Here we are on the very brink of going to war, a war we're told will protect American lives from future acts of terror and that will doubtless claim thousands of American and Iraqi lives. And the sudden death of just seven people -- the astronauts who manned the Columbia
Space Shuttle -- dramatically reminds us of the preciousness of each human life.

It's like a mini-review of the emotional hurricane we experienced when television and newspapers gave names, faces and family histories to each of the thousands of people murdered in the September 11th attacks. Then, as now, we only begin to understand the vastness of the calamity when we acknowledge that each person killed was someone's child, parent, sister or brother, friend or co-worker who will be missed and mourned by networks of people sentenced to suffer endless shades of grief.

We're so pummeled with statistics about murder rates, people killed by drunk drivers and victims of AIDS or smoking-related deaths that we can lose sight of our enormous responsibility to act responsibly and honor and revere the sanctity of every single human life.

A favorite poem, "The Dash", by Linda Ellis, reminds us that our lives will someday be represented by two dates separated by a dash -- the day of our birth and the day of our death. And that what matters most "is not how much we own; the cars, the house, the cash. What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash."

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

*You can get the full poem, "The Dash" from Linda's website at: www.LindasLyrics.com