Instead, this week’s cover features Jamie Lynne Grumet, upright and staring at the camera as she nurses her nearly 4-year-old son while he stands on a chair. The title: “Are you mom enough?”

Naturally, the duo quickly dominated parenting websites, discussion boards and Twitter on Thursday, fuelling the eternally combustible debate over how long is too long to breastfeed, what makes a good mother and whether attachment parenting oppresses women.

The discussion’s tiring enough to put a baby to sleep.

Sears’ approach, developed with his physician wife, Martha, encourages parents to be responsive to a child’s emotional and biological needs through such practices as breastfeeding on demand, sling-wearing, co-sleeping and natural childbirth.

While plenty of commenters were outraged by the image, some parents saw it as a clever publicity stunt that didn’t reflect the subject of the story inside.

“Everything is getting lost in this except for the cover,” said Dee Brun, a mother of four from Kitchener, who questioned how a stylist could come up with the bizarre setup.

It is everyone else that has an issue with toddlers still feeding at the breast. Chances are that if you are still breastfeeding your 3 year old you will be gently or sharply ridiculed by friends and family as well as society. If you take it to heart you run the risk of becoming a closet feeder to avoid the negative innuendos and comments. This is sad because there is no harm in breastfeeding a young toddler. In fact many different philosophies on the matter are held. Le Leche League actually supports later feeding for a variety of reasons for moms who have the leisure to choose late breastfeeding.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that the world average for breastfeeding is 4.2 years and they recommend that all children be breastfed for at least two years. More often than not an older child will suddenly stop wanting feeds without too much bother or discussion. In reality would it better to give your 3 year old a cheese burger and milk shake? Many mothers find that a sick child that still nurses at her breast can be comforted and soothed more readily.

The emotional benefits alone, of breastfeeding your 3 year old are reason enough for some mothers to continue. The argument on the other hand is that those children breastfed for longer may develop an overly dependent attachment for their mothers. Research amazingly enough has found the opposite to true. In fact such children are more likely to be independent and not show needy behaviors around their mothers.

Time managing editor Rick Stengel, meanwhile, called it an “arresting image” that was aimed at making a splash and noted breastfeeding is one part of the story.

“Judging by the reaction on Twitter this morning, some people think it’s great, and some people are revolted by it,” Stengel said in an interview with the Washington Post style blog.

“That’s what you want. You want people talking . . . Do I expect some people to be outraged? Sure.”

The cover mom, Grumet, is a 26-year-old mother of two from Los Angeles who follows Sears’ approach and practises extended breastfeeding.

Concerns about housing have been in sharp relief for weeks now, long before Tuesday’s report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. showed a surge in condominium construction, which helped push overall construction starts up 14 per cent last month to the fastest annual rate since September, 2007. That’s because Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney started hinting in mid-April that he is looking for an opportunity to start lifting his key interest rate from the current 1 per cent. He also reiterated his concerns about too many people failing to resist the lure of cheap debt that won’t be as affordable when rates are higher

Specifically, Mr. Fong points to analysis from the Bank of Canada itself, which warns that 7.5 per cent of Canadian households could be in some financial trouble once borrowing costs “normalize.” He also points to a projection by the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals that a benchmark rate of 3 per cent would put 21 per cent of all mortgage holders in hot water.

But here’s the thing: nobody believes Mr. Carney has any intention (or capacity) to bring interest rates to that level anytime soon. Even TD, which predicts the first rate hike will come before the end of 2012, sees Mr. Carney moving very gradually to 2 per cent – by the end of 2013. The central banker will be able to move more aggressively once the European crisis seems more stable again, and once the U.S. economy is stronger and the Federal Reserve is closer to hiking, too. So, Mr. Fong warns, barring another “major shock” to the global economy, Mr. Carney’s rate (which directly influences variable-rate mortgages and other floating loans) will rise by at least 2 percentage points before 2015.

Mr. Fong’s main point is that while higher rates are hardly a boon for consumer spending, rates will go up so slowly that there “will likely be enough lead time” for many households to “adjust their spending habits” to account for higher payments.

Moreover, he points to signs that Canadians are already accumulating debt at a slower rate, as does Benjamin Tal of CIBC World Markets in a separate report. Even in an environment of historically low interest rates, Mr. Tal says, overall household credit is rising at the slowest pace since 2002.

Investigators from the Colombian attorney general’s office have talked with employees of the hotel where the Secret Service agents were staying and have also questioned the taxi driver who drove home the woman whose complaint about not being adequately paid triggered the scandal, the official said. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation and asked not to be indentified by name.

Police also went to at least one of the adult entertainment clubs linked to the scandal to verify the ages of the women who worked there, a club employee said.

Two Secret Service supervisors have been forced to retire since the scandal broke and a third is expected to be fired. The 10 members of the military face disciplinary action. The men were in Cartagena as an advance team preparing for President Barack Obama’s attendance at a summit of Western Hemisphere leaders last week.

Neither the club employee nor the attorney general’s office would comment on the record about the investigation or the police operation at the Pleyclub, one of the late-night clubs linked to the scandal.

“Prostitution that involves adults is not a crime in Colombia, but inducing minors to engage in prostitution is a crime and this is the reason why the government is trying to verify whether underage women participated in this,” the official said.

So far, she added, officials have not found any evidence of any minors involved in the incident. One of the ways investigators have verified the women’s ages was by examining information the hotel gathered from their identification cards, which women staying overnight at the hotel are required to leave at the reception desk.

