"In a time of destruction, create something." -- Maxine Hong Kingston

Before bombs started falling on Gaza or a massive ground invasion began, before rockets were launched at Israel, I had invited a handful of close Jewish friends to an iftar, the evening meal when Muslims break their fast during Ramadan.

It was partly in reciprocity for the Seder we shared at their house on Passover, but it was more because these friends mean so much to me. My former editor, Richard Weiss, and his wife, Sally Altman, brought their daughter with them. None of us have ever directly discussed the politics of the Middle East. But we have a relationship forged over years of work and mutual respect.

When I texted them to ask if they would be willing to pray with us for a few minutes, "especially with what's going on in the world right now," I could have guessed their response: "We'd be honored to."

I have felt emotionally paralyzed ever since this escalation began. Even though we are far removed from this crisis, it feels so real, so immediate because of the way we are bombarded with real-time graphic images, videos and stories that shred our hearts.

The New York Times reported that analysts said this latest flare-up has brought a new level of dehumanizing, hateful language to the political, digital and civic discourse. The angry language of annihilation from both sides can be frightening to read and hear.

Almost a decade ago, I overheard a group of older Jewish men at a suburban St. Louis grocery store, loudly agreeing with one another that all Palestinians were less than dogs and needed to be wiped out. At the time, I was rattled and quickly left the store. For years since then, I have chastised myself for not having the courage to say something polite to them, to perhaps challenge the narrative in their minds.

I took away this lesson from that moment: I have a voice within my own family and my own community. Since then, I have defended the Jewish faith and people whenever I hear a disparaging or generalizing remark. I have argued for the right of Israel to exist without being attacked. And, with some Jewish friends, I have tried to share with them the inhumanity of the conditions in the Occupied Territories.

These are not easy conversations. But it can be easy to dehumanize the "other" when we live in silos.

It's easier to retreat to the information enclave that reinforces our own beliefs. It's easier to disengage, to become numb to the violence that happens so far away.

I refuse to raise my children that way.

The challenge is to raise children aware of and interested in the world around them, instilled with a sense of justice and compassion, without becoming inured to violence.

I have had more than a casual interest in this troubled region of the world since I was a teenager. I studied international affairs, specifically the Middle East; lived in Cairo; visited Sinai, Israel and the West Bank. I have talked to Israeli and Palestinian journalists, trying to get a sense of whether this crisis could ever be resolved.

I have searched for hope in this hopeless situation: this deadly intersection of politics, power, economics and religion. In my darkest moments, I wonder if a peaceful, just coexistence is possible.

The horrific largest-scale crimes against humanity in my lifetime -- the genocides of the Bosnians and Rwandans, the slaughter of Syrians and the decades of oppression and killing in the Middle East -- bring up those questions of how people can brutally turn upon innocents: the civilians not engaged in any battle, except the one to survive.

Today's reality includes a live feed of raw, graphic images and videos of war. How do we cope with this onslaught of treacherous information?

It was important for me to pray with my Jewish friends that night. We passed out translations of the opening prayer we say in Arabic. We sat in a circle and spoke from our hearts.

From young child to grandparent, we asked for an end to suffering and injustice in all forms and gave thanks for our blessings.

My editor told a story. His wife shared a Hebrew prayer. My husband shared an Arabic one. Our friends' daughter, an inner-city teacher, prayed for equal educational opportunities for all children. My son asked for an end to wars.

I asked God to heal the brokenness in this world.

Sally came up to me later, as I was getting dinner ready, and hugged me.

In that moment, so connected with someone who may share a different perspective, I felt the strongest flicker of hope.

(Caption for ptb140721.jpg: Toy startup Miss Possible hopes its Marie Curie doll will inspire girls to pursue science.)

The disruption in the pink aisle is about to become an all-out revolution.

A newly minted female engineer and one in the making have developed a successor to last season's groundbreaking GoldieBlox, the engineering kits geared toward girls.

Supriya Hobbs and Janna Eaves, both 21, met through the engineering program at the University of Illinois. They came up with a line of dolls that they hope will change the way girls think about pretend play, and more importantly, about their place in the world.

Their Miss Possible line of dolls combines the appeal of American Girl with the skill development of GoldieBlox.

These young women have left Barbie so far behind.

The first doll will be the childhood version of Marie Curie, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist and physicist whose research led to breakthroughs in the understanding of radioactivity. The second in the production line would be Bessie Coleman, the first African-American female aviator and first American to hold an international pilot's license. The third woman they've chosen in their doll lineup is Ada Lovelace, known as the world's first computer programmer.

Each doll will come with a smartphone app with a set of experiments and activities the child can do in the spirit of the doll's namesake. The Marie Curie app will have instructions on making a compass, creating a chemical reaction with Elmer's glue and experimenting with magnetism. It's like a digital science kit using materials typically found in the house. The app also delves into the biography of the woman.

Toys can be powerful tools, letting children imagine a narrative of what's possible in their own lives. But they've become increasingly gendered, pink, superficial and sexualized since today's parents were children.

Would you rather have your daughter imagining she's a princess who finds her Prince Charming or a pioneer who finds a cure for cancer?

"There's something really powerful of having a real person behind it," Hobbs said. "This is one woman. This is the story of her life."

They are seeking crowdfunding for Miss Possible through Indiegogo.com and will let their financial backers pick which real-life female hero to immortalize in doll form after Lovelace. They decided on childhood representations of these women because they wanted the focus to be on their extraordinary accomplishments, not on the depiction of the body.

