on a TV show called “Britain’s Got Talent.” Videos of her performing have since been viewed something like a hundred million times on YouTube.

But her sudden fame came with a discomforting level of nastiness about her non super model looks.

“Is Susan Boyle ugly? Or are we?” asked a British newspaper writer in the soul-searching aftermath. Why are we so shocked, the writer continued, “when ‘ugly’ women can do things, rather than sitting at home weeping and wishing they were somebody else?” Declaring that it was the audience that was “ugly,” the writer concluded, “Britain’s Got Malice.”

“What is it about this woman that touches us so deeply?” pondered an American writer regarding Ms. Boyle. Partly it was “the age thing,” she continued, but added that “we were weeping for the years of wasted talent, the career that wasn’t, the time lost.”

Experts say that our reactions to an outlier like Ms. Boyle are based on “the science of stereotyping,” which includes the propensity to make snap judgments. Our brains use stereotypes, social scientists say, because “often they give us broadly accurate information, even if all the details don’t line up. Ms. Boyle’s looks, for example, accurately telegraphed much about her biography, including her socioeconomic level and lack of worldly experience.”

But while some turned to science to explain the Boyle brouhaha, others turned to religion. “The world generally looks askance at people like Susan Boyle, if it sees them at all,” explained a Jesuit priest. “But God sees the real person, and understands the value of each individual’s gifts.”

Presumably without watching YouTube.

Tell us what you think: Do we have any responsibility to move beyond snap judgments? Is the old adage “Don’t judge a book by its cover” obsolete?

He’s also got to make the toughest decision of his life.

Growing up in pre-Katrina New Orleans, Isaiah’s days are lean on creature comforts but long on love, anchored by a father who constantly drills him in basketball, and a grandfather who continually encourages him to play the trumpet.

By the time Isaiah is a high school senior, he’s got too much game—he’s a basketball champ and a soulful musician. And now he’s under intense pressure to make a definitive decision about his future.

Which path will lead him out of his meager existence? Should he honor his father, or realize his own dream? Will he follow the money, or follow his heart?

Prodigy reminds us that sometimes during indecision, our biggest responsibility may be to ourselves.

Prodigy was directed by Brandon Camp.

For a discussion guide with questions, please click here.

Two scenarios about the travails of raising kids are currently highlighting the issue of parental responsibility versus police intervention. And once again, parents are struggling with the question, What would you do?

A reader of The New York Times’ Motherlode blog wrote that she “asked the police for help” after she discovered her 17-year-old daughter had stolen her ATM card more than once. To “demonstrate the seriousness” of the girl’s actions, the mother allowed a police officer to handcuff her daughter in the back of a squad car while explaining the consequences of a felony.

Readers of the mother’s story offered kudos—“she made her decision with the best intentions”—and criticism: “I think the police should only be called when there is an issue of safety.”

A related story drew similar attention on momlogic.com, where readers were asked if they thought a mother was too tough on her son for insisting that police also charge him with car theft after he was stopped for DUI. The mother advocated that the teen should spend the weekend in Juvenile Hall “while the seriousness of his actions” set in.

Again, readers were divided about pressing charges. “If an arrest and taking responsibility makes that teen think before getting in the car drunk again, then yes, it’s worth it,” wrote one. But another said, “I would never press charges on my son. I think this is just taking it too far.”

Tell us what you think: Should discipline by parents ever involve the police? Where do you draw the line between parenting and policing?

Then there are the caregivers’ symptoms—fatigue, insomnia, back pain, headaches, and a nagging question that never fades: if you’re responsible for a family member with Alzheimer’s, how much of your own life are you responsible for sacrificing in the process?

Last year, an estimated 10 million Americans—mostly family members—provided a staggering 8.5 billion hours of unpaid care to loved ones with Alzheimer’s Disease, the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S. As patients get older, the burden grows for caregivers. A recent survey showed that many Alzheimer’s caregivers want more support from within their families and beyond. But they’re reluctant to ask for it.

“They tend to say, ‘This is my parent or relative, and this is my responsibility,’” said one gerontologist. “Caregivers tend to believe they are bothering others.”

One of the most frightening Alzheimer’s issues is wandering. 60% of Alzheimer’s patients wander away from their homes one or more times during their illnesses. But fewer than four out of 100 are able to return home without help.

“We live in a bolt-locked house,” said a woman who takes care of her stricken mother. “We have boards across the stairs. We have hung bells on the doorknobs.”

Bracelets and clothing tags using radio signals or GPS technology can be worn by Alzheimer patients, making it easier in some circumstances for police and rescuers to track and find them. But still there is no peace of mind. “ I can’t help flinching,” a reporter wrote of the devices. “If a person with Alzheimer’s recoils from the idea of a tag, do you impose it on them?”
There are 5.3 million Americans with Alzheimer’s. While deaths from heart disease, stroke, breast and prostate cancer declined from 2000 to 2006, Alzheimer’s deaths rose 47 percent.
“ Alzheimer’s is a family disease,” said former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, whose husband has Alzheimer’s and no longer recognizes her. “It may directly attack only one member of a family, but every family member feels the effects. Every family member loses something.”

Tell us what you think: If you’ve been responsible for the care of someone with Alzheimer’s, what have you sacrificed in the process? Should dealing with such an insidious disease continue to be almost the sole responsibility of family members?

Three days here. Six days there. A week, two weeks, a month. Thousands of workers in dozens of industries are making the trade-off of losing pay for saving jobs.

But is everyone stepping up simply because it’s the responsible thing to do?

When the University of New Mexico asked for furlough volunteers in order to avoid layoffs, a 30-year-old paid intern raised her hand and said, “I’m glad to do what little I can” to help the school weather the recession.

While one co-worker saw the move as “gracious,” another worker publicly questioned the young woman’s motivation, saying she was trying to “suck up” to her bosses for future employment. “Supervisors love that attitude,” said the critic. “What she has said will ensure her a good-paying job once she finishes (her) internship.”

The tension at the university “highlights a behind-the-scenes drama playing out in a growing number of workplaces,” reports The Wall Street Journal, where the question of whether to volunteer for a furlough has sparked contention and anxiety among workers.

Some employers are shielding the identity of furlough volunteers from the rest of the staff. “We didn’t want there to be any sense of competitiveness, like ‘I did this, why didn’t you?’” said an Iowa executive whose employees are taking secret furloughs.

Employment experts offer advice about the politics of volunteering for an unpaid furlough. “In this job market, the last thing you want is for people to think they can do without you,” one said, cautioning that an employee who sacrifices a lot of time off “may be viewed as expendable” rather than as a team player.

At the University of New Mexico, a staff head said employees are worried not just about image, but reality. “I have people emailing me and saying, ‘I’m one paycheck away from homelessness. I can’t miss one day of work.’”

Tell us what you think: Are you responsible for saving a colleague’s job by reducing your own hours and pay? If you were asked to volunteer for unpaid time off, what would you do?

Parenting these days includes an arsenal of tools to find out what kids are up to online, on the street, on the phone, and everywhere else in between. Some say it’s about safety. Others say it’s about spying. And many question the boundaries of parental responsibility.

But should parenting go to the dogs?

Absolutely, according to a New Jersey-based company called Sniff Dogs. For $200 an hour, parents can rent a specially-trained Labrador Retriever that sniffs for drugs in their kids’ bedrooms. Heroin, crystal meth, cocaine. The dogs can even smell a marijuana seed from 15 feet away, as well as the lingering scent of the drug smoked days earlier. If contraband is detected, the pooch sits down, his handler marks the spot, and the parents take over the search from there.

The key, according to Sniff Dogs, is to conduct the search when children are not at home, and without their knowledge. That way, says Sniff Dogs co-owner Debra Stone, “the conversation is not, ‘Are you using drugs?’ but ‘We found the drugs.’” The stealth searches are legal, and Stone insists they don’t constitute snooping. “It’s not a violation of trust,” she said. “It’s what parents often do when monitoring other areas.”

Others disagree. “There are major repercussions for this type of intervention,” said a clinical psychologist. “When parents do this it erodes trust and goodwill.”

“As a parent, you worry,” counters a mother who hired a Sniff Dog to suss out her three kids’ rooms. Though no drugs were found, she says she’ll use the dogs again. “I trust my kids,” she said, “but you can only trust them so far.”

Tell us what you think: Is secretly using a drug-sniffing dog parental responsibility or parental snooping? Does a child’s personal safety ever justify her parents spying on her?

After the producers of the Broadway musical “Rent” spun off a modified version of the Pulitzer and Tony Award winning play, high schools across the country showed interest in staging it. “Rent: School Edition” was intended to replace aging school performances like “The Music Man” with an edgier production that doubles as a teaching tool about discrimination and tolerance.

The school version omits some profane language and same-sex contact. But the story, centered on a group of New York City artists—gay, straight, drug addicted, and HIV-positive among them—remains the same. And that has rankled school officials, who have in turn enraged drama teachers, leaving students caught in the middle.

“I know drugs are out there, I know children are having babies at twelve…But I don’t know if we need ‘Rent,’” said a West Virginia schools superintendent who forbade a local high school to stage the show, explaining that West Virginia families wouldn’t find the content of “Rent” appealing.

But broadening perspectives is the point, say supporters of the show. “ My responsibility as a drama teacher is to expose my students to a variety of different types of plays,” explained a California high school teacher who said his school principal told him to cancel the show after disapproving of its gay characters. The principal denies it, and flabbergasted students were told they might stage “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” instead.

The controversy over “Rent” got so intense in Rowlett, Texas that Rowlett High’s theater director cancelled the production himself, to spare his students the pressure of local residents who called the subject matter immoral, anti-family, and inappropriate for a high school audience. “Everyone is pretty upset,” said a student with a leading role.

All of which prompted one of the original Broadway cast members from “Rent” to remark, “You’re going to be upset in 2009 about a show because it has a man onstage in women’s clothing? You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Tell us what you think: When teens are shielded from reality, is it a help or a disservice? When it comes to responsibility in the arts, who should decide what’s appropriate?

In the new era of billion dollar bailouts, Americans across the country are re-examining long-held views about personal responsibility with a question that’s hitting close to home: Is it fair to make people who faithfully paid their mortgages bail out those who didn’t?

“I don’t appreciate paying for someone else’s mortgage,” said a 38 year-old Massachusetts mother. “I almost feel it’s bailing out someone who overspent on their credit card.”

“Maybe I’m too old school,” said a 52 year-old mortgage holder who’s never missed a payment. “But you sign on the bottom line, and you’re responsible for it.”

Another solvent homeowner said, “I rescued myself by buying a house I could afford and paying it off. What kind of reward do I get?”

Of all the bailouts—banks, auto makers, and people who can’t afford their homes—analysts say the housing handout has struck a particular nerve. “The average family doesn’t have a huge stock portfolio,” one bailout expert explained. “But you have 100 million families that own homes.”

Not all families in danger of foreclosure irresponsibly bit off more real estate than they could chew; some have been victims of job cutbacks in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Like it or not, some analysts say, we are linked by our lousy economy as a band of economic brothers’ keepers. “ Sometimes you have to shower money upon those who have been foolish or self-indulgent,” wrote a columnist. “The greedy idiots may be greedy idiots, but they are our countrymen. And at some level, we’re all in this together. If their lives don’t stabilize, then our lives don’t stabilize.”

Tell us what you think: Should responsible people bail out the irresponsible? By doing so, are we sending a message that irresponsibility has no consequences? How far should you go in being your brother’s keeper?

$8,000 for kitty’s kidney transplant?
$12,000 for doggy’s dialysis?
$155,000 to clone a dead Labrador named Lancelot?

Sir Lancelot was a yellow Lab that loved bagels, pillows, and shoes. His death last year from skin cancer “devastated” his owners, Ed and Nina Otto. “He was a human dog,” Mr. Otto lamented. “He read your emotions.”

Years before Lancelot got sick, the Otto’s froze and banked his DNA. Last summer, they turned it over to a company that auctioned off the chance to clone a pet. The Otto’s winning bid: $155,000

In January, the Otto’s new puppy—a 10-week-old yellow Lab named Lancelot Encore— flew from South Korea, where he was cloned, to South Florida, where the Otto’s live on 12 acres with nine other pet dogs and various cats, birds, and sheep.

When the clone arrived, so did the criticism: that designing a pet was an irresponsible use of technology, especially when U.S. shelters euthanize millions of unwanted pets each year; and that Lancelot cost a lot.

“For $155,000, we could do spays and neuters for six months,” said the head of a local Florida animal services department. The Otto’s, however, have been steady donors to the Humane Society in Palm Beach County, giving $300,000 in the last three years—double the cost of the clone.

But the Humane Society calls cloning “disreputable” and says “cloning cannot replicate an animal’s uniqueness. Cloning can only replicate a pet’s genetics, which influence but do not determine his physical attributes or personality.”

