What Makes People Tick?

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'...

CNN writes an encouraging and heartbreaking story about life in modern Afghanistan that made me want to share with this blog's readers some of the everyday, the crazy and the amazing that makes Afghanistan what it is today. While many in the west might think of Afghanistan as a war-torn dusty country stuck in the Middle Ages, a country that  oppresses women  and  destroys ancient Buddha statues , it turns out that Afghanistan has left the past behind and has been living right here in the 21st Century for a while now... and  cares more about those statues than I thought ! Burqa-clad women |  Shutterstock The CNN article, appropriately called  The Afghan Voice that won't be silenced , talks about Shabana Faryad, the first female contestant on  The Voice of Afghanistan  and features an interview with Aryana Sayeed, the first female judge. It highlights the lives of women in Afghanistan today and looks at the differences between life before, ...