MedWorm provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest medical blog items that have been tagged with 'arab'. Sat, 03 Sep 2011 02:58:08 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4841449&cid=t_448123_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FN95MFU-TZlQ%2F By Christopher PrebleThe news media is abuzz with speculation about what President Obama will say in an address this Thursday at the State Department. The topic is the Middle East, and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney explained, “we’ve gone through a remarkable period in the first several months of this year…in the Middle East and North Africa,” and the president has “some important things to say about how he views the upheaval and how he has approached the U.S. response to the events in the region.” The speech, Carney hinted to reporters, would be “fairly sweeping and comprehensive.” If I were advising the president, I would urge him to say many of the same things that he said in his June 2009 speech in Cairo, this time with some timely references... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4841449 Tue, 17 May 2011 13:44:14 +0100 4841449 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4693471&cid=t_448123_136_f&fid=37852&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdonnatrussell.com%2F2011%2F04%2F04%2Fdictators-plz-use-reformscoming-not-killthemall%2F New  cartoon by Trussell & Trussell. Actual Malice: @dictators plz use #reformscoming, not #killthemall. Filed under: Actual Malice, Journalism, Social Media Tagged: arab spring, dictator, facebook, libya, poynter, revolution, romenesko, trussell & trussell, twitter (Source: Donna Trussell) Donna Trussell blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4693471 Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:47:01 +0100 4693471 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4677046&cid=t_448123_136_f&fid=37852&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdonnatrussell.com%2F2011%2F04%2F04%2Factual-malice-dictators-plz-use-reformscoming-not-killthemall%2F New  Trussell & Trussell cartoon. Actual Malice: @dictators plz use #reformscoming, not #killthemall. Filed under: Actual Malice, Journalism, Social Media Tagged: arab spring, dictator, facebook, libya, poynter, revolution, romenesko, twitter (Source: Donna Trussell) Donna Trussell blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4677046 Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:47:01 +0100 4677046 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4658627&cid=t_448123_150_f&fid=35777&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FPharmalot%2F%7E3%2Fz32nDiD2ons%2F Good morning, everyone. How are you today? A busy agenda awaits us here on the Pharmalot corporate campus, where we have a pile of meetings and deadlines to attack. We trust you can relate. To cope, yes, we are downing a cup or two of stimulation. As always, we invite you to join us. And to get you started, here are some tidbits from the world at large. Hope your day goes well and do stay in touch… Sonova Execs Resign After Insider Trading Probe (Bloomberg News) Gilead And Yale Former Cancer Research Deal (Reuters) Valeant Offers To Buy Cephalon For $5.7 Billion (Bloomberg News) Glaxo’s Lovaza Partner Pronova Settles Patent Row With Apotex (Reuters) UK’s NICE Rejects Bristol-Myers’ Orencia Drug (Dow Jones) Vertex CF Drug Shows Promising Results (Mass High Tech) Merc... Pharmalot blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4658627 Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:41:48 +0100 4658627 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4653310&cid=t_448123_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FySEgFjmU-Kg%2F By John SamplesPresident Obama’s speech last evening offers a chance to assess the implications of the war in Libya. President Obama is not the first president to order attacks on another nation without the authorization of Congress.  This case, however, seems different. Prior to the intervention, the President’s national security advisors had determined that the nation had no vital interest at stake in the Libyan civil war. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has repeated that conclusion after the intervention began. For his part, President Obama emphasized in last night’s speech and before, that the war would preclude a “humanitarian catastrophe.” Why did that rationale win out over the realism of his advisors? President Obama tends to see our nation and the world as divided bet... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4653310 Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:21:52 +0100 4653310 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4636417&cid=t_448123_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FRfPRr5HVj74%2F By George Scoville When is an entitlement not an entitlement, but a command? When a federal judge contradicts herself, of course. As the Arab League's influence over its own member states wanes, of course they support the creation of an international no-fly zone over Libya. Of course, there's really no such thing as a "Social Security trust fund." Should the United States and Saudi Arabia remain allies? Of course—but Washington should probably re-think the terms of the partnership. Of course, when George W. Bush was president, you couldn't go anywhere in Washington without seeing an anti-war protest. Where have they all gone? Friday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4636417 Fri, 25 Mar 2011 15:04:37 +0100 4636417 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4419113&cid=t_448123_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FMCajuqraBJ8%2F By Christopher PrebleThe new Egyptian cabinet was sworn in today amidst a seventh day of protests across the country.  