Nina Otto disagrees. “I think he’s Sir Lancelot,” she said of Lancelot Encore. “I know there are a lot of people in this world who think this is an unfair thing to do. I don’t.”

“Think about this,” said Ed Otto. “You could have your favorite dog with you your entire life. I don’t think that’s too far-fetched.”

Tell us what you think: Is paying $155,000 to clone a dead pet responsible, irresponsible, or something else? If you have money, does it matter how you spend it?

Thou shalt not smoke in thy apartment
Thou shalt inform authorities of anyone who does smoke in an apartment

Belmont is home to America’s most restrictive secondhand smoking law, which now makes it illegal to light up in an apartment or condo that shares a wall, ceiling, or floor with another unit. Violators face a $100 fine from the city, as well as eviction if smoking violates their lease agreement.

Additionally, the new law makes citizens responsible for enforcing it by encouraging them to call authorities and report their neighbors if they light up in any home other than a free-standing house.

All of which has left some residents fuming—outside.

“I’m absolutely outraged,” said one apartment dweller who now must leave home to smoke her two packs a day. “They’re telling you how to live and what to do, and they’re doing it right here in America.”

Proponents of the new law, including the California Lung Association, see it differently. “They simply said that secondhand smoke is no less dangerous when it’s in your bedroom than in your workplace,” explained a spokesperson.

“They” is the Belmont city council, whose members have received hate mail for passing the no-smoking-at-home ordinance, which one former council member likens to other matters of shared-living etiquette. “You can’t walk around naked in your house with the blinds open, or you’ll get arrested,” he said. “You can’t play loud music in your house and bother your neighbors. It’s illegal.”

But even some supporters of smokers’ responsibility to so-called third parties, such as neighbors, are questioning whether Belmont should butt out. “There are good scientific and public health reasons for restricting smoking in closed public spaces,” said an expert in public health ethics. “But when such restrictions are extended to beaches, parks, sidewalks and now to the homes of smokers, the argument that third-party harms must be prevented becomes increasingly untenable.”

Tell us what you think: Should smokers be responsible for their neighbors’ health? Should citizens be responsible for turning in at-home smokers? How far should government go in determining what you can do in the privacy of your home?

1 single mother

8 newborn octuplets

14 total offspring

15 minutes of fame

From miracle mom to mother of all outrage, Nadya Suleman’s spectacular fall from public grace continues in an avalanche of revelations: disability, inability, food stamps, no job, no spouse, and no viable plan for raising 14 children under the age of eight.

The responsibility dragnet snared her fertility specialist—at a clinic now under government scrutiny—and settled squarely on Ms. Suleman, who declared in a TV interview that she is a responsible parent, even though California taxpayers have been asked to pay the million dollar-plus hospital bill for her eight preemies.

“I personally do not believe I’m irresponsible,” Ms. Suleman said. “Everything I do revolves around my children.” Saying she was a single parent by choice, she questioned a perceived double standard between her unconventional lifestyle and that of couples who experience multiple births. “Why are they exempt from being called irresponsible?” she asked.

Selfish. Unstable. Irresponsible. The opinions continue to pour in by the thousands on talk shows and blogs, in headlines and on the street: Put her in therapy. Change the laws. Take her kids away. In a season of Wall Street bailouts, a Sesame Street bailout for the 14 kids of America’s mega-mom has not only angered many people, but, as one journalist put it, “exposes how publicly divided and personally judgmental we are” about the reproductive decisions of others and the question of how many children is too many.

“The ‘right’ number seems to lie somewhere between China and Nadya Suleman,” wrote another journalist. “But on what do we base that belief? The ability to pay for the children? The limits on the attention they will receive? How many is too many, and who gets to decide?”

Tell us what you think: Is there such a thing as too many children? Other families receive welfare, food stamps, and disability payments for their children; should Nadya Suleman be held to a different standard? Should Ms. Suleman’s reproduction—usually a private matter of personal responsibility—be the subject of such public debate?

The score heard ‘round the world—100 to 0—came to light in January, with the infamous mismatch of two girls’ high school basketball teams in Dallas. The Covenant School—Christian and private—pummeled Dallas Academy, small and private and catering to students with dyslexia, “concentration” problems, and “learning differences.”

The Academy girls haven’t won a game for more than four years, but Covenant’s unrelenting steal-and-layup punishment offered its own lessons.

“My girls never quit,” the Academy’s proud coach told a local newspaper reporter. “They played as hard as they could to the end.”

His words were a layup to readers’ hearts. Soon another aphorism—Everyone loves a winner—was being turned upside down.

In a rapid cascade of events, Covenant’s headmaster posted an unprecedented apology on the school’s website, calling his team’s winning performance “shameful” and “a victory without honor” which “does not reflect a Christ-like” approach to competition. Announcing it was forfeiting the game, Covenant praised losing Dallas Academy for their “strength, composure and fortitude in a game in which they clearly emerged the winner.”

Covenant’s coach disagreed with the headmaster’s mea culpa. “We played the game as it was meant to be played,” he wrote to a newspaper, and refused “to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity.” Hours later he was fired.

“Our national ethics lesson,” one reporter dubbed the incident which left many divided over who did or didn’t do the right thing. Dallas Academy knew the rules going in, some said, and if it couldn’t stand the heat, it shouldn’t have played the game. Others lamented the loss of sportsmanship. Some felt that the school’s apology and the coach’s firing were unnecessary, while others said winning doesn’t matter and the schools shouldn’t have kept score.

Tell us what you think: Who bears what responsibility in this case—the Covenant coach, the Covenant team, the Dallas Academy team? Who won, who lost? Is it really true that winning doesn’t matter?

For information about creating positive sports experiences for kids, log on to ResponsibleSports.com. Sponsored by Liberty Mutual, the site offers parents and coaches tips, tools, and advice designed to help maximize their kids’ youth sports experience. Parents can also take part in online discussions, asking questions and sharing experiences about how best to help kids apply the life lessons of sports—on and off the field. Because, as The Home Run reminds us, there’s more to the game than winning.

The Responsibility Project and Parade magazine recently partnered to create “Doing What’s Right,” a special insert designed to spark conversations about everyday moral choices and personal responsibility. Here’s how readers responded to a series of questions. What do you think? Weigh in with your thoughts below.

#1 – Would you pretend your cellphone dropped a call to end a conversation?

54% Yes 46% No Add A Comment

#2 – Would you lie about your age?

33% Yes 67% No Add A Comment

#3 – Would you tell a friend that his or her spouse is cheating?

66% Yes 34% No Add A Comment

#4 – Would you report someone you see shoplifting?

84% Yes 16% No Add A Comment

#5 – Would you take a sick day when you’re healthy?

63% Yes 37% No Add A Comment

#6 – Would you look at a spouse’s e-mails or phone records?

59% Yes 41% No Add A Comment

That’s the guts of an icy-hot debate about the continued role of brawling in hockey, sparked by the recent death of a 21-year-old Canadian player. Despite his amateur league’s rule forbidding the removal of helmets, the 6’2” defenseman’s head gear was off when his skull struck the ice during a fatal in-game fight.

The tragic incident has led to calls for an end to the culture of sanctioned fighting across all leagues, including the National Hockey League, where altercations have increased a reported 24% from last season. “This being the 21st century,” wrote one Canadian sports writer, “aren’t we supposed to be against violence in sports, especially hockey?”

Not necessarily, said the NHL commissioner, who called fighting “integral to the way the game is played.” Hockey is the only team sport in which one player who pummels another is not ejected from the game. The League will consider safety measures, the commissioner said, but won’t ban fighting outright because “fans enjoy that part of the game.”

According to a recent poll, a narrow majority of Canadians now believe that the NHL should ban fisticuffs. But of those polled who identified themselves as avid hockey fans, a whopping 68% said let the fists continue to fly.

“I find it ironic that there are two different laws for violence,” one man wrote to a local newspaper. “One law for those who play hockey, and the other one for the common folk on the street. One can assault another individual on the ice, but if the same situation were to occur on the street, those individuals would likely be charged with assault.”

“Whiney wimps,” retorted another. “I hear there are some non-violent chess matches or badminton games you can watch if you don’t have the stomach for the sport of hockey.”

Tell us what you think: Is allowing fighting in ice hockey irresponsible, or just part of the game? Is the problem just a sports issue, or a societal one as well?

In December, two Colorado snowboarders ducked out-of-bounds at a ski resort and into an area with live explosives set for avalanche prevention. Their punishment? Revocation of their ski passes by the resort, for just two weeks.

When a New Mexico snowboarder ditched resort slopes on New Year’s Day and then became lost in an out-of-bounds wilderness, he triggered a dangerous and expensive rescue. Ski patrollers finally found him at 2AM, hypothermic and lying in the snow. His punishment? Possible revocation of his snowboarding pass by the resort for an undetermined number of days.

“It’s not smart behavior, and it’s not responsible behavior,” said one of the rescuers, who risked his life to find the errant snowboarder.

But it’s definitely controversial behavior.

The deaths of 13 avalanche victims in Canada this season—including an out-of-bounds snowboarder and a skier—have prompted the government to consider for the first time legislating penalties for rogue skiers, boarders, and snowmobilers. A new national discussion about the slippery slope of responsibility quickly turned shrill.

“Time to bill idiots for rescue,” blared an editorial in a Canadian newspaper, which bluntly took to task rogue skiers and boarders. : “As long as we have a moral imperative to save these numbskulls from themselves, there’s no reason they shouldn’t pay dearly for the cost of our kindness.” A typical out of bounds rescue is expensive, with searchers, backup help, and frequently a helicopter.

But a Canadian official says forcing rule breakers to pay for their own rescues might backfire. “People may not call (for help) if they think their family is going to be faced with a huge bill,” he explained.

Tell us what you think: Should skiers and snowboarders be held responsible when they break ski resort rules, even if no harm was done? Should rogue skiers and boarders have to pay for their own rescues?

Also shattered in the accident was the very definition of what it means to be a Good Samaritan, undermined by a troubling new legal question: Can you be sued for trying to save someone’s life?

Van Horn and several friends had just left a bar at 1:30AM when the driver of the car she was in lost control and crashed. Following behind in a second car was Van Horn’s friend Lisa Torti, who stopped and rushed to help. Torti said she saw smoke and feared that the wrecked car would catch fire or explode, so she pulled the incapacitated Van Horn from the passenger’s seat.

Van Horn later sued Torti, saying that her spinal injuries from the accident were made worse by Torti dragging her from the car “like a rag doll.” Torti argued that she was covered by California’s Good Samaritan law, which provides legal protection to people helping in an emergency. The case was dismissed.

But in a controversial new ruling, the California Supreme Court said the state’s Good Samaritan law applies only to emergency medical care. Rescuing someone from a car crash doesn’t qualify. Hence, the court said, Van Horn has the right to sue her Good Samaritan. And so she did.

“Careless rescuers are not good Samaritans, really,” said a law professor after the court’s ruling. “We don’t want people interfering with other people and hurting them a lot worse, right?”

California legislators immediately proposed three separate bills to amend the law, but many future Samaritans had already downgraded themselves from Good to Hesitant to Never. “The next time I see someone in need of help I will look the other way and mind my own business” was typical of the many postings on internet message boards.

“This is absolutely ridiculous,” wrote another. “I’m sure that if she hadn’t pulled the woman from the wreckage and the car had exploded, she’d be charged with letting the woman die.”

From parable to terrible, the Good Samaritan’s drop in stock may have been summed up best by a newspaper columnist who wrote, “As for that New Testament passage, in which the Samaritan comes across a man who had been robbed, beaten and left for dead, ‘and bound up his wounds…and took care of him’—it’d be a shame to have to put an asterisk there, with the notation, ‘Not applicable in California.’”

Tell us what you think: Would you still help someone in an emergency, knowing you could be sued? Where would you draw the line between helping and turning away?

When President Barack Obama took the oath of office, he gave the nation a challenge: "What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility."

His message echoed across the country and around the world, with especially profound resonance here at the Responsibility Project, launched a year ago this week in response to your thousands of letters and emails seeking to highlight the role of responsibility in all our lives.

In his inaugural address, President Obama articulated some of the same ideals of responsibility many of you have already expressed on this site:

"A recognition on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world. Duties that we do not grudgingly accept, but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."

Creating a new culture of responsibility— Extreme Makeover, American Edition—will require some personal heavy lifting from each of us, along with the recognition that we don’t have to wear a uniform to serve our country. Hitting the re-set button on responsibility has already struck a chord: a post-inauguration survey showed that by a three-to-one margin, Americans now feel more optimistic about the future of the country

The new era was celebrated by the Inaugural Poet, with these words:

"Just as the unthinkable has happened in the past, anything remains possible now.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
Any thing can be made, any sentence begun".

Perhaps more will now begin with the word responsibility.

Tell us what you think: In his inaugural address, President Obama said "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America." What is your personal responsibility in achieving that goal?

But would you ever ask, “Who can I sue?”

