The concept of prisoner rehabilitation is not new. Several European countries, in addition to their regular closed prisons, also have open prisons where prisoners are called clients, there is little security, the living conditions are rather luxurious, they can leave the facility for short periods of time and have provisions for conjugal visits. In some [...]
Posts from ‘January, 2009’
2009 Gloom & Doom Update: Outlook Playing Out- Iceland Govt Collapse
Remember my previous post on what 2009 will look like? One of the things I had mentioned was growing unrest in Europe.
Yesterday, Iceland’s government collapsed and there are demonstrations across Europe. Spain, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia and Iceland have all seen protests. France, Germany and United Kingdom have been spared the demonstrations- they are also [...]
Rehabilitation, Brainwashing and Terrorism
Several years ago I was one of two speakers at a government workshop on methods for threat anticipation using social complexity theories. One of the interesting nuggets my co-speaker mentioned was that it takes two years to brainwash a person.
Apparently two years is about the time it takes to physically rewire the brain to [...]
Categorizing Change in Society
Disclaimer: these are thoughts stewing in my head for a little bit. This can eventually become a white paper by refining the following ideas and adding modes of dealing with each.
Change tends to sweep in at different speeds depending on the trigger. A rough way to categorize it is the following:
Evolution- this is small, [...]
Saudi Patience: USA and Iran
Prince Turki al-Faisal wrote a strongly worded letter on Thursday to President Obama regarding Gaza/Israel and the impact it can have on the special US-Saudi relationship.
The content can be seen at the Financial Times web-site. One of the things it mentioned was a letter President Ahmedinejad of Iran wrote to King Abdullah,
explicitly recognising [...]
Images of Saudi Arabia: Camel Crossing
Watch out for camels! Sometimes they will stroll across the highway and sometimes they will simply stand
Martin Luther King, Jr Day
Yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr day in the US. It is the third Monday each January, commemorating the birth of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr on January 15, 1929. He was an iconic civil rights leader who would have been 80 years old this year if he had not been assassinated at a young [...]
Smoking in the Middle East
Smoking is unfortunately a very common habit all over the Middle East. People light up EVERYWHERE with the exception of hospitals. There is no such thing as a non-smoking area in any public space and you are always inhaling second-hand smoke. Airports, shops, malls, restaurants, offices- you name it and people are smoking there. “No [...]
Happy 200th Birthday Edgar Allan Poe!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe
He was 26 when he married his 13 year old cousin- maybe he had some tribal blood in him !! :-)
Images of Riyadh: Lost in Translation (Bob corn)
I love buttered bob-corn