For the White House, the continual tweaking of their response to the crisis, and declining to call for Mubarak to step-down, has left many in Egypt and the region wondering if the United States does in fact want to see the arrival of democracy to Cairo, or if it is simply content with allowing the status-quo to remain, with minor reforms.  Or perhaps they are just waiting for the chips to fall where they may. This illustrates the conundrum facing the Obama administration.  Over at The Skeptics, I examine this a bit further: The Obama administration is stuck with a policy not entirely of its own making – decades of U.S. taxpayer support for the Mubarak regime – but i... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4419113 Mon, 31 Jan 2011 18:44:50 +0100 4419113 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4197145&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2010%2F11%2Fits-their-nature-ii.html In Its Their Nature I discussed how the character of a culture can fail when its elites adopt impossible standards for the societal ego ideal.  An example from the life of George Soros, a man who has devoted himself to increasing freedom but has evolved into believing that West Civilization, exemplified by Israel and the United States, is the greatest danger to freedom in the world today, sparked a fair amount of discussion.  It is clear that our character is being tested by the current times in fundamental ways.  What of our enemies? The people who speak in the name of Sharia supporting Islam, whether radical Sunnis in al Qaeda or Hamas or radical Shia in Iran or Hezbollah, have summed up their Cultural Ego Ideal in a simple statement: We love death mor... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4197145 Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:26:32 +0100 4197145 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3533823&cid=t_448123_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FaagiyR5BCKs%2F By Christopher PrebleAbu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates—I arrived in Abu Dhabi late last night, and have spent the day in a series of meetings (with one more scheduled for this evening).  The 9-day trip, organized and led by Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, will also take us to Dubai and Riyadh. If the accommodations are even half as nice as our current digs (on a 5-star scale, I’d rate the hotel an “8″) then we’re in for a real treat. (Sorry Doug and Malou). My first impressions of Abu Dhabi generally conform to what I expected based on my very limited knowledge of the place. I last visited here onboard USS Ticonderoga in 1992, but frankly remember very little. A few buildings looked vaguely familiar, but that is about it. I�... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3533823 Tue, 04 May 2010 16:19:46 +0100 3533823 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3185431&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2010%2F01%2Fhow-do-universities-breed-terrorists.html "There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them." — George Orwell Jeffrey Goldberg links to an interesting piece today by Delia Lloyd: Smart Bombers: Do Universities Breed Terrorists? "What most people say is that people who turn to terror are the underclass, excluded, social detritus of the globalized economy," says Anthony Glees, a professor of political science and director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence at the University of Buckingham. "But a significant number of people convicted of terror offenses or killed in the commission of those offenses are university students or graduates." In fact, the Centre for Social Cohesion -- a non-partisan think-tank that studies issues related to community cohesion in the U.K. ... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3185431 Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:35:50 +0100 3185431 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1909419&cid=t_448123_113_f&fid=38130&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tempdev.net%2Fblog%2F%3Fp%3D233 I recently blogged about American EMR in Europe. This week, I ran across an article on the United Arab Emirates selection of Cerner for the Northern Emirates Ministry of Health. TempDev has partnerships with a number of consulting companies, including a Cerner partner. Turns out the Cerner partner will be involved in the UAE roll-out. One of their senior managers was explaining to me that he sent an email out to his staff here in the states inquiring who would be interested in staffing the UAE project. He was suprised at the number of favorable response. While the UAE is relatively safe as Middle East countries go, the American embassy in Abu Dhabi still releases warnings about Americans in UAE becoming potential terrorist targets. Would you be willing to travel to the UAE to assist with t... Implementing EMRs blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1909419 Thu, 23 Oct 2008 04:14:45 +0100 1909419 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1815230&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F09%2Fthe-trouble-with-islam-part-i.html In the New York Times yesterday, Michael Slackman wrote a long piece looking at the difficult task of being Young and Arab in Land of Mosques and Bars, in Dubai.  The piece hints at some important issues though, in the nature of a newsmagazine piece, is relatively superficial.  I plan on addressing the article more directly tomorrow, but as a preamble, would like to discuss some of the developmental tendencies in Arab culture that provide the substrate for the kinds of difficulties described in the article.  