That question is the focus of WhoCanISue.com, an online service that matches potential clients with lawyers, while begging a different question: does the site’s blunt come-on irresponsibly encourage more lawsuits?

No, says the Miami attorney who founded WhoCanISue and sees it as the future “go-to choice when people feel they’ve been wronged and are looking for answers.”

The site is searched through suggested “grievance” categories, like Medical Malpractice, Family Law, and Accidents. If you haven’t slipped on a banana peel, perhaps you slipped on a sub-prime mortgage, which is discussed under Mortgage Fraud in the “Hot Topics” section of potential reasons to sue someone.

After answering a series of online questions, users receive a list of lawyers willing to be contacted for possible representation in a lawsuit. The service is free for potential plaintiffs, but lawyers pay to be included on the site. “I don’t think WhoCanISue.com is going to, by itself, increase the number of lawsuits there are,” says its founder, “but it may make people more aware of what their rights are.”

Critics, however, contend that WhoCanISue makes a mockery of the legal system by suggesting that lawsuits are “frivolous and an easy way to make money.”

“Frankly, the whole process is not only scary, it is bound to give the public a rancid taste in their mouths about the profession,” fumed an article in Chicago Lawyer magazine. “As if there aren’t enough lawyers out there inventing lawsuits, now we’re going to invite the public to do so,” said a prominent trial attorney of WhoCanISue. “It encourages, if not creates lawsuits.”

Tell us what you think: What’s the verdict on WhoCanISue—responsible site for the aggrieved or incubator for irresponsible lawsuits? Has suing become too easy?

But one such headline refuses to go away: Indian woman, 70, gives birth to first child after IVF treatment.

Part oddity, part odyssey, the story of septuagenarian first-time mother Rajo Devi has reverberated around the world, sparking a fierce debate about whether giving birth late in life is responsible.

For 50 years of marriage, Devi tried unsuccessfully to have a child. Her husband, now 72, even married Devi’s sister in an effort to produce a child—an acceptable practice in their region of India. But the sister did not become pregnant either. News reports said the couple endured great cultural shame because of their inability to have children.

So with the help of a fertility specialist, a donor egg, and her husband’s sperm, 70-year-old Devi became pregnant and delivered a baby daughter. “We longed for a child all these years,” she said, “and now we are very happy to have one.”

But not all the world shared the couple’s joy. From India to Ireland, Australia to America, people reacted to the same critical questions, summed up by a newspaper columnist: “Where does the yearning to be a parent become selfish disregard for the life of the child being created? A child whose parents will almost definitely not see her into adulthood? How old is too old to have a baby?”

Absurd. Appalling. Selfish. Many readers offered the same objections. “Wow, she will most likely be dead before the child’s 10th birthday,” one wrote. “What a terrible thing to do to a child, to insure that they will live most of their life without a parent.” While some quoted news reports that the baby had a large extended family to help, others countered: “Do you know a child who has lost their mother before their 12th birthday? Go try saying to them, ‘Oh well, at least you’ve got an extended family’ and see what reaction you’ll get. No one can ever replace your mother.”

Some readers were less disapproving: “Who knows, having the wisdom of being 70 and raising a child might be one of the best things for that kid.” Another questioned, “Who are we to judge? Just because a mother has a baby at 20 does not guarantee she will see the baby into adulthood. Sometimes having a parent who really wanted a baby is far more valuable.”

Still others took issue with the doctors’ role: “Surely the physicians who treated Rajo Devi were equally responsible for this moral quandary? Who are they to help ‘create’ a child condemned to a parentless life?”

Tell us what you think: Did Rajo Devi act responsibly or irresponsibly in giving birth at age 70? When personal dreams collide with personal responsibility, which should take precedence?

Now parents can map Johnny’s genome to help him win his own race—or football and soccer games—by searching for a gene that supposedly predicts exceptional abilities in sports

Genetic testing for the ACTN3 gene, starting with infants, is now being marketed to parents by a Colorado company, with this tease: “Finding any great Olympic champion normally takes years to determine. What if we knew a part of the answer when we were born?”

In other words:
Mouth swab to identify ACTN3 gene: $149
Identification of future sports-great while still in diapers: priceless.

A 2003 study of elite adult athletes who carry the ACTN3 gene found that variants of it are linked to a natural predisposition to excel in speed and power sports like sprinting and football, as well as endurance sports like distance running.

Sign my kid up, said the mother of a 2-year-old who takes soccer lessons. “I could see how some people might think the test would pigeonhole your child into doing fewer sports or being exposed to fewer things,” she said, “but I think it’s good to match them with the right activity.”

Critics of the testing say matching 2-year-olds with one sport—and at the expense of broader experiences—carries no guarantee that a kid will grow up to bend it like Beckham. “The idea that it will be one or two genes that are contributing to the Michael Phelpses or the Usain Bolts of the world I think is shortsighted because it’s much more complex than that,” said a genomics expert, who noted that athletic performance is affected by at least 200 genes.

Test results—known as a “Genetic Athletic Talent Report”—come with a certificate called “Your Genetic Advantage.” But it’s a disadvantage that has many talking. “What I fear it would become is one more way for parents to insure that their children never learn to fail,” wrote one mother, who paraphrased a psychologist: ‘If you never fail, you never learn that you can pick yourself back up again.’

Tell us what you think: Is helping a child excel at sports a parental responsibility or a parental obsession? Should genetic testing of children be used to establish sports dominance?

That question has split the residents of Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, in an ongoing debate about doing the right thing.

Three year old Adolph Hitler Campbell’s birthday was December 14. When his parents—who gave the child his legal name—tried to order a birthday cake from a nearby ShopRite grocery store, employees there refused to write “Adolph Hitler” on the frosting.

“We believe the request to inscribe a birthday wish to Adolph Hitler is inappropriate,” said a ShopRite spokeswoman.

The store offered to make a cake leaving space for Adolph’s parents to decorate with their own inscription, but they refused.

“ShopRite can’t even make a cake for a 3-year-old,” the boy’s mother complained to the Express-Times newspaper, which ran a story noting that the family has “swastikas on walls, on jackets, on the freezer and on a pillow” in their home. Adolph’s little sister—JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell—turns two in February and has also been refused a full-name birthday cake by ShopRite.

The Campbell’s said they wanted their children to have unique names and didn’t expect the names to cause problems. “Other kids get their cake. I get a hard time,” said Adolph’s father. “It’s not fair to my children.”

Some local residents detected a hunger, but not for birthday cake. “What I see here is a craving for media attention,” one commented to the newspaper. Another pointed out that “No one puts the whole name of someone having a birthday anyway. Just put Happy Birthday Adolph on the cake and let it rest.”

“Hooray for ShopRite’s decision!” another reader wrote. “I am so tired of people feeling there are no boundaries to freedom of expression.” But others took issue. “By not writing on the cake,” one said, “ShopRite is basically saying that they make the decision as to what is acceptable and not acceptable in your homes. Do you really want to trust this to a supermarket?”

“This is America,” another commented, “not the United States of ShopRite. I’m sure ShopRite would not refuse to personalize a cake for Barack Hussein Obama, who turned out great in spite of his given name.”

Tell us what you think: Did ShopRite employees do the right thing? Is it irresponsible to give children highly provocative names? Should the newspaper have given the parents a public forum for their complaint about a cake?

It strikes at different times for different people, with a clarity that can transform a life.

Joe’s moment comes when he’s down.

On the floor.

Of his filthy apartment.

After an all-nighter celebrating his 30th birthday.

In the film Be Good, the main character, Joe, is hung over and screwed up, a man with everything— parties…girls…beer! And nothing. He’s the ultimate slacker, living a life of zero relevance.

But Joe does have charm. And wicked comic timing. So armed with those attributes, he embarks on a hilarious mission to inject some responsibility into his life.

It’s a cosmic crash diet that’s sometimes only a crash. But as Joe steers wildly and impulsively through the trials of becoming a responsible person, he’s more shocked than anyone at the surprise ending that finally gives meaning to his life.

Be Good was directed by Barney Cokeliss.

For a discussion guide with questions, please click here.

Does the age-old marriage vow of fidelity need to be updated to make husbands and wives responsible for their behavior online?

Infidelity is “just as painful, whether it’s electronic or physical,” says an expert in how the internet affects relationships. “For awhile there was this impression that as long as it’s online, it doesn’t matter. But research has shown it’s not a separate world.”

In what is said to be the first case of its kind, a woman is now divorcing her husband after catching the animated character he created online having a fictional affair in a computer role-playing game with an animated online character created by a woman he’d never met.

“It’s cheating, as far as I’m concerned,” said the 28-year-old aggrieved wife.

The couple, married for three years and living in England, originally met online as fans of the cyberspace community Second Life, a game in which players create animated fantasy alter egos called avatars, and act out virtual lives with virtual relationships. It was in Second Life that the husband’s avatar strayed, though he says, “I don’t think I was really doing anything wrong.”

That one cartoon character cheating on another cartoon character could trigger a real-life divorce caught the attention of psychologists around the world. A British newspaper reported that counselors had found “an increasing number of people whose real-life relationships were falling apart because of what was happening in their parallel, unreal worlds.”

“If you travel in that territory,” warned a San Diego psychologist, “it is unmapped,
unchartered, unpoliced, unsupervised. Somebody’s going to get hurt…I don’t think that people are fully aware how deeply they can hurt one another with these types of games.”

Tell us what you think: Where does personal responsibility begin and end when it comes to the actions of fictional online characters? Should cheating with an avatar even be considered as grounds for divorce?

Is saying “I’m sorry” out of fashion?

A lost art?

A species so endangered we need a law to protect it?

“Consider The Apology Act,” a piece of legislation up for debate in Canada and aimed at allowing people to say “I’m sorry” without assuming legal responsibility for their actions.

In other words, saying you’re sorry can’t be used against you later as evidence in civil court. “The goal of the legislation is to encourage sincere apologies,” said the Ontario Attorney General. “Saying sorry for a mistake or wrongdoing is the right thing to do.”

Proponents of the law say the ability to make an apology without legal consequences will help ease hard feelings, resolve disputes, and reduce the number of lengthy, costly lawsuits.

The Apology Act is partly based on the actions of more than 30 states across the U.S. where apology laws have been enacted specifically to make it easier for doctors to say “I’m sorry” instead of “See you in court.” Under those laws, an apology for a medical mistake is inadmissible in court.

Research has found that medical apologies can actually help patients heal and doctors avoid malpractice lawsuits. Both the University of Michigan Health System and the University of Illinois have seen significant drops in malpractice filings since adopting a policy of disclosing medical errors and offering apologies and fair compensation.

Meanwhile, in the greater apology-challenged world, writer Henry Alford has embarked on a policy he calls “reverse etiquette”—supplying a tongue-in-cheek apology when none is forthcoming from an irresponsible offender. After a grocery store clerk dropped Mr. Alford’s apple on the ground, then put it in his bag with nary a word of contrition, Mr. Alford helpfully suggested, “Sorry about that—I really didn’t mean for you to drop that.” The clerk stared, uncomprehending.

“I like to think,” Mr. Alford writes, “that in some instances my behavior, by causing others to wonder what I’m going on about, may help to carry out etiquette’s mandate: to promote empathy.”

Tell us what you think: Do we really need a law in order to take responsibility and apologize? If to err is human and to forgive is divine, why is apologizing so difficult?

The image-conscious National Football League is cracking down on players’ off-field behavior with a new “personal conduct” policy, which, according to The Wall Street Journal, has NFL teams hiring former FBI agents and police officers to spy on players.

Video surveillance cameras in locker rooms. Guards posted in hotel hallways to ensure players don’t sneak out. Bed checks.

The current efforts to manage the morals of pro-football stars include the Seattle Seahawks declaring an entire downtown entertainment district off-limits to team members, and the Denver Broncos’ security chief wrangling a network of dozens of bartenders and bouncers who call him when players show up, divulging details of the women they’re with and how much they’ve had to drink.

With at least 57 NFL players arrested this year alone, the NFL is determined to protect its image by fining and suspending players not just for committing crimes, but for any act that’s deemed harmful to the NFL’s “integrity and reputation.”

Critics of the crackdown say fines and suspensions are excessive and unfair, particularly in cases where a player has been accused of but not found guilty of a violation of law.

Dallas Cowboy cornerback Pacman Jones was suspended indefinitely by the NFL after an alleged tussle with a bodyguard, even though no arrest or charge was made. He missed six games before recently being allowed back on the playing field. And when someone intentionally spilled a drink on Buffalo Bills offensive lineman Langston Walker at a bar recently, he worried how the NFL would have reacted if the situation had escalated. “When you start not to trust your own organization or governing body,” he said, “who can you trust?”

Tell us what you think: Can personal responsibility be forced or enforced in pro football? Are NFL players being held to an unfair standard of off-field responsibility?

The 10 megapixel camera cost $69.

And the Black Friday shoppers determined to get those door-buster bargains cost a Wal-Mart employee his life.

