One starfish at a time...

What do I mean by that? Just this, from the President's speech on April 21st of this year:

When Ted Kennedy makes this point [about Public Service), he also tells a story as elegantly simple as it is profound. An old man walking along a beach at dawn saw a young man pick up a starfish and throwing them out to sea. “Why are you doing that?” the old man inquired.

The young man explained that the starfish had been stranded on the beach by a receding tide, and would soon die in the daytime sun. “But the beach goes on for miles,” the old man said. “And there are so many. How can your effort make any difference?” The young man looked at the starfish in his hand, and without hesitating, threw it to safety in the sea. He looked up at the old man, smiled, and said: “It will make a difference to that one.”