The focus in the article is on the tension felt by ambitious young Egyptian men who move to Dubai to take part in the exuberant life there (the vibrant economic and social possibilities) and the sense of dislocation they feel coming from the stagnant Egyptian q... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1815230 Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:38:55 +0100 1815230 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1602977&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F07%2Fthe-arab-mind-p.html [All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.] My work on the Arab Mind series has slowed recently.  The preparation time is significant and work and other demands on my time have made it difficult to post on any regular basis.  However, this week I received an e-mail that is germane to the topic and worth posting.  Reader DE described his experiences with his American/Christian Egyptian wife and her family.  He was specifically concerned with the behavior of his wife's Father.  I am reproducing his e-mail with minimal editing:I hope you will please respond to my email as you have a broader understanding of the cultural norms and child-rearing practices of the Arabic nations.  I am a Caucasian, educated (communication prof.) male who marr... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1602977 Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:15:15 +0100 1602977 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1460916&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F05%2Fthe-arab-mind-3.html [All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.] Digression and Refinement The more time I spend on this series, the more I recognize how inadequate the title is.  When I began the series, inspired by my reading of Raphael Patai's seminal book, The Arab Mind, I was content to use his definition of an Arab, ie someone who speaks Arabic and identifies himself as an Arab.  Patai spent a great deal of time traveling throughout the Middle East, primarily within Arab nations and Israel, and had little to say about Iran or Pakistan, two current examples of Muslim nations struggling with the implementation and interpretation of Islam and Sharia.   From the vantage point of 2008, however, it is clear that despite the very great differences between such nations... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1460916 Wed, 21 May 2008 15:56:55 +0100 1460916 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1426280&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F05%2Fthe-arab-mind-p.html [All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.] Adult Sexuality Thus far, I have concerned myself primarily with Arab child rearing habits and tendencies and their effect on childhood development, especially in the realm of sexual development.  An additional point that I have not emphasized is the prevalence of child sexual abuse within the Arab world.  Such abuse, which I have alluded to, tends to powerfully reinforce the regressive tendencies already noted, and increase the sexual anxieties that fuel the regression.  In this segment of The Arab Mind, I rely on Raphael Patai's descriptions to offer a more complete picture of adult Arab sexuality.  As with all of these posts, various caveats are in order.  First of all, the Arab Mind is a distil... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1426280 Wed, 07 May 2008 12:15:58 +0100 1426280 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1409686&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F04%2Fthe-arab-mind-m.html [Due to time constraints, the next post in The Arab Mind will be delayed; this post is related but much more speculative and imagines how the Arab Mind will deal with the coming technological changes, which has been called the Singularity.] In the first eleven posts in my series on The Arab Mind,  I have tried to describe some of the child rearing practices and cultural trends that contribute to the development of a personality style and culture that are particularly poorly adapted to tolerate and facilitate change.  Arab culture has been relatively static for a thousand years and the Arab world has reacted to the threat of change engendered by contact with the West and other non-Muslims, by attacking and forcing the offending peoples to submit to Islam.  This worked for th... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1409686 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:03:57 +0100 1409686 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1393698&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F04%2Fthe-arab-mind-3.html [All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.] Male Sexual Anxiety and the Danger of Female Sexuality Male sexual anxiety is a universal part of male psychosexual development.  In the modern Western world, attempts to minimize the anxiety are often expressed through crude "locker room" humor, pornography, and other manner of objectifying women.  A women who is primarily an object for sexual gratification is much less threatening to an insecure man than a fully three dimensional woman who has her own desires and independent mind.  The idea that such a woman could find the man lacking in his sexual prowess and endowment is a great source of anxiety for many men who have difficulty negotiating the developmental milestones along the way toward adul... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1393698 Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:42:17 +0100 1393698 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1376675&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F04%2Fthe-arab-mind-2.html [All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.] Shame and the Female Body Child Psychoanalysts have long been familiar with the concept of the female body forming a container.  