The ugly scene that shocked America during the Thanksgiving holiday played out just before 5AM, with no police in sight. An unruly crowd of 2,000 people broke down the doors of the store in Valley Stream, New York, and in the process trampled 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour to death.

Four other people in the store were injured and treated at a hospital.

Wall-Mart said it had added extra security staff and installed barricades, among other measures. “Despite all of our precautions,” said a spokesperson, “this unfortunate event occurred.”

The police detective in charge of the investigation had a different view. “I’ve heard other people call this an accident, but it is not,” he said. “Certainly it was a foreseeable act.”

At least part of the incident was caught on surveillance cameras, but news reports pointed out that even with the video and eyewitness accounts, “officials acknowledged that it would be difficult to identify those responsible.” There were plenty of suspects, however, beyond the store and the shoppers, including the economy.

“I think it ties into sort of fear and panic of not having enough,” said a consumer psychologist, noting that a “herd mentality” can make individuals feel anonymous to the point of trampling someone. “Fear combined with the group mentality?” the psychologist pondered. “It doesn’t surprise me at all.”

Others blamed the media for having cheered on shoppers in numerous stories leading up to the Black Friday incident, which one reporter described as “the ungovernable mix of greed and thriftiness.”

Tell us what you think: Where does the responsibility lie in this case? With the crowd? The store? The police? The economy? The media? Why would people in a group do something they would never do as individuals?

Tough new government nutrition standards that are being enforced in public schools state-wide are eliminating foods that can be sold on-site during the school day. Long-time bake sale favorites like cookies and cupcakes are disappearing because they exceed legally-mandated limits on sugar, fat and calories.

Comfort food is suddenly being wrapped in uncomfortable language like nutritional disobedience and competitive foods, as policy makers try to reduce unhealthy consumption to “do for junk food what smoking bans and taxes did for tobacco” according to one health scientist.

“The intent of the legislation was not to eliminate bake sales, but to improve the quality of food that’s available to students,” said the policy director of the California Center for Public Advocacy, one of the sponsors of the legislation. “Schools were financially dependent on selling food to kids that was fundamentally bad for them.”

But opponents of the culinary crackdown say it’s half-baked. “Bake sales are one of the quickest and easiest ways for schools to raise money,” said the president of one local California PTA. “To limit this option has a significant impact on fundraising. And as a parent, it should really be my choice if I want to buy my child a cookie or slice of pizza after school.”

While a California kindergarten offered a “Healthy Halloween vegetable platter,” as a trick-or-treat alternative, one critic questioned the larger impact of a cupcake prohibition. “Children should learn that there are many foods available, and the responsibility is theirs to choose the best and healthiest foods. Instead, through limiting their choices, we are teaching them to blindly trust whatever is placed before them and to forego individual responsibility.”

Tell us what you think: Have bake sales become nutritionally irresponsible dinosaurs? What should take priority—raising healthier children or letting them eat cake?

Some say it’s madness.

Some say it’s fondness—for friends, families, co-workers, baby sitters, mail carriers, teachers, hairdressers, newspaper delivery people and everyone else we want—or feel compelled—to remember with a present.

And some say it’s time to rethink a more responsible approach to holiday giving, especially in this year’s brutal economy.

Newspaper columnist Ron Lieber thought he had the solution—“a grand alternative that would allow everyone to start the next year with at least one great present and a sense of spiritual uplift”—but he was surprised at just how reluctant we are to change our gift-giving patterns.

Lieber based his extreme makeover on the alternative gift-giving model of ECHOage.com, a web company started last year by two mothers trying to “stop the madness around children’s birthday parties.”

Gift-givers send the amount of money they would have spent on a birthday present to ECHOage. The company takes a service fee and then splits the rest of the money—one half goes to a charity chosen by the birthday child; the other half goes to the child, who can buy something he or she really wants.

But when Lieber suggested using the same model for the holidays, the discussion of giving was met with many a misgiving. There were outright objections from people unwilling to change the way they’ve exchanged gifts for decades. Others chafed at the imposition of a blanket plan, and some at the “relentless practicality” of the approach.

The trick, Lieber concluded, “is to ask carefully, so as not to make others feel greedy if they still want a big pile of gifts.” But there was one particular idea that repeatedly stood out for him: “I was touched by the number of people who suggested extending the Thanksgiving spirit through the end of the holiday season this year. Their recommended gift? A thank-you note.”

Tell us what you think: What’s your idea of responsible holiday gift giving?

Parent’s reality: leave your unruly child with someone at a hospital in Nebraska, and walk away forever, with no legal consequence.

Every state in America has a so-called “safe haven” law, under which a troubled parent can safely surrender a newborn baby, usually at a hospital or fire station, no questions asked.

But Nebraska’s safe haven law is different. Intended to protect only infants, it was written with the word “child” left undefined and without an age limit, opening a gaping legal loophole for an unprecedented human bailout.

Since the law took effect in July, at least 30 children—almost all between the ages 8 and 18—have been dumped in Nebraska hospitals by parents or guardians who say they can no longer cope with their kids. “According to the law, the abandonments are legal, and the parents cannot be held criminally responsible.”

One desperate widower dropped off nine of his children at a local hospital, then left. Other parents traveled long distances to legally ditch their kids in Nebraska, including the mother of a delinquent 12-year-old boy, who drove 1,000 miles from their home in Georgia. “I ran out of fight,” she said, after abandoning her son. “I ran out of hope.”

Authorities were stunned. “I think they’re just irresponsible people who are not very caring for their kids,” pronounced one state senator. But others saw the situation as a serious wakeup call about the increasing needs of struggling families. “They are desperate people, in a spot,” said another senator, “and don’t know where to turn.”

Tell us what you think: Should parents have the legal right to abandon a child—and their own responsibility—because of behavioral or other problems? Is abandonment a better option than abuse? Does Nebraska’s safe haven law protect children or contribute to their neglect?

It used to be one of the dominant decisions for consumers.

But as more and more supermarkets and other stores have phased out the use of so-called disposable plastic bags, a different environmental question still lingers: Paper or electronic? Bills, that is.

For many people, paying bills online is a no-brainer way to save time and resources. But millions of Americans continue to receive all their bills by mail, which they pay with paper checks, send with postage, and add to the handling of even more paper mail moving around the country.

It’s estimated that if every American household went paper-free for bill-paying the environmental impact would include

• Reducing solid waste in U.S. landfills by more than 800,000 tons a year
• Saving an estimated 18.5 million trees every year
• Curbing the release of greenhouse gases by 2.1 million tons a year

Some hard-copy holdouts cite security concerns in not going paperless. But others are unable or unwilling to cross a psychological barrier. “I choose to get and pay my bills by mail because it feels more substantial to me,” says a 30 year-old colleague who otherwise recycles and reduces elsewhere in her life. “I just don’t think it’s my responsibility to go paperless if it makes me feel insecure.”

Tell us what you think: Should you be responsible for reducing your carbon footprint by putting away the checkbook and paying bills electronically? When the environmentally responsible route makes you feel uneasy, is it personally responsible to override it?

Including your vote.

As stock markets around the world continue to nose-dive, an unusual futures market called Intrade is heating up, with global investors focused on one bet: the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

Unlike typical financial markets where profits are tied to a company’s growth, Intrade’s profits rise and fall on the results of political, cultural, and geological events—including weather. Traders buy and sell “contracts” that function like stocks.

But it’s not just investors who are keen on Intrade. Pundits and politicians routinely analyze it as they follow the McCain and Obama campaigns, trying to determine the probable winner before the actual vote. According to Congressional Quarterly Today, “experts have found that the Intrade market is generally more accurate in predicting the outcome of major events than other leading indicators, including public opinion polls.”

However, scholars of so-called predictive markets issued a caveat about Intrade: “The relatively small scale of the market and its lack of outside regulation could leave the system vulnerable to unscrupulous investors.”

Sure enough, a rogue trader on Intrade seems to have been responsible for mimicking Wall Street maneuvers by buying suspiciously large purchases of McCain futures to boost his standing in the race, while selling off blocks of Obama futures to lower the market’s predictions of his chances of winning. The manipulation left pollsters uncertain.

Tell us what you think: Does betting on political races irresponsibly sway votes? Is it more responsible to put your money where your mouth is and vote?

Actor Tate Donovan stars as Michael, a relentlessly responsible father. But the Tony at issue isn’t his son. It’s his son’s teddy bear. Or more vexingly, his 6-year-old son’s lost teddy bear.

And therein lies the crisis, the challenge, and the question: Can you ever be too responsible?

Certainly parents who make the ultimate sacrifice of taking a family trip to Disneyland can already claim to have done the right thing for the kids. So when Tony is lost on that trip, shouldn’t a replacement bear be good enough?

Watch Tony and see how one man’s dedication and determination to track a child’s inanimate toy takes on a life of its own and buoys the spirits of a most unlikely search party along the way, struggling to find a bear—and their own surprising new depths of personal responsibility.

For a discussion guide with questions, please click here.

When it comes to defining personal responsibility, many people say taking care of themselves and their family is at the very top of their list. Knowing their neighbors is at the bottom.

Those are some of the findings from our Responsibility Project Index, a poll of Americans across the country, undertaken to better understand your views about all things responsibility.

The vast majority of those polled—more than 70%—believe they’re more responsible today than in the past five years, with teachers, young Americans, married people, and African Americans giving themselves the highest rankings for personal responsibility.

And while we value personal responsibility, we don’t necessarily recognize it in others. An overwhelming number of Americans—74%—believe that many people have become less responsible. Could it be that we don’t really know those beyond our families and close friends? A whopping 85% of those polled believe we’re less connected with our neighbors today than 20 years ago.

It’s clear that we form communities differently now than in the past. Less talking over the backyard fence. More coming together online. That’s what hundreds of thousands of you have done by logging onto the ResponsibilityProject.com, to watch the films, read the blog, and take part in the ever-changing conversation about responsibility.

And while the Index tells us a little more about how we view responsibility from a statistical standpoint, the most valuable things we learn about responsibility are from each other. So thanks for your continued involvement in the Responsibility Project.

Tell us what you think: Do you think you’re more responsible now than you were five years ago? Do you believe most of the people around you are less responsible? Does knowing your neighbors matter any more?

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Twenty year-old Felicia Salazar admitted to a court that she failed to provide protection and medical treatment for her 19-month-old daughter. The baby was beaten by her father and suffered broken bones and other injuries. She recovered and is in foster care. The father was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

But when Salazar—who had no previous criminal record—appeared for sentencing, Judge Charlie Baird gave her a suspended prison sentence and 10 years probation with what he called the “reasonable condition” not to conceive or bear any more children during that time.

“She has a fundamental right to reproduce,” said the judge, “so I couldn’t order her to be sterilized. But she can be forced to forfeit certain fundamental rights.” The judge added that he is “not even preventing her from having intimate sexual relations. I’m only preventing her from becoming pregnant.”

Legal experts questioned the constitutionality of the sentence, while others debated its enforceability. “If Salazar becomes pregnant,” asked a law writer, “must she choose among concealing the pregnancy, abortion, or incarceration? Alternately, could Judge Baird order her to carry a pregnancy to term but then give the child up for adoption?”

The prosecutor, who had not sought the sentence, was surprised. “I think when the average person hears a story of a mom who failed to protect a child,” she said, “their instinct is that she doesn’t deserve to have a child. But we don’t get to decide that for her.”

Tell us what you think: In an effort to prevent future child abuse, should the court be responsible for deciding if a mother can have more children? What about the father in this case—should he be under court order not to father more children?

We’re truly busy, and mentoring a kid, teaching an adult to read, or lifting someone’s spirits at a nursing home takes time.

We don’t know how to use a hammer.

We’re not experts.

It’s not our responsibility.

Now, after years of quietly gathering speed, there’s a growing movement to elevate public service to national service and in the process, set up incentives and opportunities that make it easier for each person to help another in need. The goal is to make volunteering as fundamental as voting.

The concept of relying on all able citizens to give back has even garnered the support of both John McCain and Barack Obama. Each has promised, if elected president, to make national service a priority and to promote it as a unifying force for 21st century America.

The frustration expressed by many Americans—wanting to volunteer for something, but not knowing where to start—is now beginning to be addressed more widely, from corporations offering paid leave for employee volunteer service, to universities integrating a “service” year into students’ studies.

Even the federal government is trying to make it easier for Americans to roll up their sleeves and volunteer, with a proposed piece of federal legislation called the Serve America Act. Among other things, the Act proposes to establish five new national volunteer “corps” such as international service, disaster relief, green energy, education, and poverty, then train and link volunteers to the projects that suit them best.

One of the toughest obstacles to volunteering is finding the time, but it may be as easy as turning off the TV. Experts note that the biggest statistical distinction between volunteers and non-volunteers, is how much television they watch—15 hours a week for volunteers; 23 hours for non-volunteers. That mathematical difference—more than 400 hours a year—could make a world of difference from a volunteer.

