What Makes People Tick?

The Jewish Press » » Home Schooling This cartoon got me thinking. I hope it does the same for you. Source: The Jewish Press

The more things change... The more I hope they change even more! Saudi Arabia grants women right to drive – but with some bizarre conditions http://t.co/jprfDwIZPM pic.twitter.com/M7LED1uJrd — RT (@RT_com) November 8, 2014 I'm one of those people who doesn't drive. Not because I can't or believe I shouldn't, but because I don't want to. I walk, I bike, I take public transport and feel good about doing so, about using environmentally friendlier modes of transport than using a car to get just me from A to B. Driving is not usually necessary where I live as public transport runs on a regular schedule and can get me most places. Sometimes though, especially after being harassed on the bus or tssssk-ed at while waiting for the train or ogled while on the tram or followed home from the metro,  I wish I did drive. I do not ask to be harassed. I do nothing to suggest I might want strangers to approach me. I wear a ring around a significant finger to show that ...

"Surveys suggest that as few as    one in 10 cases [of rape] are ever    reported to the police in many countries" Top 5 Countries with the Highest Rates of Rape  The International Business Times (UK), January 2014 The Times of India reports in a July 2014 article that "If one goes by the latest statistics of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), every day 93 women are being raped in the country." The article explains that the total number of reported rape cases in India has gone up. In 2012, a total of 24,923 rapes were reported while in 2013 the total number came to 33,707. This means that more women are coming forward and filing reports; more women are speaking up about what is being done to them. I can only hope the trend continues, and 2014 will see even more reports.  Wikipedia's article Rape in India puts the above numbers into perspective. Looking at the same data, the article explains that "24,923 rape cases were reported a...

Seeing this image makes me so sad. The Turkish soldiers are RIGHT THERE yet they are standing by while people just across the border are being slaughtered. That is Kobani behind those soldiers, that is how close they are, that is how close reinforcements could be for the Kurdish fighters. And yet they battle on alone, aided by friends from another continent while their neighbours leave them to die. This doesn't just make me sad, it makes me mad and it disgusts me.  Post by I'm against ISIS .

Minister Timmermans vertelde op woensdagavond 8 oktober 2014 bij televisieprogramma Pauw dat er bij een passagier van het neergehaalde vliegtuig #MH17 een zuurstofmasker is gevonden.  Een YouTube video afkomstig van Pauw - Gemist  waarin Minister Timmermans vertelt dat er een masker gevonden is: YouTube: Roeland Roovers Dat er een zuurstofmasker gevonden is bij een passagier betekent dus dat er voor in ieder geval een persoon genoeg tijd zat tussen de inslag van de raket en de dood om een zuurstofmasker om te doen. Genoeg tijd om te zien en horen wat er gebeurde, genoeg tijd om de armen uit te strekken, een masker uit de lucht te pakken en dat om te doen. Genoeg tijd.  Oorlog is niet leuk of mooi of heroïsch. Wapens zijn gemaakt om levende wezens te stoppen, om anderen te doden. Mensen voelen en denken na, ook in hun laatste momenten. De treurigheid en de grote leegte die ik voelde toen ik hoorde over het neerschieten van vlucht MH17 komt nu weer terug. D...

Dutch television news ( RTL Nieuws ) has just reported that a large part of the Kurdish city Kobani in Syria, right on the Turkish border, is now under the control of the Islamic State terrorist group. Volgens een andere functionaris hebben de terroristen enkele gebouwen aan de oostkant van de stad veroverd, ondanks de voortdurende luchtaanvallen door de Amerikanen. Er zijn ook berichten dat IS al een groot deel van de stad, zo niet het grootste deel, in handen heeft. Dat vertelt onder meer de vertaler van correspondent Roel Geeraedts. Die vertaler is een Koerd die uit Kobani komt. Freely translated: One officer says the terrorists have captured several buildings on the east side of town, despite ongoing American air strikes. There are also reports that IS already controls a large part of the town, if not most of the town. There has been fighting around Kobani for some time now, inside it since the last few days. The fighting has been going on for weeks, however now it seems ...

Nederlandse media rapporteert dat een groep van ongeveer honderd Koerden maandagavond het gebouw van de Tweede Kamer bestormd hebben. De Koerdische betogers vragen met hun actie aandacht voor de situatie in Koerdistan. Terroristische organisatie IS (Islamitische Staat / ISIS) voert momenteel aanvallen uit op de Koerdische stad Kobani in Syrië, dichtbij de Turkse grens. De Volkskrant meldt dat veel van de betogers in het gebouw van de Tweede Kamer familie en vrienden hebben in Kobani. Teletekst meldt dat de betogers het gebouw inmiddels verlaten hebben na een gesprek met Kamervoorzitter Anouschka Van Miltenburg. Ook buiten het gebouw van de Tweede Kamer stonden mensen, volgens verschillende bronnen ongeveer 150 (Volkskrant) of "zo’n drie- à vierhonderd man - een eerste inschatting. Een derde daarvan is politieagent" ( NRC.nl ). Den Haag is niet de enige plek waar gedemonstreerd werd. Koerdische betogers verzamelden ook in onder andere Wenen, Bern, Kopenhagen, Stockholm, ...

