A couple weeks ago on NBC 17’s “At Issue,” we featured a fund-raising project for victims of the December tsunami. What makes “Project Life Boat” a particularly hopeful and worthwhile effort is that it seeks to restore the lives of fishermen, not by giving them short-term benefits, but by giving them long-term economic opportunity. The money will replace family fishing boats that were destroyed in the disaster, once again making the families independent and self-reliant members of society. This approach embodies the best of conservatism, in my view.