Tell us what you think: Is volunteering a civic responsibility? Should government be involved in public service?

But are we also a nation that needs to pull up its pants?

A 17-year-old Florida boy was recently jailed overnight for violating a local “sagging pants” law after a police officer spotted him riding his bike with his pants slung low enough to reveal four or five inches of boxer shorts.

“Your Honor,” the boy’s public defender told the court, “We now have the fashion police.”

A Florida judge later declared the law unconstitutional, but that hasn’t deterred authorities in California, New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan, Texas and other jurisdictions from proposing or enacting similar measures, arguing that the sagging fashion is akin to indecent exposure.

The style of wearing over-sized pants that sag to reveal large expanses of underwear started in prisons, where big pants were issued with no belts. In the 1990’s, the look seeped into the popular culture—and under the skin of politicians and police.

“We’re not going to sit here and let that happen in Flint,” declared the police chief of Flint, Michigan, where wearers of saggy pants can be arrested “if the pants are at the knees and your underwear is exposed.” He calls the look “disorderly” and “immoral self-expression.”

The south Chicago suburb of Lynwood, which also bans the buns look, claims the fad has gone so far as to effect economic growth and discourage businesses from investing in Lynwood.

ACLU attorneys counter, calling the laws “idiotic” and arguing that “You can’t arrest people because of their style of dress.”

Tell us what you think: Should government be responsible for dictating what citizens can wear? Is publically exposing your underwear freedom of expression, indecent exposure, or your personal responsibility?

Not if you’re using Slydial.

As its name suggests, Slydial subverts the process of calling someone on their cell phone by routing the caller directly to the recipient’s voicemail. The service bypasses the usual ringing that alerts an incoming call, and thereby negates the chance—or risk—of having a conversation. A new message appears, but only after the fact.

Slydial describes the feat as “the illusion of communication without the hassle of engaging in a time-consuming conversation.” The company’s suggested uses for the service include these for college students: “breaking up with a significant other…juggling a hectic dating life…or calling home for cash.”

While there are other uses for Slydial—it’s good for shy people, someone pointed out, and for legitimately not interrupting the recipient—many question whether a tool that encourages users to avoid direct communication is a responsible use of technology.

“Talk, that most valuable human asset, is shunned,” explained a communications professor. “If these are the technology’s primary uses, it brings with it a world where conversation and community take a back seat to one’s immediate wants—a world where ‘me’ trumps ‘we.’”

A 26-year-old woman who used Slydial to break up with a man she’d been dating explained, “Text messaging someone ‘I would prefer not to see you again’ is really not my style. But at the same time, I wanted to avoid an awkward conversation.”

Some say a new trend has emerged: We are constantly just missing one another—on purpose, and are more interested in “broadcasting” information than in true conversational give-and-take.

“When I was growing up,” lamented one critic, “when the phone rang in the house, it was a big deal. You would have to get up to go answer the phone. And then you would have to stand next to the phone, because the phone was attached to the wall. You didn’t know who it was before you answered it. That was the exciting part. Who was calling? Will it be for me? Will it be a boy? Will it be Grandma calling long distance?

“Now the phone rings and you think, ‘Shoot, more talking. I’ve had enough talking. Can’t they just email?’”

Tell us what you think: Is it irresponsible to make a technological end-run around someone to avoid a difficult conversation? Where does our responsibility to talk to someone begin and end? Are we becoming a society more interested in “me” than “we”?

The kid, in this case, was 9-year-old Jericho Scott, who played summer baseball on a youth team in New Haven, Connecticut.

Jericho’s “crime” is his talent. He’s a pitching sensation who throws an awesome 40 mile-an-hour fastball that’s never hit a batter and rarely misses the plate. But the prodigy pitcher himself was struck out—by adults.

Parents of opposing team members first objected that their kids were unable to hit any of Jericho’s pitches. Strike one.

Then youth league officials wanted to move Jericho up to an older team, but his parents refused. Strike two.

League officials asked Jericho to play any position other than pitcher, but his parents said no again. Strike three.

Game over.

The league disbanded Jericho’s entire undefeated team, and the second place team was declared the season’s winner.

But the post-game show of who’s responsible for the collective benching of so many kids continues to play out across the country, with headlines that sound like…well…more lessons in parenting, like this one from Jericho’s hometown newspaper: Sometimes parent involvement can be way off-base, experts say.

Other adults were criticized, too. “The league obviously felt batters would suffer irreversible shame and humiliation if they had to face Jericho again,” wrote an Ohio sports reporter. “Tell me, how does that prepare kids for the real world? Haven’t we all encountered someone more skilled in our field, and haven’t we all survived?”

Ironically, the only person who stepped up to the plate to accept responsibility was perhaps the least culpable of all: Jericho, now 10 years old. “I feel sad,” he said. “I feel like it’s all my fault that nobody could play.”

Tell us what you think: Can a child be “too good” to play a game, and if so, does he or she have the responsibility to step aside? In the case of Jericho Scott, who’s more responsible for baseball’s abrupt ending—parents…league officials…Jericho?

For information about creating positive sports experiences for kids, log on to ResponsibleSports.com. Sponsored by Liberty Mutual, the site offers parents and coaches tips, tools, and advice designed to help maximize their kids’ youth sports experience. Parents can also take part in online discussions, asking questions and sharing experiences about how best to help kids apply the life lessons of sports—on and off the field. Because, as The Home Run reminds us, there’s more to the game than winning.

The study is about children and chores.

University of Maryland Professor Sandra Hofferth—who is an expert on how children use their time—reports that 6 to 12 year-olds now spend an average of only 24 minutes a day doing household chores. That’s a 12% drop from 1997, and a 25% skid since 1981.

The chore-defying dive reflects “important behavioral and values shifts that will affect lives for years to come,” says Dr. Hofferth.

Doing household chores as a child turns out to be a major predictor of whether an individual does volunteer or community work as an adult, according to sociologists, who note that housework is an important teaching tool. And when it comes to domestic bliss, the distribution of domestic duties—grounded in childhood chores—can make or break a marriage.

According to experts, children’s chores are declining in part because they’re spending more time on reading, studying, and other activities. But even their parental role models are doing less work around the house, hiring help instead or simply letting chores chill.

Within days of the news that chore times had dropped like the Dow, a new website called NannysCircle.com began promoting itself as a novel solution to motivating kids by making a “virtual” game of chores. Instead of nagging Junior to feed the dog, parents log on and send a virtual note, which their child retrieves from his virtual room. In real life, the child supposedly feeds the dog, then emails his parents that the task has been completed.

But success may come at the expense of another domestic chore: parent-child communication. “You see the appeal,” wrote a reporter about the website. “Parenting, a messy series of weary battles that never seem to lead anywhere, becomes something that can be checked off and filed. No back talk. Just hit ‘send.’”

Tell us what you think: Should children be responsible for doing more chores? Are chore-less children really responsible for failed marriages and fewer volunteers? As a responsible parent, would you turn over chore supervision to a computer?

But if you only want a temporary friend, should you rent a dog?

Jackpot, Pirate, and Tango are among the pooches available to lease by the hour or the day from Flexpetz, a dog rental company with offices in Los Angeles, New York and London.

While some upscale hotels have lent dogs to guests over the years, Flexpetz is making a business out of it. For a $99 administration charge, a $99 monthly membership fee, and a $150 mandatory training and orientation session, a customer can rent as many dog day afternoons as desired, for an additional $45 each.

Who rents a dog? People who travel a lot, people who live in places that don’t allow pets, and people like 26 year-old Sarah Stevenson, who moved to New York from Scotland. “It’s been difficult for me to meet people because everyone in New York just kind of goes about their business,” Stevenson lamented. But when she’s out walking a rented cockapoo named Oliver, “It becomes a nice way to meet people.”

Flexpetz says all of their dogs—some of which were rescued from animal shelters—wear GPS tracking collars and are fed “holistic dog food.” But that’s not enough to stop some critics from howling fowl over what they say is the unacceptable promotion of dogs as accessories.

The company was banned in Boston after the City Council unanimously passed an ordinance making dog letting illegal. “To rent a dog just seems wrong,” said one legislator. “I’m not for legislating morality, but it just seems like cruel and unusual treatment of a poor, defenseless animal.” A Boston newspaper editorial took issue with what it saw as people who “want the comfort of a pet, but not the full-time responsibility.”

“Pets are not like cars or furniture,” the Humane Society says. “Moving them from person to person, home to home, can induce problems such as anxiety and depression.”

But a psychologist counters that people who want to borrow a dog usually just want some companionship. “It may be a short bond,” he said, “but it’s a real bond.”

Tell us what you think: Is it irresponsible to rent a dog?

At issue are the increasing number of hurricane “hold-outs” who refuse to leave their homes, even in the face of mandatory evacuation orders and National Weather Service warnings of “certain death.”

Some stay because they are elderly, infirm, or have no place to go. Others say evacuating is too “expensive”—they can’t afford to fix a broken car and don’t have money for gas anyway.

“You need to be scared,” implored New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, as Hurricane Gustav bore down on the city. But even his Category 5 language—“You need to get your butts out of New Orleans now”—had little bearing on people determined to stay.

The most defiant group of hold-outs includes those who hunker down to protect their property from forces other than nature. “I am staying here because of what happened to my pub when Katrina rolled in—looting and mindless destruction,” explained a New Orleans bar owner who ignored Gustav’s mandatory evacuation order. “I will probably stay until someone with a rifle and uniform shows up.”

And that’s what worries authorities—when someone’s personal decision to ride out a hurricane goes awry, other lives are put on the line, most notably, rescue workers. As Hurricane Ike hit its Texas bulls-eye, thousands of bold hold-outs who had stubbornly stayed suddenly swamped emergency dispatchers with frightened pleas for help.

Galveston’s city manager described the situation as “very frustrating,” while a newspaper editorial plunged right into the swelling question of personal responsibility and hurricanes “It is usually thought of as a strong and noble character trait identifying one’s ability to manage his or her own affairs responsibly. But in the wake of Hurricane Ike, it has proven to ally with sheer stupidity.”

Tell us what you think: Is your greater responsibility to the law, or to personally protecting your home and possessions? Whose responsibility is it if someone dies in defiance of a government order to evacuate from a storm?

Then Google came along and flipped the format, allowing so much information to be amassed before meeting someone that the encounter itself was sometimes obsolete.

Now there’s CriminalSearches.com, a new online service that invites users to type in the name of any adult, anywhere in the U.S., and search to see if the person has a criminal record. For free.

“Do you really know who people are?” CriminalSearches asks, urging users to run criminal background checks on nannies, neighbors, teachers, acquaintances, locksmiths and even “hedge fund managers.”

Besides searching by name, users can also type their addresses into the “Sex Offender Finder” and the “Neighborhood Watch” feature, both of which produce maps that reveal crimes and identities of people in the neighborhood—the burglar down the block, the drug dealer around the corner, and the sex offender on the route to school.

But the site “contains some mistakes,” reports The New York Times. “Some records are incomplete, and there is often no way to distinguish between people with the same names if you don’t know their birthdays (and even that date is often missing).”

When a Times reporter ran the name of a colleague through CriminalSearches, the system reported a “criminal offense.” It turned out to be a speeding ticket. “I went to traffic school so this wouldn’t appear on my record,” the stunned colleague explained. “I’m in shock.”

Tell us what you think: How do you balance the right to know with the responsibility to be accurate when it comes to criminal background checks? Do you have a responsibility for how you use personal information you find online? Should everyone be allowed to access anyone’s personal legal history, whether or not it’s criminal?

It’s teacher’s pistol.

In an effort to deter a Columbine-like school massacre, the local school board recently decreed that teachers could carry concealed weapons at school and in the classrooms, the first school in the U.S. to do so.

“Country people are take-care-of-yourself-people,” explained school superintendent David Thweatt. “They’re not under the illusion that the police are there to protect them.”

The nearest police are based 17 miles away. Lacking funds to hire security guards, the school board decided that letting teachers carry guns would result in better security anyway, since an attacker wouldn’t know who might shoot him.

Harrold’s school—which houses about one hundred students from kindergarten to high school—has a card-swipe security entry system as well as screening for visitors. But Mr. Thweatt, who calls himself as “a contingency planner,” says gun-free schools are simply targets for attack. “That’s like saying sic ’em to a dog,” he said.

The armed teachers have received mandatory firearms training and will use special bullets designed to reduce ricocheting—in this case, off chalk boards and desks.

Though “Don’t Mess With Texas” has long been a state mantra, making gun-toting teachers responsible for school security has some critics up in arms. “They are not trained to make life and death decisions,” said one Harrold resident. “There are too many things that could happen.”

“It’s a disaster waiting to happen,” said a Houston teacher’s association official. “It’s up there with the worst ideas in the history of education.”