After television, newspapers and social media reported about many #saveKobani demonstrations around the world yesterday and today, I got thinking about Kurdistan and the plight of the Kurdish people. It got me thinking that I want to do my bit to help, even if all I'm doing is writing a blog post. Kobani is a city in the Syrian part of Kurdistan, very close to the Turkish border. The Islamic State terrorist group has been trying to capture Kobani for weeks. Kurdish forces have bravely defended the city and their territory, however IS(IS) has been gaining ground. Turkey seems to be very intent on helping the Islamic State terrorist group. As ABC News reports: Lightly armed Kurdish fighters in the Syrian border town of Kobani have for weeks held off an ISIS onslaught, but the battle has moved to the streets of Kobani as the president of Turkey warned today that the town was about to fall to the Islamic militants. The fight for the Kurdish city and its surrounding villages has ...

World-famous celebrity couple Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis are the proud new parents of baby girl Wyatt Isabelle Kutcher, as reported by several media outlets. Apart from seeing the parents on television and in movies I don't know much about them, nor do I need to. They're both good at what they do, that's what matters to me. I know I've enjoyed their work on more than one occasion. So, why am I commenting on their happy news? The proud father posted a birth-notice online with eight baby photos, including one of a dog and one of a llama. I thought his words worth repeating: Mila and I would like to welcome Wyatt Isabelle Kutcher to the world.  May your life be filled with wonder, love, laughter, health, happiness, curiosity, and privacy.  Can you guess which one is ours, or does it really matter? All babies are cute.  -Ashton  Source: One of these is Mila and Ashton's baby....and her name is Wyatt , A + What struck me about the first paragraph was the ...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the United Nations General Assembly on 29 September 2014. The Times of Israel published the full text of his speech online. May the world listen, for a change, and see the truth of what Israel's Prime Minister is saying. "Our hopes and the world’s hope for peace are in danger. Because everywhere we look, militant Islam is on the march.  It’s not militants. It’s not Islam. It’s militant Islam.  Typically, its first victims are other Muslims, but it spares no one. Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Kurds — no creed, no faith, no ethnic group is beyond its sights. And it’s rapidly spreading in every part of the world." The past few months have shown very clearly that the 'Islamic State' does not care about Christians, Jews, Yazidis or Kurds. It does not even care about other Muslims who happen to think for themselves and disagree with the terrorist group's extremist views. American and British journalists were ...

English soccer team Liverpool sends and then deletes a Rosh Hashanah Tweet after protests against the Tweet as the Jerusalem Post reports. Rational people might ask why. The answer is given by the article's title: Liverpool deleted the tweet after 'anti-Semitic posts'. Yes, you did read that right. “ Liverpool FC would like to wish all our Jewish supporters around the world a happy new year. #RoshHashanah ,” the tweet read. A few hours later, the tweet was removed after the anti-Semitic abuse ensued. The story was originally reported by The Guardian.  “Due to a number of offensive comments that were attached to a tweet on the official LFC twitter account, the tweet and comments have since been removed from the account,” the club told the Guardian. Source: English soccer club Liverpool deletes Rosh HaShanah tweet after anti-Semitic posts , The Jerusalem Post  Source: Jerusalem Post How judgemental is our society that wishing Jewish people the world over a happy ...

What is your earliest memory? Do you remember being five years old, being a toddler, being a baby? Do you remember what it was like in the womb? Chances are you might remember something from when you were around five years old, whereas the earlier years of your life are most likely a blur, if you remember anything at all. Yet the early years of our lives are when we learn all the basics for the rest of our lives. We learn to crawl, to walk, to talk, to recognise people and situations, to differentiate cats from dogs and other animals, to play with other children and navigate playground politics, to understand that fire is hot, that we need to be cautious around strangers, that we need to look both ways before crossing the street... We learn almost everything we need to know to live and survive the rest of our lives yet when we're older we usually can't remember learning many of these things. playground slide Which leads me to wonder, how exactly does a baby's brain...

This is absolutely shocking. British newspaper Metro News reports that 23-year old Lithuanian Aurimas Medvedevas killed his two-month old baby daughter the day her mother went back to work for the very first time since giving birth. The man's 22-year old partner Dzesika Urbikaite came home from her first day back at work to find the nine week old baby dead in her cot. Mr. Medvedevas was sentenced to a minimum of 22 years in prison. Jailing him today, judge Timothy Pontius said the brutality of the attack on a defenceless baby almost defied belief. He said the fact that baby Aukse suffered considerably for hours before her eventual death ‘demonstrated a callousness that is as incredible as it is inhuman’.  Prosecutor Karim Khalil QC told jurors: ‘For reasons known only to him, he took hold of his own baby, he bit her on the head, he struck her repeatedly and he shook her hard. As a result of all that she died, not immediately, but a few hours later.’  The nine-week-old ...