When children first learn that the Mother carries a baby within her womb, a potential space within her body, they create fantasies about what such a potential space, a container, contains when it is empty.  This representation of the female body as container is primordial and exists and persists within our unconscious minds.  In its most positive forms, it contributes to the womb envy that creates conflicts for many men who are involved in creative pursuits.  After all, the female of the species can be overtly generative and creative; the man can only create pale derivatives o... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1376675 Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:48:16 +0100 1376675 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1360539&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F04%2Fthe-arab-mind-1.html [All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.] Narcissism and Honor-Shame Dynamics The intersection of the Arab child rearing practices that I have been describing and Arab culture is nowhere so clear as in the Honor-Shame dynamics which dominate Arab culture today.   Honor-Shame is nothing less than the summation of the pathological narcissism that Arab child rearing engenders.  Whether discussing sexual play with boys, the instant gratification afforded pre-Oedipal boys, the mirror image deprivation afforded young girls, or the sudden change for the boy to a posture of submission enforced by physical abuse, the consistent underlying pathological feature is a disrupted empathic connection between the parent and child.  The young boy who is always... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1360539 Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:09:54 +0100 1360539 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1344174&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F04%2Fthe-arab-mind-p.html [All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.] By the time an Arab youngster starts school he is already predisposed to defer to authority.  Taking the initiative, thinking "out of the box", and challenging convention are all forms of learning that are antithetical to the Arab Mind as developed over the first few years of life. Where Western children are subtly, and often overtly, exhorted to challenge authority, the Arab child has learned to be excessively deferential and obedient to (male) authority.  The lessons have been reinforced by beatings and other corporal punishments.  (See Part VI, especially.)  It should come as no surprise that a similar authoritarian atmosphere is the norm in many Arab schools.  The most extreme exampl... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1344174 Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:49:43 +0100 1344174 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1329042&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F03%2Fthe-arab-mind-3.html [All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.] Male genital anxiety is ubiquitous.  Most men typically pass through stages in their childhood where they are overly and consciously anxious about their genitals.  Preoccupations with size and performance are common enough experiences as to offer an endless supply of late night comedic material.  The developmental history of genital anxiety, often referred to by its short hand, castration anxiety, is instructive.  At approximately age 4, the young boy enters the Oedipal phase of his development.  The psychological and developmental conflicts of the period have to do with (partially) surrendering his attachment to his first love, his mother, in preparation for entering the real world.  As the bo... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1329042 Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:19:49 +0100 1329042 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1314062&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F03%2Fthe-arab-mind-1.html [All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.] Posts II, III, and IV in this series have dealt with the differences between Arab child rearing of boys versus the treatment of girls.  The disparity is striking and has repercussions on the development of the sense of self and self worth that is a primary developmental aspect of early childhood.  There are two extremely important considerations that require incorporation in the explanation of character development of the Arab Mind.  The first, pervasive corporal punishment often merging into overt physical abuse and overt sexual abuse, I will address today and the second, the meaning, timing, and experience of circumcision, will be the topic of the next post in this series. Corporal punishment, physical abu... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1314062 Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:51:30 +0100 1314062 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1312350&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F03%2Fthe-arab-mind-a.html Who is an Arab? I realize I have up until now omitted an important point for the purposes of this discussion.  In part I had finessed the topic because of its complexity but the question is important. In response to the reasonable question, who is an Arab?  I would like to offer the functional definition that Raphael Patai settled upon for his study of "The Arab Mind." Patai spends several pages in his tome discussing various ways of thinking about and delineating the "Arab" and he concludes: (pp. 13-14)Numerous scholars, both Arab and Western, have struggled to answer the question, Who is an Arab?  