“It feels good to know we are making a difference in people’s lives.”

My daughters have given me more Father's Days than any given Sunday. There are lots of moments throughout the year they make me feel like a good dad without even trying. If you're a dad like me, all you really want is your children to be happy, joyous and free.

Ryan's got enough problems right now as it is, since he hasn't really gotten anything done in the House this year. Just like John Boehner before him, the Tea Party extremist faction is holding everything hostage and gumming up the works.

In a collection of six short stories he compiled and called "after the quake," Haruki Murakami describes the lives of six random people in the immediate aftermath of the 1995 earthquake that killed 6,434, injured 43,792, and displaced 310,000 citizens of the city of Kobe, Japan.

So, why was it so successful? None of them just sat there waiting for people to stop. They engaged the passerbyers, even before they made that split second decision to stop and buy a glass.