The world today is a mess. By that I mean that humans have made it into a mess. War and disease in Africa, rape and murder in the Middle East, social and economic upheavals in the west. People hate, murder, rape, abuse, lie to, threaten, torture and mistreat others. When it comes to looking at the world as a whole (not on a local or community level), I believe it is fair to say that we don't help each other, we don't think of the whole world as one family of humanity and we often treat other people as if they were less than us or beneath us. Even though we have thousands of years of history to learn from, it seems we just keep repeating the same mistakes. Even though we can do a quick online search to read works by authors such as Homer and Hippocrates, it seems we can't learn from them. Even though we can read about campaigns of Roman leaders who lived more than 2000 years ago, it seems we can't learn from them. Events in the past few months have shown me that we ...

The website United with Israel reports that Israel's Foreign Minister, Avigdor Liberman, met with US Secretary of State John Kerry last Wednesday to discuss the ongoing threat posed to all humanity by the Islamic State terrorist group. I don't always agree with Liberman's words, however today, I agree with Israel's Foreign Minister one hundred percent. Liberman noted that the war against terror, in all its forms, is the most important task of the Free World today. Reiterating the Israeli government’s stance regarding the regional terror threat, he said:  “We cannot differentiate one form of terror from another. The Hamas terrorist activities against Israel and against the people of Gaza are no different from the terror of ISIS. The difference is only semantic, and in the media approach adopted by the organizations. Ultimately, the aim of all Islamic terror is one and the same: the destruction of Western civilization. Hence, just as we cannot negotiate with ISIS, we ...

A women's clothing store in the United Kingdom named after an Egyptian mythological figure becomes the target of hate mail and harassment, as the UK's  Daily Mail reports . Source:  Isis Boutique  Facebook page Jill Campbell is the owner of women's clothing store Isis Boutique in Malvern    (Worcestershire). Her store is named after the Egyptian goddess Isis. Ms Campbell came up with the name after leaving Oxford in 2007, explaining "The river in Oxford is named locally as ISIS and it is also the Egyptian goddess of magic, mystique, beauty and femininity which is everything the shop is all about." The boutique has been in business for seven years. The past few months, as the western world has been getting to know the terrorists and murderers in Iraq and Syria known as "ISIS", Ms. Campbell's store has been coming under threat. Not because she supports ISIS or anything like that but because the name of her boutique sounds similar to one of th...

The first official report about the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 came out today. Thirty-plus pages of maybes and more questions, thankfully some clarity too however not nearly as much of it as I'd hoped for. The report seems to only confirm all the speculation going on in the days after the downing of the Malaysian Airlines passenger carrier. The aeroplane didn't suffer any kind of failure, the pilots and crew didn't screw up or do anything wrong. Something external, something outside and slightly in front of the aeroplane, exploded and impacted with MH17, causing it to break apart in mid-air. The cockpit, as I understand it, pretty much went straight down, the rest of the plane, the part with engines and momentum, disintegrated and came down in pieces spread out over a larger area.  Chilling reports from villagers on the ground  confirm this, their stories of body parts landing in their gardens and on their streets are as horrifying as the loss of human ...

ISIS, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood, Boko Haram, the al-Nusra front... No doubt there are groups just as bloodthirsty that are not on this list because I can't think of them off the top of my head. These are all names of organisations I wish I'd never heard of. Because these names belong to terrorist groups that seem to find it necessary to kill, hurt, harm and maim; to execute people, to enslave and rape women, to terrorise and kill and cause destruction in an effort to further their own cause.  The cause they are attempting to further (to impose / to enforce) is Islam. Or rather - their own radical and violent interpretation of Islam with current actions seemingly geared entirely toward the spread of (their version of) Islam through any means. While I am a student of the world's peoples and religions and consider myself someone who attempts to walk in another's shoes to understand them and learn what it'...

Source: The Growing Reach of Hamas'  Rockets | New York Times I started writing this on the 8th of August 2014. I finished it on the 3rd September. Decided to finish this piece of writing and post it, even if parts read a little disjointed due to the gap between when I started and finished the article. While many the world over call on Israel to be 'nicer' to the people in Gaza, Israel is more intent than ever to ensure safety for her citizens. While some may call the Israeli response to Palestinian / Gazan / Hamas / Islamic terror groups' terrorist attacks 'disproportionate,' or too much or unfair, I am left wondering what other options Israel has. I also fail to see the logic in Hamas' actions, they only seem to sabotage the Palestinian cause by their insistence on fighting instead of talking. Let me be very, very frank. Is it right that innocents die? No. Is it right that innocents are scarred by events for the rest of their lives? No. Is it righ...