Tell us what you think: Should teachers be responsible for providing school security by carrying guns? Schools are expected to protect their students, but where does a teacher’s responsibility end?

But when a political pollster or survey taker asks, do you have a responsibility to tell the truth about who you’re voting for?

Approximately 10% of Americans admit they’ve lied to pollsters. In a close election, a 10% false answer rate is more than enough to confuse pundits, confound candidates, and contradict a predicted outcome, especially in the current presidential race.

“This election is exceptionally tricky,” says one pollster.

Perhaps the only thing that is predictable is what people lie about. “They’re not candid on questions about sex, violence in the house, a whole range of things that are tough to talk about,” says Andy Kohut, Director of the Pew Research Center. They’re also not candid about race and age. “People don’t want to be stigmatized,” Kohut explains.

But researchers found that when people answer survey questions privately online, they’re less likely to lie than when they’re questioned by an interviewer, because they tend to say what they think the interviewer wants to hear.

In an experiment, 58% of those surveyed told a phone interviewer they exercise regularly. But when the same question was asked privately online, only 35% made the same claim. The oscillating honesty factor continued across a range of personal topics. 56% told an interviewer they regularly attend religious services, but when they answered privately online, that number dropped to only 25%. And when asked about drinking, 39% told an interviewer they had alcohol in the last week, but online, 53% ’fessed up.

Many political pollsters say they’re taking precautions and adding questions about age and race to current surveys in an effort to better predict the outcome of the November elections. But one expert has a reminder of why we shouldn’t be so surprised when the predictions don’t match the vote, saying, “That’s what anonymous voting allows.”

Tell us what you think: Do you have a responsibility to tell the truth to pollsters? Have you ever mislead a survey taker with inaccurate information? How and why?

The city of Los Angeles recently sank its teeth into the issue by banning any new fast food restaurants from opening in a 32-square-mile area of low-income South Central LA for at least one year.

South Central has the city’s highest concentration of fast food outlets—and the highest rates of diabetes and obesity. 30% of adults in the area are overweight. Saturated by food that experts link to health problems, and with few supermarkets or green grocers offering healthier food and fresh produce, the area has been labeled a ‘food desert.”

The goal of the moratorium is to stop the fast food clock while the city tries to attract grocery stores, sit-down restaurants and other fresh food sources to set up shop in the neighborhood.

But do the new regulations serve up food for thought, or food police?

The intent is not to crush food choices, says the city councilwoman who sponsored the initiative, but to encourage variety and more nutritious options. Supporters of the ban say making healthy decisions about food is difficult when low income residents must choose between the nearest grocery store five miles away or a cheap cheeseburger from around the corner.

Critics of the measure say legislating eating habits won’t work. “Limiting people’s food options is not really the way to go,” says a prominent community leader. “Nor is the role of government to tell people what they should or should not be eating. French fries aren’t contraband.” Opponents also scoff at the suggestion that residents are “intellectually incapable” of deciding what to eat.

The fast food industry says the moratorium is misguided. “What’s next?” asked a spokesperson. “Security guards at the door saying ‘You’re overweight, you can’t have a cheeseburger’?”

The food-and-government debate is being played out far beyond South Central LA as states and cities across the country seek to limit other food choices by banning trans fats in restaurants and bakeries and mandating that calorie counts and nutritional information be publically posted.

“But let’s face it,” said a West Virginia newspaper editorial, “until egg-white omelets are cheaper and tastier than doughnuts, it will remain a gargantuan challenge.”

Tell us what you think: Are food choices a personal responsibility or a matter of public health? Should government ever have the right to dictate what you should or shouldn’t eat?

A parent.

Worse than poison ivy, today’s camp parents are itching to control every aspect of their children’s daily lives at camp very place meant to teach independence and responsibility away from Mom and Dad.

“It kills them not to know that Johnny’s on the basketball court right now, or in the bathroom, or changing his shirt,” says a camp association executive. “Parents expect a totally different kind of communication than they did years ago.”

And at so-called “high end” sleep-away camps—which charge $10,000 summer “tuition”—parents get special treatment from a “parent coordinator,” one of whom describes her job as “almost like a hotel concierge listening to a client’s needs.”

Those needs often include parents’ demands for instant access to their kids, through webcams, cell phones, texting and email. Some parents try to bypass camp directors entirely by smuggling cell phones to their children in hollowed-out books or sewn into stuffed animals. Camp counselors and administrators—in addition to their primary job of looking after their young charges—spend hours each day taking and posting pictures of kids for their high-maintenance parents.

“I have parents calling and saying they saw their child in the background of a picture of other children and he didn’t look happy, or his face looked red, has he been putting on enough suntan lotion, or I haven’t seen my child and I have seen a lot of other children, is my child so depressed he doesn’t want to be in a picture?” says a long-time camp director.

Why the increase in parents-gone-wild? “Nobody goes to school for how to send your child away from you,” explains a parent liaison, noting that in a post-9/11 world, parents need help to “become independent.” In fact, says another camp director, homesick campers aren’t nearly as big a problem as “kid-sick” parents.

Tell us what you think: Should summer camps return to the days of no cameras, no cell phones, no parents? Do parents have a right to know how their kids are spending their time away from home?

But should sportsmanship be more important than winning, even at the Olympics?

Yes, says the International Fair Play Committee, a little-known organization dedicated to rewarding altruistic athletes who believe that fairness is “more important than winning at all costs.”

As an affiliate of the International Olympic Committee, Fair Play hands out awards each year to self-sacrificing athletes, in addition to athletically responsible kids and coaches. Any organization or individual can nominate someone for a prize.

But Fair Play has a problem. They get very few nominations. And though the Olympic Committee made a special public plea for more, recommendations haven’t exactly been pole-vaulting in, even during the Olympic Games.

Fair Play’s president thinks there’s a reason why fairness can’t compete “Victory is a huge motivation,” he explained. “A great number of people make money off athletes. Sports federations, commercial sponsors—everyone pressures them to get to the top. Athletes live under threat.”

Olympic-sized questions of poor sportsmanship aren’t difficult to find.

• The angry Swedish wrestler who disdained and discarded his bronze medal on the floor during the awards ceremony was disqualified for “violating the spirit of fair play at the Games.”

• Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt was criticized by the president of the Olympic Committee for showing a lack of respect to his competitors with his chest-thumping, show-boating gold medal wins.

• When U.S. tennis player James Blake lost to Chile’s Fernando Gonzalez after a match that included a questionable call, Blake accused his opponent of being flat-out dishonorable. “Maybe I shouldn’t expect people to hold themselves to high standards [of] sportsmanship,” he said. “Maybe I did expect a little more out of the Olympics.”

But behind the disappointing headlines, acts of responsible sportsmanship have also played out, albeit more quietly. Dara Torres failed to get the gold, but she didn’t fail to help a Swedish competitor whose swimsuit tore just before her competition. Wildly waiving her arms to get the officials’ attention, Torres delayed the start of the race so her opponent could have a fair chance.

And when aquatic superhero Michael Phelps earned his seventh gold medal by a breathtaking hundredth of a second over second-place Serb swimmer Milorad Cavic, the win was immediately protested by Serbia. But in an unusual gesture of sportsmanship, silver medalist Cavic said, “If it was up to me right now, I would just stop the protest. “I’m not angry. I’m stoked. I’m happy. You’ve got to understand I came into this competition with a goal to win a bronze medal.”

Tell us what you think: Do Olympic athletes have a responsibility beyond winning or doing their best for their country? Should the priority be sportsmanship first, winning second? Which Olympic athletes do you think should be awarded for upholding the standards of fair play?

The slacker.

The loud-mouth in the adjacent cubicle.

The person who leaves the paper jam in the photo copier.

And then there are the rest of us, who like to think of ourselves as responsible.

Except when it comes to a certain chair.

Hot Seat takes us on a hilarious comic roll with the wobbly, broken, reject chair that seems to inhabit every office, clandestinely dumped from the last annoyed worker onto the next unsuspecting colleague, in an endless orbit of not-my-responsibility.

The animated office in Hot Seat is populated by whimsical, bustling rabbits, working away in a warren of cubicles. All is well until the dreaded wobbler chair—lopsided and tipping because of a missing wheel—starts lurking like a land shark, unloaded by one sneaky rabbit onto another and then another.

As the chair gets passed, so too does the buck. Is it no one’s responsibility? Is it everyone’s? Switched and ditched throughout the office, the broken chair logs more miles than a frequent flier, until the situation reaches crisis proportions.

Only when the fur flies do the rabbits realize how far off track the broken chair has taken them, and what they must do to glide back to their tranquil four-wheeling environment.

Pull up a chair—if you dare—for Hot Seat and see how true office chair-ity begins in every cubicle.

For a discussion guide with questions, please click here.

The director of Hot Seat came back from a break one day to find that her perfectly decent office chair had been replaced with an imperfectly indecent one.

Broken. Alarmingly fuchsia-colored.

So low to the ground it wouldn’t roll.

But where some people find irritation, Janet found inspiration. In this case, the chair switch-a-roo was the genius genesis for Hot Seat industrious rabbits, who must come to terms with their own carrot-and-chair calamity.

Don’t worry about Janet, though. She traded in her broken seat for one with a better fit—the director’s chair.

Responsibility Project: This film clearly focuses around the notion of office etiquette – why did you choose this topic?

Janet: The office is an environment that everyone can identify with, and a good setting for animation. Rows of cubicles with unrelated people (or rabbits) who have to interact can lead to interesting conflicts.

Responsibility Project: How long did it take to make this film, from start to finish?

Janet: Development of the idea, and working out the story kinks took about six weeks. The animation, coloring and backgrounds took about six months.

Responsibility Project: Can you walk us through the process?

Janet: I started with rough sketches of characters and the environment, and a written story treatment. I then developed the story, along with the central characters, and from there drew up a storyboard. The frames were scanned into the computer to create an animatic, which had each scene timed out, and a few sound effects. From there all the animation was drawn right in the computer using a program called “Toon Boom”. Backgrounds were created in Photoshop, and the scenes were colored and combined with the backgrounds in Toon Boom. I edited as I went along, retiming and reworking the scenes as needed.

Responsibility Project: How many different people were involved in the making of this film?

Janet: Four other people helped with coloring, animation and backgrounds. Everything was done over the internet, with the work being done in Los Angeles and Montréal. There were several others involved in digital compositing and sound.

Responsibility Project: Why did you decide to use bunnies as the main characters?

Janet: I guess I was just in a rabbity mood. I think the rabbits fit nicely into the office environment.

Responsibility Project: What do you hope people will think or feel after watching this?

Janet: I hope that people will have fun with the silliness of the story, but also recognize that the situation is not so different from real life. Maybe they will wonder what they would do in a similar situation, or think about being considerate to their neighbors. Maybe one of them is the one that took my chair and will feel remorse.

Responsibility Project: What project are you working on next?

Janet: I am finishing a children’s book called “The Delicious Bug”, which is based on the film Dinner For Two also being shown as part of The Responsibility Project.

I have been developing an adult animated series called “Penguins Behind Bars”– a dark and funny prison series featuring a cast of vixen she-penguins. Hopefully it will be picked up by broadcasters and we will produce it.

But do you have the right to bare underwear—or sheets, shirts, socks, and the rest of your laundry—on an outdoor clothesline on your private property?

Perhaps not, if you’re one of tens of millions of Americans who live in houses and condos governed by local homeowners associations, many of which ban outdoor clotheslines for aesthetic reasons.

There’s more on the line than laundry, which the associations contend is responsible for lower property values.

“When realtors show a home, as a buyer do you want to see clothes hanging in the backyard of the neighboring home?” asks a supporter of the ban. “Or if clotheslines are allowed, what if a homeowner chooses to leave the same clothes hanging for weeks on end?”

But where some see an eyesore flapping in the breeze, others see an answer blowing in the wind. According to the Right to Dry movement, clothes dryers account for five to ten per cent of residential electricity use, second only to refrigerators. Line drying allows environmentally responsible consumers to reduce their energy use and save money.

“Everybody has to do their laundry,” says a proponent of the movement. “The clothesline is beautiful, gorgeous, sentimental and nostalgic for many.”

And the clothesline has become the focus of protective legislation. Florida, Utah, and Colorado have enacted laws upholding their citizens’ right to dry. Seven other states are considering similar safeguards.

That the clothesline would be hung out to dry as an unsightly endangered species has left many people scratching their heads and putting their thoughts on the line. “We see clothes, including underwear, in stores all the time, and no one I heard was offended,” said one. “What’s the worst that can happen hanging laundry?” asked another. “Heaven forbid you might actually have to talk to a neighbor hanging theirs.” And this: “I believe that we all have to take some responsibility in ‘cutting back’ and ‘going green.’ It just seems that a ban on clotheslines is a step backward and shows irresponsibility on the part of the homeowner’s associations.”