The founders of GoldieBlox captured our imaginations through viral marketing videos, won airtime during the Super Bowl and raised enough money from donors to begin to take space in the toy aisles away from princesses and put it in the hands of future engineers. Hobbs reached out to GoldieBlox employees, and said they helped mentor this young dynamic duo.

"I was surprised how much they were willing to help us," Hobbs said. "We're all sort of working toward the same thing. That makes it more of a collaboration than a competition."

Miss Possible has a five-person team of college-aged women working on all aspects of their product, from the design to web development and marketing. Hobbs has been working 50 to 60 hours a week on the plans since graduating this summer, even though she already has a job lined up starting next month.

Eaves and Hobbs know their career choices will put them in the minority in their fields, and that's what they are hoping to change. Even though women represent half of all college-educated workers in this country, they made up only 28 percent of science and engineering workers in 2010.

Typical engineers. They spotted a problem and came up with a way to address it.

Hobbs and Eaves researched and found a factory in China to produce their dolls, which they will sell for $45 apiece. The month-long Indiegogo campaign will hopefully help them raise the $75,000 they need to fund the factory's minimum order of 5,000 dolls.

Both of Hobbs parents are chemists, and Eaves' are engineers. The young women never learned to doubt their own abilities in male-dominated STEM fields. They want their dolls to spark that same confidence in the girls who may one day play with them.

"If you look at Marie Curie, you can't say, 'I can't be like that.' You can. Because she was," Hobbs said.

A man who used to occasionally dine on duck learned to dine with ducks when he fell in love with a duck-obsessed pet parent.

But co-parenting a pampered pooch, duck or ferret isn't always so easy.

The new childhood belongs to the dogs. Literally.

Baby boomers began elevating the status of pets decades ago. No longer were pets simply there to serve a utilitarian purpose, such as protecting the house or providing companionship; they were part of the family. The longer couples wait to have children, the more childlike their pets have become to them. Empty-nesters replaced the children in the center of their orbit with furry companions -- ones much less likely to talk back and slam doors.

Lisa Tucker, executive producer for "Spoiled Rotten Pets," which aired on Nat Geo Wild, says she watched pet culture become more luxurious and indulgent years ago in Los Angeles and New York.

"Of course, there are doggie weddings and 'bark mitzvahs,'" she said. "You see people pushing dogs in $200 strollers pretty regularly in New York City." But she was surprised to see that it wasn't just cats and dogs that got the best of their owners' love. The show featured women who knitted clothes for their ferrets; a woman who painted her ducks' feet, made outfits for them and took them on bike rides in a basket; and a couple who took their two pot-bellied pigs to a day spa and installed a doorbell at snout level for them at their house.

"You would think a lot of the indulgence came from people who had the money and time," Tucker said. "But that wasn't necessarily the case."

And spoiled pets can be found throughout the land, from the smallest town in the heartland to the reddest of red states.

Owners have pushed pet industry expenditures to more than $58 billion annually, according to the American Pet Products Association. The figure has risen every year through the Great Recession, with more than a 20 percent increase in the past five years.

There are times when family members draw the line. One reptile-lover's home was divided into two levels at the wife's request: reptiles downstairs, humans upstairs. No boa constrictors allowed in the bedroom.

Pampered pooches have entire bakeries and gourmet lines devoted to their treats.

Kathy Caton, owner of a St. Louis Three Dog Bakery, has catered a dog wedding (Jose and Lily's), baked numerous gourmet birthday cakes and hosted "doggie nights out" at local restaurants with a specialized, pup-friendly menu. She says as people have become more conscious about the quality of the food they consume, they want the same organic, healthy standard for their pets. I have a friend who drives to an organic dairy to purchase raw milk for his cat, who eats organic Cornish game hens and wild-caught salmon several days a week.

Lab mix Maggie wandered around Three Dog Bakery in a blue sequined tutu, purple pedicure on her paws. Her daddy got her ready this morning for her puppy playdate and didn't even need any coaching to pull her outfit together.

"I can't believe I'm walking a dog with a skirt on," Steven Davis, 31, thought to himself, that morning. By way of rationalization, he said: "Everyone thinks she's a boy if I don't."

"She's got bows in her hair," Maggie's mama, Faronda Davis, 30, said.

The Davises, owners of a children's cooking school, exhibit some of the typical divisions that can come up in a pet-centered home. They have a human daughter, Ayla, 11, and they rescued Maggie, now 4 months old, when she was 7 weeks. Allegedly, they got the puppy for their daughter.

"I do want to have a birthday party for her," Faronda said.

"We are not doing that," her husband said.

"She's sweet. She deserves it."

"I think it's crazy," he said, to no one in particular.

Maggie looked unfazed. A smart pup, she had a fair idea who would win this battle.

When her family goes on vacation, she stays in a plush doggie hotel.

"Honey, be honest," Faronda said, to her husband. "You wanted to put her in that horrible kennel. I said, 'No way is she staying in a kennel.'"

"I really have no say," Steven finally admitted.

It's a familiar scenario to Steve Tharp, who works part-time as a pet photographer. He says pet owners are willing to spend as much on dogs as they do on children's portraits, if not more. He's had clients spend anywhere from a few hundred to more than $2,500 on a dog portrait package. There's usually a negotiation between the "parents" about how much to spend.

Typically, the wife wants to spend a little more, and the husband comes to the digital viewing of the photos to put a check on things, Tharp said.

"The woman usually wins," he added. There have been tears shed in some of the photo preview sessions.

But don't worry if Fido picks up on tension between mommy and daddy.

You can always hire a pet therapist.