My dad was born in 1930 in Lithuania, located in Eastern Europe. He was 9 years old when the war started, and his family was sent to the Kovno ghetto. They were soon separated and sent to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.

My father is with me every day. Although he passed away in 2003, he continues to live on inside me and through me - at home and work, on crowded subway cars and busy sidewalks.

No matter if we're in a contentious situation or simply engaging in an everyday interaction, we should aspire to have the strength to be kind always. If each of us shared this aspiration, we'd all be better off.

As a society, we're failing to recognize something my dad knew to be true - that kindness is the greatest show of strength. Too often, we are led to believe that strength is best demonstrated by exerting dominance or superiority over others, while kindness is portrayed as the opposite - a sign of weakness.

Growing up, I heard a lot about strength. My dad - a Holocaust survivor - embodied it, though he would never say that about himself. Not only did he survive one of the most horrific events in history, but he never lost hope along the way, crediting acts of kindness with keeping him alive.

Russia and China have maintained that people prize stability over freedom and that as long as the central State creates conditions for economic growth, people will be complacent and will be willing to literally sell away their rights. In fact, this very economic growth will eventually catch up with these regimes.

Few times in history do totalitarian or authoritarian regimes successfully repress their people for more than two generations, and zero times in history do these regimes last much longer than that, relatively speaking.

Why stick to just prose or just music or just newspaper or just video? Why not create new models for information that combine elements of them all?

The advent of Kindle, the iPad, and other portable reading devices has so far simply resulted in turning analog print into digital print while keeping the same linear prose format.

Our world desperately needs real leadership.

I was very proud to support Obama's presidential campaign, from the primaries all the way to his historic victory.

Civilized discourse demands critical thinking, self-reflexiveness, sober-headed analysis.

America already suffers from a uniformed and increasingly polarized citizenry. FOX seems to eagerly exploit this dynamic, and in so doing, accentuate it.

Everyone that is not an ultra-conservative recognizes the irony of FOX's 'Fair and Balanced' moniker, which only accentuates its actual bias.

As an independent skeptical of all news stations and wanting to understand diverse perspectives, I tend to navigate between CNN, ABC, PBS, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, CNBC, and yes, FOX.

Longer distances yield local media coverage that tends to be more one-dimensional and absolute, less nuanced, and more sporadic.

While domestically the president may be able to somewhat reshape his/her image through defining moments and actions, this is far less feasible internationally.

Kindness boggles my mind. It's the only force in nature that increases simultaneously for the giver and the receiver.

I'm never going to give up - it's part of my lifeblood to help, protect, and defend Israel.

When you're bringing an idea to fruition, there are two distinct phases: the skeptic phase and the evangelist phase. During the first phase, you have to be willing to ask the hardest questions - is this idea worth pursuing? But once you are convinced, you flip a switch. It's about getting it done.

We don't always know exactly what we're doing as parents. Children don't come with instruction manuals, as the saying goes. So it's important to me that I always question the choices I'm making as a father, to really stay alert and open to the balance between being too hard or too soft.

It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from - there's no substitute for hard work.

I can't tell you exactly why my work ethic is the way that it is, but I know that I will always work harder than anyone else I know.

Only Americans vote for their president, but foreigners care almost as much - and sometimes more - about who will lead the most powerful nation in the world.