Tell us what you think: Should outdoor clotheslines be banned as irresponsible, view-ruining relics of the past? Should you show greater responsibility to a homeowner’s association or to what you think is best for your family and the environment? Where do we draw the line—if clotheslines can be banned for aesthetic reasons, what about pink flamingos, holiday decorations, and other personal public displays?

It’s the current mantra of environmental responsibility.

Many consumers have reduced their primary footprint by making changes in their daily lives, like shrinking electricity use, switching to more energy efficient light bulbs at home, and cutting back—or cutting out—driving a car.

Consumers who want to reduce their so-called secondary footprint have to make tougher decisions about products and services beyond their daily control, weighing the whole lifecycle of the things they consume, as well as the environmental practices of the businesses they deal with.

But in many cases, going green costs green—and raises a question about whether consumers should be responsible for paying the price of reducing a business’s carbon hoof marks.

Some small businesses are now asking their customers to pay extra to help them, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing a San Francisco engineering firm that tacks a modest surcharge on to every bill to help pay for the company’s own renewable energy credits as a way of reducing its carbon footprint.

So far, no customer has refused to pay the extra fee. “I think they would feel too guilty,” said the CEO.

But the answers were very different when the Journal posed this question to its readers: “Would you mind paying extra to help a business reduce its carbon footprint?”

“Yes, I would mind,” one person wrote. “I do not ask you to pay for my charity work. It is pretty arrogant and self-righteous to ‘slip’ that into the bill.” Another reader was also opposed: “I would not pay something to someone to do something they should morally be doing anyway.” And there was this more business-like response: “Couldn’t they just bill more and not charge a separate fee?

Tell us what you think: Should consumers be financially responsible for helping businesses go green? Where does personal responsibility end and business responsibility begin when it comes to the cost of helping the environment?

That’s the most common response law professor David Cole gets when he calls on disengaged students during class at Georgetown University. The question, Cole says, “is usually asked while the student glances up from the laptop screen that otherwise occupies his or her field of vision.”

The laptop—the favorite in-class tool for college and university students across the country—is coming unplugged.

When used responsibly—for taking notes or quickly accessing research—a laptop provides valuable educational support. But when used irresponsibly—for watching YouTube, surfing the web, emailing, IM-ing, playing games, checking sports scores, and shopping for shoes instead of engaging in class — laptops become the scourge of professors, some of whom are now banning them, especially in law schools.

“I was happy to compete with Minesweeper and solitaire,” said University of Michigan law professor Don Herzog, but not “the entire internet.” Herzog banned all laptops from his classes for a day, and was so “stunned by how much better the class was,” that he has vowed to make the embargo permanent in the fall.

Professor Herzog is not alone in his class action.

At Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, professors have nixed classroom laptops as well. At the University of Chicago Law School, classroom Wi-Fi was recently cut in response to an “epidemic” of web browsing. And at UCLA School of Law, when the meandering minds of the country’s future lawyers need to be jolted back from cyberspace to the Socratic method, professors can activate a “kill switch” to disable classroom Wi-Fi.

Many students disdain their professors’ attempts at online mind control, saying if classes weren’t so boring, they wouldn’t look for so many distractions. Ann Althouse, a professor from the University of Wisconsin Law School agrees with the students. “The idea that we’re going to somehow save these students from being distracted is a bit absurd,” she said. “Especially in law school, I’m on the side of individual responsibility and freedom.”

Tell us what you think: Should students be busted down for booting up in class? Should professors be responsible for making lectures and classes interesting enough to hold students’ attention? Do students have a responsibility to pay attention?

When a student or professor uses brain enhancement drugs, he or she is likely to be called smart and focused.

Is chemically boosting your brain for an unfair advantage over competitors the same as chemically boosting your body for an edge to beat others? That’s the question at the center of a new debate about drugs and cheating.

Originally prescribed for people with medical conditions like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy, brain enhancement drugs such as Ritalin and Provigil are increasingly being used by students preparing for a test and academics and other professionals gearing up for that big presentation.

Users of the drugs say they are able to focus more intensely, work faster, and be more creative.

So what’s the matter with grey matter boosting? Plenty, say critics of the practice. “The original purpose of medicine is to heal the sick, not turn healthy people into gods,” says biotech author Francis Fukuyama, cautioning that the increasing use of brain-boosting drugs could unfairly create a new category of haves and have-nots. He and other critics question whether the continued use of the drugs for the purpose of mental advantage will change the connection between human struggle and human character-building.

Others see less profound implications, as well as a distinction between brain doping and body doping. “I think the analogy with sports doping is really misleading,” says neuro-psychologist Martha Farah, “because in sports it’s all about competition…who’s the best runner or home run hitter.” For students or academics, Dr. Farah says, “there is an element of competition, but it’s secondary. The main purpose is to try to learn things, to get experience, to write papers, to do experiments. So in that case if you can do it better because you’ve got some drug on board, that would on the face of things seem like a plus.”

Doctors note that the drugs can be addictive and can produce side effects including restlessness and irritability.

But a participant in a radio talk show questioned all the hubbub “Who hasn’t had coffee or cola before an exam or important meeting? The main issue should be whether the substance is safe. If people can do a better job by eating a good breakfast or taking a drug, who should complain?”

Tell us what you think: Should chemical brain doping be considered unethical, just as body doping is? Is it fair for some students to gain an advantage over others by taking brain-boosters before a test like the SAT?

Dogs on downers.

Pets on Prozac.

Fido has a new medicine chest. And though it’s still stocked with worm and flea treatments, it increasingly includes medications that were originally developed for humans. On the front shelf: behavior modification and “lifestyle” drugs, now for pets.

Is your dog overweight? The first canine obesity drug is available to help him slim down. Is your dog lonely? “Reconcile” was developed to help man’s best friend deal with separation anxiety when man has to leave his best friend alone all day. The drug works like Prozac, though the doggie version is chewable and tastes like beef. Is your pooch having “senior moments?” There’s a pill for that too—the same medication used to treat Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases in humans.

Are pets mimicking their owners’ behavioral and lifestyle problems?

“All of the behavioral issues that we have created in ourselves, we are now creating in our pets,” says Dr. Nicholas Dodman, founder of the Tufts University Animal Behavior Clinic, “because they live in the same unhealthy environments that we do.”

According to a New York Times article titled “Pill-Popping Pets,” Dr. Dodman’s theory suggests that humans and their pets share similar causes for what ails them. “Whether cubicle or cage-bound, we get too little exercise; we don’t hunt, run or play enough to produce naturally mood-elevating neurochemicals.”

And the new prescription treatments, The Times says, are sometimes more for the convenience of owners than they are for the health of the pets.

Modern owners are increasingly trying to “sterilize” pet ownership, says veterinarian and animal behavior specialist Ian Dunbar. “What people want is a pet that is on par with a TiVo, that its activity, play and affection are on demand,” Dr. Dunbar says. “Then, when they’re done, they want to turn it off.”

“In the wild, the dog’s major activity is looking for food,” Dr. Dunbar explains. “What most owners do is they feed the dog in the bowl, and within two minutes you’ve stolen his raison d’etre. So now the dog is looking for activity, which we label ‘trouble’ and diagnose as all sorts of things like compulsion and separation anxiety.”

Tell us what you think: Are we responsible for making our pets fat…driving them to despair…making them lose their minds? Could it be that when we look at our pets, we see a bit too much of ourselves?

But a recent public admission from former tennis great Andrea Jaeger was startling for very different reasons. Jaeger said she purposely allowed Martina Navratilova to beat her in the 1983 Wimbledon final. And her rationale for doing so involved an ethical decision virtually unheard of in the competitive arena of pro sports.

“I went on the court in complete peace,” said Jaeger, “knowing that giving the match away was the right thing to do.”

Jaeger was 18 at the time, and unbeknownst to many people, she harbored a strong dislike for the ruthlessness of pro tennis. She also had a deep devotion to God and an overwhelming desire to help kids in need. She prayed secretly and played competitively. “I really didn’t want to be world number one,” she said, “but who do you have that conversation with when you’re young and number two in the world? It’s not something people want to hear.”

The day before the Wimbledon match, Jaeger had a fight with her father/manager over—among other things—a bag of potato chips she ate. She ran to the apartment next door to call a taxi to escape the paternal wrath. The apartment was occupied by Navratilova, whose trainer let the distraught Jaeger in. Navratilova looked at Jaeger, who was visibly upset, then turned away without saying a word or offering help.

The indifference hurt Jaeger. But she also believed she had unfairly jeopardized Navratilova’s concentration in preparation for the match. “I had to make it right,” Jaeger said, not wanting her off-court actions to trigger an opponent’s loss.

So Jaeger decided that intentionally losing the match to Navratilova was the right thing to do. “During the match, I missed balls on purpose,” Jaeger said. “I hit right to Martina.” Winning at Wimbledon, she said, “meant more to Martina anyway.”

Two years later, she suffered a career-ending shoulder injury.

Today, Andrea Jaeger is no longer a tennis player. She is Sister Andrea, a Dominican nun in the Episcopal Church. Her days are dedicated to helping kids suffering from cancer, neglect, and poverty through the Little Star Foundation, a charity she founded with her tennis winnings.

“I’ve always been called to help those in need,” she said. “It’s just been in my soul since I was a child. I think that’s why I struggled so much on the tennis circuit, because you have to be selfish to succeed in an individual sport.”

Tell us what you think: Is there a place for extreme ethics in the extreme world of pro sports? Is deliberately losing the right thing to do? Instead of throwing the match, do you think Andrea Jaeger should have dropped out and told the world why?

When role models fall in the field of sports, what do you tell the kids?

The story of Josh Hamilton, says a chorus of sports reporters. “Maybe you’ve heard it before,” wrote one. “Some stories are worth hearing again.”

Hamilton is the comeback story of the year, a baseball center fielder for the Texas Rangers who hit an amazing 28 home runs in the first round of the recent Home Run Derby at Yankee Stadium. But more amazing is the fact that Hamilton had previously been banned from baseball because he was addicted to crack cocaine.

For three years, Hamilton fed his habit and starved his career. Then one day he showed up at his grandmother’s door and experienced the kind of epiphany that fans love. “He saw something in her eyes that made him choose life over drugs and alcohol,” said a reporter. “Baseball is a game of second chances.” And eight attempts at rehab, in Hamilton’s case.

But it was Hamilton’s love of baseball that ultimately saved him, the crack of a bat stronger than crack cocaine. “Addiction is such a big thing,” Hamilton said. “Any time somebody comes up and tells me that my story has inspired them, it lets me know that’s what it’s about.”

On the night of the 28 homers, four teenagers chosen by a national children’s charity happily retrieved the balls that didn’t sail out of the park. “I think the highlight for everyone was cheering on Josh Hamilton,” said a representative of the charity, who noted that the kids were inspired by the power hitter because he overcame adversity.

Tell us what you think: Does every fallen sports hero deserve a second chance? Who does? Who doesn’t?

But does a responsible mom also pack a gun?

The question was recently raised on the website BabyCenter, which chronicles all things motherhood, from conception to inconceivably picky eaters and back-talking three year olds.

On the site, a mom blogger described the terrifying experience of a mother who was attacked at home in a safe neighborhood by a rapist with a gun. The woman fought, the attacker fled, and the blogger posed a question: “Do you think that every mother should own a gun?”

The point-blank debate about point-blank defense revealed that some moms are packing heat.

“I carry a Keltec 380 (small pistol) on my hip everyday,” revealed a mother of a one year old and a two year old. “I feel comfortable knowing that I will be able to defend my kids and I if we are in a life-threatening situation.”

Another mother—eight months pregnant and with a toddler—wrote that her husband works the night shift, and “our gun is the only way I could defend myself and my children should someone intend to do us harm.”

And there was this disclosure from a police officer mom: “I keep a loaded 9mm in my Coach diaper bag.”

Suddenly, it seems, mothers with guns are everywhere—movie star moms included. Recent news reports quote actress Angelina Jolie as saying she keeps a gun at home for security, and that “if anybody comes into my home and tries to hurt my kids, I’ve no problem shooting them.”

Tell us what you think: Should a mother’s responsibility to protect her children include having a gun?

Especially in summer.

‘Tis the season for cranking up the air conditioning, as shops and stores across the country blast arctic air out their front doors, wide open, non stop.

But if you embrace the door-busting chill, are you a cool customer or an unwitting accomplice to an irresponsible environmental crime?

“It’s about as wasteful an energy practice as one can imagine,” says an environmental attorney about running ACs full throttle with exterior doors open. “It’s like leaving the gasoline station pumps gushing fuel whether the vehicles are filling up or not.”

In New York City, where the mega-consumption of electricity in hot weather can lead to blackouts, brownouts, and assorted other meltdowns, some citizens are aghast at doors agape, with cold air “pouring wastefully, senselessly—outrageously—onto the sidewalk”, as one newspaper columnist described it.

