Unbelievable Morocco

The new place on Morocco's tourist trail:

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/03/travel/morocco-blue-city-chefchaouen/index.html

Bookstores

For all those who love to browse in bookstores, here's something:


http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/03/travel/worlds-coolest-bookstores-new/index.html

I shoot who I am

Brighton Beach is a neighborhood not terribly far from photographer Bruce Gilden's apartment in Manhattan.

"I shoot what's interesting. All I'm about is visual."

And Brighton Beach is a sight.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/19/living/cnnphotos-brighton-beach/index.html

The pregnant war photographer who couldn't walk away

Lynsey Addario takes you to the heart of a conflict through her photographs. Her experiences are recorded in her memoir -  "It's what I do: A photographer's life of love and war."

Only a sensitive photojournalist can get behind the walls people operate from. Addario does just this.

What a brave, fearless woman.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/20/world/lynsey-addario-pregnant-war-photographer/index.html

An oasis for senior citizens

Dignity Foundation, an NGO, working with the elderly, launched a library solely for the bibliophiles among senior citizens recently. There are also books for the young so that they would interact with senior citizens as part of the foundation's 'loneliness mitigation' initiatives.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/an-oasis-of-books-for-senior-citizens/article6899884.ece?homepage=true&ref=tpnews

Disability doesn't mean disadvantage

Farida Bedwei, a celebrated software engineer from Ghana, is proof of that. Cerebral palsy is an incurable neurological disorder that affects body movement and muscle coordination but does not interfere with the ability to learn. Bedwei did not let this stand in her way and today she is the co-founder and chief technical officer of Logiciel, a software company. She is also considered one of the most powerful women in financial technology on the continent.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/13/africa/farida-bedwei-ghanaian-software-genius/index.html

Copenhagen's lesson to the world

The Danes are famously considered to be the happiest people in the world. Copenhageners know how to have a good time while also taking care of the environment.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20120412-travelwise-what-copenhagen-can-teach-the-world

Carrying a heavy cross

Rainer Hoess' grandfather, Rudolf Hoess, was the Nazi commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp, and the man who oversaw the murder of an estimated 1.5 million people.

Rainer Hoess publicly denounced his grandfather and his life's mission is to try to make amends....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11241714/Auschwitz-commanders-grandson-Why-my-family-call-me-a-traitor.html

Yarn-bombers plot large-scale knitting attack

Transport yourself to Chile.

On a stretch of parkland flanking the Mapocho River which bisects Santiago, Chile, a quilt-like covering encircles the glistening trunk of a palm tree. There are many other such instances of beautification and transformation of the landscape.

Yarn-bombing is a movement known locally as intervenciónes textiles. It has inspired imaginations across the South American nation.

Founded by Tapia Retamal, the group goes to public places and gives meaning to them through the designs and the colors.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/29/world/chilean-yarn-bombers-plot-knitting/index.html

All-embracing Sufism

Have the courage to face the light of your own being. Hazrat Inayat Khan

Why do you weep? The source is in you. Rumi

There are two kinds of speech and two kinds of silence. Hujwiri

A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that has been denied. Elif Shafak

http://www.speakingtree.in/spiritual-slideshow/seekers/mysticism/sufi-sayings/244660

Home swapped for a hut

For much of her life, Devi Asmadiredja was a housewife in Germany - but then her husband told her to pack her bags and leave the country. She ended up 3,000 km (2,000 miles) away living in a remote mountain hut among the Chechens of Georgia's Pankisi Gorge.

Amazing, to say the least.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30796537

Chilling

Edith Eva Eger, whose life revolved around dancing and training to compete for the Hungarian Olympic team as a gymnast, was not yet 17 when her family was arrested by Hungarian Nazis.

Not enough having to bear the dreadful separation from her mother, whom she never saw again, the young ballerina had to dance for the infamous SS doctor - Dr. Joseph Mengele who later became known the "Angel of Death" - when he wanted to be entertained.

The German doctor rewarded the Jewish girl with an extra ration of bread.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/25/world/auschwitz-dancing-mengele/index.html

Back to roots

Why are people returning to their roots now more than ever? Returning to their homeland, or the country from which their family originally came from, has become a mainstream career and business choice for graduates and professionals.

An analysis of why:

http://www.bbc.com/capital/sponsored/story/20141215-back-to-my-roots

Aah! the smell of rain

The fresh aroma after a summer downpour is one of life's pleasing scents. The earthy fragrance was named petrichor by Australian researchers in 1964. They described it as a combination of plant oils and the chemical compound geosmin which are released from the soil when it rains.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150115-how-the-smell-of-rain-happens

Wisdom beyond schooling

Thousands of women who have graduated from the ‘school of life’ are transforming village panchayats with their able governance.

Veena Devi is one such person. She is unlettered, but not uneducated, for she has been educated in the 'school of life', and, perhaps because of this, she has a wisdom beyond her years and certainly more profound than anything taught in our schools.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Kalpana_Sharma/the-other-half-wisdom-beyond-schooling/article6788991.ece

Where children are afraid to go to school

Unimaginable but true, in many countries.

Right now the focus is on what Boko Haram is doing. Their increasingly violent and ever
more vicious abuse of children as weapons of war -- as victims, as slaves and as
suicide bombers -- must be addressed, because the threat is only likely to grow, says Gordon Brown.

Girls as young as 10 ​are being lined up as suicide bombers to further Boko Haram's
cause.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/16/opinion/gordon-brown-safe-schools/index.html

At 80, Elvis still rules as King

The music of Elvis Aron Presley -- who would have turned 80 on Thursday -- remains as raw, direct and immediate as ever.

"What's there is the warmth, the particularity of communication," says Peter Guralnick, whose two-volume Elvis biography -- "Last Train to Memphis" and "Careless Love" -- remains the definitive chronicle of the singer. "It has to do with that unique talent for communication Elvis had from the very beginning, and that people recognized long before they ever saw him or had an image of him. It was something in his voice that proclaimed it's different."

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/07/showbiz/feat-elvis-presley-80th-birthday/index.html

Kind of Blue

Miles Davis released Kind of Blue, an album that was to change the face of jazz forever. It has been consistently voted one of the most influential albums of all time by critics and fans.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30688107

Kabul is singing again

The tortured country is slowly rising. Paradise, a female rapper, performed her latest song - an impassioned denunciation of violence against women - at the Rumi music awards ceremony.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30654447

Getting acquainted with the world through books

Writer Ann Morgan set herself a challenge - she would read one book from every country in the world in one year. And she did it! She describes her experiences here:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20130715-reading-the-world-in-365-days