Over the last couple of days, I’ve watched more-than-I-care-to-see versions of Israeli soldiers storming a Freedom Flotilla ship that sought to bring supplies to the blockaded Gaza strip in Palestine.

As a paciivist, I find the escalating violence, hatred and seemingly irresolvable conflict nauseating. I want to turn it off, as one would a light switch.

At the same time, my insatiable

Documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy spent a year with Taliban recruiters and children who were training to become suicide bombers.

Her mission? To understand how the Taliban convert children into live ammunition, and why the children actively sign up to their cause.

Based on first-hand, up-close personal observation, Obaid-Chinoy believes the Taliban use a powerful five-step process

Susan notes: The Charter for Compassion has been signed since I published this in September 2009. Find out more and sign it yourself here.

In February 2008, former nun and religious scholar Karen Armstrong shared a wish with the worldwide TED community.

(Scroll down to see and hear the amazingly eloquent, thoughtful and thought-provoking talk in which she made the wish.)

She asked

Like Neda Agha Soltan (the young Iranian women who was shot and died in the streets of Tehran in post-election unrest), and Rachel Corrie (a Jewish peace activist who was crushed to death by a bulldozer trying to protect Palestinian homes in Gaza), Marwa Al Sherbini seemed an unlikely candidate for martyrdom.

A pharmacist by profession, the 31-year-old mother of a three-year-old boy was