What Makes People Tick?

* Disclaimer : Based on a true story, some dramatization. Recently, my neighbours decided to remodel their bathroom. No big deal, apart from the noise which he warned us about early on. I thanked my neighbour for letting us know about the coming noise and promptly forgot all about it. Until the drilling started two days ago. I'd just made myself a large mug of tea in the kitchen, intending to relax on the couch with a book, nurse my cold and soothe my sore throat. I'd put a lot of honey in my tea which is why I made sure not to over-fill the cup - I didn't want to spill that sticky sweetness on the floor after all.   But enough about the tea - where was I? Oh right - And then the drilling started. I'll set the scene: Imagine me carrying my mug of tea from the kitchen to the lounge, feeling a bit frail and under the weather but bravely soldiering on. Suddenly, I hear this ear-splitting noise from behind me, after another second it feels like the noise is coming at m...

"How to get a bikini body: Put a bikini on your body." Sound advice! Yet something women forget all too easily when worrying about something as relatively trivial as physical appearance. Want to wear something? Just put it on, wear it and when you're done wearing it, take it off again. Don't worry about what others might think of you, just wear what you enjoy! The above quote and the image below come from the  Cranky Fat Feminist Facebook page . Wear whatever you want! I have to be honest and admit that when I first saw this image and  read the text, I assumed the intended tone was sarcastic. The second time I read the text, I realised that it wasn't sarcastic at all, it was serious. Examining my first 'automatic' reaction to this image makes me wonder how many other things in life we don't notice at first or take for granted without further examination. 

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, ...

The Wire reported yesterday that rising sea levels in the Marshall Islands are disturbing the dead as well as the living. According to the article, Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands, Tony de Brum, recently announced that 26 skeletons of World War Two soldiers have washed up. Rising sea levels have caused the graves to become exposed. The bodies are believed to be those of Japanese soldiers. The Marshall Islands are particularly precarious in their perch; the nation, made up of 29 atolls, is roughly just six feet above sea level. With sea levels predicted to rise by three-to-six feet by the end of the century, the alarm is obviously growing.  Source: Rising Sea Levels Are Exposing Bodies of Buried WWII Soldiers , The Wire The Marshall Islands are a prime example of the damages global warming can cause. As our world becomes warmer, ice caps melt and sea levels rise, causing extreme damage to low-lying countries such as the Marshall Islands. In the same article, Marsh...

Nineteen-year old Dutch inventor Boyan Slat has found a way to remove plastic from the world's oceans. Having spent a year researching his plan, he has now presented it to the world. And what a master plan it is! Since first coming up with The Ocean Cleanup in 2012 while still in high school, Slat has spent a year researching the feasibility of implementing his idea. He presented his findings to the world in New York on Tuesday. Boyan Slat believes that his invention can be implemented by 2020 in an area between Hawaii and California, one of the most polluted locations in all the world's oceans. Speaking about the area in question, Boyan explains "We can remove almost half of all the plastic from that area within ten years." Slat's invention has long floating arms over a 100 kilometres long and 3 metres high, arranged in a V-shape and attached to the ocean floor at specific locations. Sea currents move the plastic towards the point of the V-shaped installat...

The Earth is 4.6 billion years old.  Let's scale that to 46 years. We have been here for 4 HOURS. Our industrial revolution began 1 minute ago. In that time, we have destroyed  MORE THAN 50% of the world's forests. Source:  Science Alert Facebook Page I find it unimaginable that so few listen while environmental agencies the world over are screaming about climate change, global warming, the need to reduce greenhouse gases and CO-2 emissions, the effects of the industrial revolution and really - the overall negative impact humans have had and continue to have on our planet. Wars, famine, floods, crop failures, droughts and the like - these are always localised events. An entire country or region or continent may suffer the effects of a flood or a war, yet in other parts of the world people simply continue on their daily business, oblivious to the suffering of people they don't know who live in a country they may have never even heard of. Global warmin...

As Fatah and Hamas unite and attempt to form a unity government, the weather conspires against Palestinians in Gaza. As the Middle East Monitor reports, a heat wave has caused the death of large numbers of chickens and effected egg yields. The heat wave affecting the Gaza Strip has caused the death of large numbers of chickens and affected egg yields, farmers have reported.  The issue was considered a disaster according to experts who estimated that the damage hit most of the poultry farms in the Gaza Strip killing more than half of the chickens.  Initial reports estimate that 200,000 chickens have died so far. Source: Heat wave in Gaza kills 200,000 poultry , Middle East Monitor