Rethinking the word Jihad

This was on NPR the other day (among my junkie habits is Public Radio Junkie). Anisa Mehdi wrote this fantastic essay about the meaning of the word Jihad, a word she once considered beautiful and mighty in her Muslim upbringing that is now used by the global press as a word associated with terroristic attacks. She says that while to Muslims the word still holds power, our continued use of the word in the wrong context reaffirms crazy terrorists. She has proposed an Arabic word more akin to senseless murder than to a rewarding spiritual struggle.