The answers usually include one or more of the following criteria: Arabs are those who speak Arabic, are brought up in Arab culture, live in an Arab country... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1312350 Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:13:12 +0100 1312350 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1303210&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F03%2Fthe-arab-mind-2.html [All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.] I have spent a fair amount of time already describing in some detail Arab child rearing characteristics that are formative for character development.  Before continuing with these ideas, I thought it useful and timely to consider the views of a noted Arab intellectual who inadvertently reinforces many of the implications of this series. Turki Al-Hamad is a Saudi  author and intellectual described by MEMRI:Turki Al-Hamad is a former political science professor who has been harassed and arrested several times by the Saudi police. He was included in Osama bin Laden's 2006 list of Arab "freethinkers" who should be killed.According to MEMRI, Al-Hamad has grown increasingly pessimistic about (the) possibility... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1303210 Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:09:51 +0100 1303210 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1280702&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F03%2Fthe-arab-mind-p.html [All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.]"Give me a child until he is five and he is mine forever."(Various attributions)Arab Child Rearing Practices: Girls Where boys are favored, idealized, gratified in all wants and needs in their early life, girls learn from an early age that their importance is directly tied to their relationship to the important men in their lives.  They have no independent value and exist to serve men.  Their sexuality is dangerous and threatening to men and their individuality is directly and overtly denied.  The Niqab, the favored form of covering in the most conservative of Islamic societies, exemplified by Saud Arabia, the keeper of all things traditional in Islam, exemplifies the institutionalized, religiously s... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1280702 Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:44:24 +0100 1280702 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1261602&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F02%2Fthe-arab-mind-2.html [All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.]"Give me a child until he is five and he is mine forever."(Various attributions)Arab Child Rearing Practices: Boys In Part II I began to describe the early experiences of children in a typical traditional Arab family with an emphasis on the different approach to boys and girls and especially, the effects of late weaning on boys.  This post, and the following in the series, will focus on the development of boys through latency and puberty; a future post (or posts) will discuss the continuing development of girls through latency and puberty. Throughout the first four years of his life, the boy is almost exclusively involved in his relationship with his mother.  The father is a distant, relatively uninvolv... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1261602 Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:44:18 +0100 1261602 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1245029&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F02%2Fthe-arab-mind-1.html [All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.]"Give me a child until he is five and he is mine forever."(Various attributions)Arab Child Rearing Practices A culture's Child rearing practices transmit the culture from one generation to the next.  Because of the complex interplay of child rearing, character formation, and culture (the sum total, and emergent characteristics, of the character of the members of the culture), child rearing practices and the culture so engendered evolve slowly.  Contact with a new culture often accelerates evolutionary change in cultures that are relatively open to such change; at the same time such contact often provokes significant reactionary movement, but without such encounters, culture is very stable. Cultural norms... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1245029 Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:06:02 +0100 1245029 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1229202&cid=t_448123_109_f&fid=34817&url=http%3A%2F%2Fshrinkwrapped.blogs.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F02%2Fthe-arab-mind-p.html Introduction: Everyday the incompatibility of the Western world view and the Arab (Islamist) world view becomes clearer.  Read the newspapers, watch the talk shows and the news readers, survey the blogs, and you can only come away with the impression that we do not understand our enemies (and this doesn't even include all those who do not even realize we have enemies) and our enemies, though they manipulate us well at times, do not understand what makes us who we are.  Culture is the sum total of the character traits of the people who constitute that culture.  Character evolves from an infantile neurological set of tendencies (what Stella Chess referred to as temperament) through a complex interaction with the primary caregivers, usually the Mother, later expanding to inc... ShrinkWrapped blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1229202 Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:22:02 +0100 1229202