Consumers who confront store clerks about squandering energy are invariably dismissed with the most frigid of responses: “It’s company policy.” A city councilwoman introduced legislation to stop the practice, saying businesses won’t do the right thing unless the law forces them. Her proposal includes fines of $200 for each open door or window. But the initiative lacks the support of the mayor, who believes it’s not the city’s responsibility to force cold change.

That has left residents who see red to act green on their own, going to offending establishments and closing the doors. The super-heated debate could lead to a slippery slope, cautions a University of Toronto psychologist. People waste energy in all sorts of ways, he said. “Should there be a law against leaving the lights on unnecessarily?”

Tell us what you think: Should wasting energy be illegal? If it’s not cool to crank out cold air, who’s responsible for shutting the door?

“I was 14 the first time I got falling down drunk”, Time Magazine reporter John Cloud admits in a recent article examining underage drinking. Back then, Cloud says, such antics were viewed as a “right of passage.” Today, however, an increase in the number of young hard-core drinkers has heightened concern. So is it time for parents to take a different approach toward kids and alcohol?

“At first it sounds a little nutty,” Cloud says, “but you might consider drinking with your kids.”

Drinking with your kids at home, Cloud writes—which he cautions is not the same as buying them alcohol for a party—is “a good way to teach responsible drinking behavior.”

The idea is to present alcohol not as an “alluring risk,” but as part of ordinary family life.

Addiction expert and psychologist Stanton Peele says he started giving his daughter “a few sips” of alcohol as a child at family meals. The key, Peele says, is not to make “a big deal about it.” When the girl turned 16, she was allowed to have a full glass of whatever the adults were drinking. “A second glass probably doesn’t make sense,” Peele explained, “but making hard-and-fast rules creates the sense that alcohol is some magical potion.”

But for many families, “demystifying” alcohol by consuming it with their teenagers may produce a parenting hang-over. And there is additional concern that alcohol could hurt teens’ developing brains.

Tell us what you think: Can parents teach responsibility by drinking with their kids?

Chase, Siearra, Jenna, and Carlos are all students. And all wise beyond their years. Of various ages and disparate backgrounds, these kids nevertheless share a common denominator: each has taken on a measure of personal responsibility. Some small, some big.

No one demanded their actions. No one told them how to proceed. They simply saw a challenge and stepped up to the plate. With matter-of-fact eloquence, the four students deliver a profound lesson for the rest of us: There is no age requirement for doing the right thing.

Many people who face adversity see an insurmountable dead-end. These kids saw a garden and made responsibility grow.

Growing Up was created by Geoffrey O’Connor, Paul Speaker & Ken Yagoda.

For a discussion guide with questions, please click here.

Yes, say three men in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The men—all city-employed water department workers—were on the job when they discovered an abandoned safe at the side of a road. The safe had been stolen by robbers who broke through the wall of a local bank during a winter ice storm.

Inside was $11,000, credit cards, several bags of blank traveler’s checks, some presumably valuable watches, and bank records.

The three workers notified authorities of their find, and the stolen safe was returned to the bank.

But the story didn’t end there. Two of the three workers told the local newspaper they felt they hadn’t been properly thanked—by the city or the bank—and suggested that virtue might not be its own reward.

“We did the right thing,” said the 62-year-old supervisor of the group. “No one even knew that we were out there, and we (still) kept the money secure.”

Another of the men said, “We did the right thing, but are the other people doing the right thing? That’s my question to the bank.”

In response, the bank manager and the mayor offered thanks, but newspaper readers offered criticism. In a letter to the editor, one wondered, “Would they have not done it if they had known they wouldn’t get the proper praise or reward?” Another reader wrote, “They did the right thing. But do we have to be rewarded for doing the right thing?”

Tell us what you think: Should the men have been financially rewarded by the bank? If you found valuable property belonging to a bank or other company, but you knew in advance you wouldn’t be rewarded for its return, would that change the way you dealt with your find?

This is one of the best family movies of the summer, a refreshingly wholesome story with a winning heroine, an absorbing story, and a touching conclusion. The details of the era, including the harsh financial circumstances, are vivid but gently conveyed. And like all good stories, it creates an excellent opportunity for family conversation about the factors to consider in making responsible choices. Some of the questions families might want to consider are:

Who in the movie best demonstrated responsibility? Which characters did the most to help others?

Why were some of the characters in the movie ashamed of being poor? Why were others not ashamed?

Will made an unusual choice to help Countee. Do you think it was the right one?

Why did Miss Bond change her mind?

Why did Kit trust Will? Why did she trust Miss Bond?

Kit has to do some things that are very hard for her. Which were less hard than she expected and what did she learn from them?

If you were going to write a story about your experiences for a newspaper, what would it be about and why?

For more reviews from Movie Mom, visit her blog.

But is there also an age when people are no longer expected to be responsible?

How about 73? That’s the age a California widower named Robert Pyle was when he made a series of decisions that triggered a financial freefall, resulting in the loss of his $650,000 home and $500,000 life savings.

Now 81, Mr. Pyle is suing the financial institutions and various people he trusted with his money, claiming he should be compensated because he is too old to bear full responsibility for his actions.

“I still make pretty good decisions about most things,” said Mr. Pyle, a retired aerospace engineer. “But for others, I guess I’m not as sharp as I was before, and people take advantage of that.”

Mr. Pyle is part of a growing trend of older Americans filing lawsuits against people and companies they say defrauded them of precious financial resources. Their argument is the same: because they are older they should not be held responsible.

According to the National Center on Elder Abuse, protecting senior citizens from financial victimization—even when it’s caused by their own mistakes—is now critical. “If we don’t solve this,” said a spokeswoman, “millions of older people will suddenly be reliant on their families or the government.”

After Mr. Pyle’s loss, he was forced to move into a small room in his stepdaughter’s house. “I guess I’m just kind of waiting for the end,” he said.

But allowing people to void contracts, get refunds, and abdicate responsibility simply because of advanced age is unfair, critics insist. One of the defendants in Mr. Pyle’s lawsuit says “There is no business on earth that can function if its customers can say, ‘I’m tired of abiding by this contract, so I want out because I’m old.’”

Tell us what you think: Is there an age when we should no longer be held responsible for our actions? Should elderly people be exempt from responsibility if they make bad financial decisions?

“I don’t have fertility problems,” she wrote, “but I would like IVF because it would be better for my career and lifestyle if I could give birth to multiples rather than prolong my family planning.” The woman then posed this question: “Is it immoral to want fertility treatments to become pregnant with more than one baby?”

That was in 2003, and the responses have continued since, some barbed, all blunt.

“Do you realize how insane and ridiculous you sound?”
“You are better off with a goldfish that doesn’t require your time.”
“Not only are you talking about something immoral, but something that’s just wrong!”

Many women wrote to tell their own stories of the difficulty and danger involved in multiple births, aghast at what they saw as a selfish quest for a “designer” family. “Putting your babies’ lives at risk for the sake of convenience is incredibly irresponsible,” one stated. A mother of triplets answered the original question head-on: “It’s not immoral to try fertility treatments when they’re unnecessary, but it is unethical.”

Others were less judgmental, like this mother who was pregnant with twins as she responded. “You have to do what’s right for you. If you want more than one child, then it’s your decision, no one else’s.” And another woman attempted to create room for discussion. “There are more of us out there that have had that same thought,” she wrote, “although some may not admit it.”

Tell us what you think: Is having unnecessary fertility treatments for career and lifestyle reasons immoral…irresponsible…acceptable?

It’s a debate that continues as the trend for not vaccinating children increases.

Parents who believe that vaccinations are linked to autism, or who object for religious or other reasons, balk at government regulations that bar their unvaccinated children from attending school if they don’t have the required shots. One anti-vaccination group calls forced vaccination “a violation of human rights.”

But those on the opposite side of the argument say not vaccinating violates the rights of others. According to officials at the Centers for Disease Control, “The decision not to vaccinate is a decision for your child but also a decision for society.” They say that unlike other medical issues where refusing treatment affects only the patient, refusing vaccinations puts others at risk as well, including newborns and people with suppressed immune systems.

Parents of unimmunized children rely on the vast majority of kids who do get their shots, figuring there’s little polio, measles, chicken pox or other pathogens to be found among so many protected kids. But with recent measles outbreaks in four states, that protection may not be enough. “We are seeing outbreaks that look different, concentrated among intentionally unimmunized people,” says an immunization official. “I hope they’re not the beginning of a worse trend.”

Tell us what you think: When it comes to vaccinations, do parents have a responsibility beyond their own children?

It wasn’t the first time Gloucester made international headlines. The tragic 1991 loss at sea of a Gloucester fishing boat and its crew prompted the book and the movie “The Perfect Storm.”

Now a tidal wave of finger-pointing about who or what was responsible for so many pregnancies tipped toward a “perfect storm” of outside influences.

Some blamed Gloucester’s depressed local economy and the demise of its once-thriving fishing industry. Others indicted so-called broken families and directionless youth. Gloucester High, it was suggested, had brought the predicament on itself, by providing easily accessible on-campus day care for the babies of student mothers. And Hollywood shouldered its share of responsibility—the movie “Juno” was blamed for glamorizing unwed teen motherhood, and the media’s obsession with pregnant celebs having babies as “accessories” was called out as well.

But soon cracks began to appear in the cultural blame game. A reproductive specialist noted that the pregnancy trend at Gloucester High began before “Juno” hit the theaters. Gloucester’s mayor said the pregnancy rate was a statistical “blip” and rued the lack of health education funding. And the School Superintendent stated that he’d never heard the term “pact” used by the students, only by the media.

After days of silence, one of the girls finally appeared on national television. 17-year-old Lindsey Oliver denied the existence of a pact. “There was a group of girls already pregnant that decided they were going to help each other to finish school and raise their kids together,” she said. “I think it was just a coincidence.”

Tell us what you think: Are the Gloucester teen pregnancies the result of a “perfect storm” of outside influences, or does responsibility lie elsewhere?

Spying, and proud of it, say parental proponents of stealth, who insist that protecting their children has no limits. “If I’m responsible for their actions, then I should be able to snoop,” says a mother in Tennessee. A Texas mom is point-blank: “I have made it perfectly clear there is no privacy in my house.”

And no difficulty violating it. Just a single piece of spy ware makes subterfuge simple, allowing parents to view everything their kid does online, including both sides of IM conversations. Parents who don’t like what they see can secretly shut down the kid’s computer by remote, then blame it on a mysterious network problem.

“I can see why some people worry that parents will become too controlling,” says a Texas father of five, “but I’ve found that technology actually lets you give kids more freedom.” By controlling what his kids do and see, he says, he hopes to “eliminate” the possibility that they’ll make bad decisions that could bring lasting harm.

Care or control? Insight or intrusion? The debate continues, especially in the increasingly popular grade-tracking programs that allow parents almost hourly access to their child’s progress in school, with the cooperation of teachers. Depending on the software, parents can check test and homework grades, disciplinary notices, attendance, missed assignments, and their child’s daily class ranking, on command.

A Georgia mother who used to incessantly check her child’s school progress by logging on each day at 6AM, has re-thought her dependence on electronically tracking every aspect of her daughter’s daily life. “It speaks to all your neuroses as a parent, all this need to control, that pressure to make sure everything is perfect,” she said. “How are these kids going to learn to be responsible adults?”

Tell us what you think: Should parents use technology to monitor their kids? Is it parenting, spying, responsible, or something else?

That was the mind-boggling moral journey undertaken by a writer named David Holthouse, who, along the way, was forced to define and redefine his views of personal responsibility.

At age 7, Holthouse was sexually assaulted by a high school football player. He wrote about the attack in his diary but told no one—not even his parents, who were close friends of the assailant’s parents.

For 25 years, Holthouse kept the awful secret. Then he learned that his attacker had moved to the Denver area, the same place Holthouse—by then a journalist—had moved to work for a local newspaper.

First he fixated on the memory.

Then he fixated on murder.

“I arrived at a point in my mind,” Holthouse said, “where it seemed to me that murder was entirely rational, justifiable and even a morally responsible course of action.”

With a gun, a silencer, and a plan, Holthouse staked out the man’s house and followed him to and from work. But before he could lure him to an out-of-the-way baseball field—“a good place for a killing”—his mother inadvertently foiled the plot. She happened upon the old diary, read about the assault, and informed the assailant’s parents.

So the murder Holthouse planned became the murder he wrote. In a remarkable newspaper article, he divulged the chilling details of his intent to kill, but not his would-be victim’s name. And he arranged a different kind of meeting with his attacker. Instead of shooting the man—who apologized—David Holthouse forgave him, choosing redemption over revenge.

His story has become an oft-sited primer about the power of forgiveness, but some readers say Holthouse did the wrong thing by not naming his assailant, saying that statistically the man is likely to abuse other children. “The victim is WRONG! He should have revealed the rapist’s name,” wrote one critic. “He condemned untold others to being victims of sexual crimes!”

Tell us what you think: Should David Holthouse have responded differently? Would it have been more responsible to reveal his abuser’s name?