The scandal began in the early morning of Thursday, April 12, when a woman, identified as Dania Suarez, complained loudly in a hallway of the Caribe Hotel that the man who had hired her for sex had not paid her the agreed price of $800.

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney rejected criticism from Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin that the scandal showed poor management. The two Republicans had said the prostitution scandal was part of a pattern that included other recent scandals, including the recent controversy over a General Services Administration conference in Las Vegas and loans to the now-bankrupt company Solyndra. In responding to the question, Carney also mentioned photographs of American soldiers abusing corpses in Afghanistan.

“It is preposterous to politicize the Secret Service; to politicize the terrible conduct of some soldiers in Afghanistan in a war that’s been going on for 10 years,” Carney said. “It’s a ridiculous assertion that trivializes both the very serious nature of the endeavor that our military is engaged in in Afghanistan and the very serious nature … of the work that the Secret Service does.”

Carney has said the White House has confidence in Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan to conduct the investigation and said Friday that Obama “wants the investigation that the Secret Service is leading to come to a completion. Once that completion is reached, if _ if the result is that the allegations that have been broadly reported turn out to be true, he will be angry about it.”

A judge denied Daniela Pelaez’s request for relief from deportation on Monday. Her attorney is planning an appeal.

Pelaez came to the United States from Colombia with her family when she was 4. She considers herself American and has applied to several Ivy League universities and wants to become a heart surgeon.

“I just want to pursue the American dream like any other child,” Pelaez said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will not take any action against Pelaez while she pursues her legal options, said spokesman Nestor Yglesias. He added that the agency prioritizes the removal of criminals, those who have crossed the border recently, and those who have previously been removed from the United States.

“Upon conclusion of their appeal, ICE will review this matter to determine whether an exercise of discretion is warranted,” Yglesias said.

The Obama administration announced in August that it would indefinitely delay deporting many illegal immigrants who do not have a criminal record and offer them a chance to apply for a work permit. Earlier last year, they also sent out a memo to agents offering guidance on when and how to use discretion. That document also covered those who could potentially benefit from the proposed DREAM Act, which would offer young unauthorized immigrants who go to college or serve in the military a chance at legal status.

illegal immigrants are generally productive members of the labor force, and make relatively little use of taxpayer-funded programs, such as Medicaid and other welfare programs. On the other hand, they pay little in taxes since they are frequently paid in cash and often do not pay either social security taxes or income taxes. In effect, they largely receive as take home pay what they add to the output of the country.

“Illegal immigration already costs American taxpayers billions each year, and these increased regulations force them to keep an open tab for illegal immigrants.”

Figures provided by ICE claim that the cost of deporting an illegal immigrant runs an average of $10,043. But like most government reports, these figures are far from being accurate as they don’t consider the costs incurred by other agencies involved in the arrest and deportation process. When all of the costs are added up, we find that taxpayers are paying between $23,000 and $30,000 per illegal.

.

It should be obvious where this is going. Paying a fine and “meeting other requirements” are actions not required of legal residents, but, if the poll’s amnesty program were initiated, they would be required of illegal immigrants. This satisfies the terms of the right’s own rhetoric: it treats illegal people as if they were illegal. Of course, we already do that. In most places, for instance, illegal immigrants can’t get driver’s licenses or other government-issued IDs, can’t open checking accounts, etc. Some people think the punishment for being an illegal immigrant should be more harsh. But conservatives often seem to take for granted that the mere fact of illegality necessitates a particular punishment: immediate deportation. They present no argument. For them, “what don’t you get about ‘illegal’?” suffices to establish their rightness on all questions regarding immigration. They are wrong, and, if this poll is close to right, they’re in the minority

People as a whole want results and they want them fast. It could be making more money, getting well, getting a promotion and of course losing weight. Everyone want’s things yesterday and when someone doesn’t drop 10 pounds in 24 hours they cry wolf and throw in the towel.

It’s no secret that diets carry a high failure rate. People just don’t have the will power to stick with long term diets. When they fail, they decide it would make them feel better to file a complaint about the diet plan they were trying to follow for whatever reason. The drop out’s will flock to the nearest internet forum and tell everyone that the diet sucks and it doesn’t work.

So why does Fat Loss 4 Idiots have such a high success rate? Because anyone can do this for 11 days and to be honest, once you see how easy it really is, you can probably do it longer. So to answer the question about Fat Loss 4 Idiots having complaints, sure there has to be a complaint here and there out there but I haven’t seen them and I am living proof the program works. At least try if for yourself and if you don’t like it, get a refund and move on.

Feb
22
Let’s get real about the journey
Kandiby Kandi

.Yesterday I told you I was going to get real and share things about myself. Some of it was known, some of it is new. First off, I haven’t always been overweight. Oh, I was always a little on the chubby side, but overweight wasn’t a word that was in my vocabulary. Yesterday I went on a mission to find some pictures of me from when I was a little more in shape.

Now, I was never a size 2. Not even close. The smallest I’ve ever been was a size 10 and that was in high school. I also have curves. No stick figures here. Anyway, here are the pictures with small descriptions next to them about my age, what I was doing and the like. The farthest back I went was to age 19 because I consider high school a stretch.

The first two were taken when I lived in Colorado. I’m not sure I’ve ever really said anything about my time there, but it was amazing! I’m an outdoorsy girl and the mountains offered it all. Views, hiking, biking, oh, and did I mention the lifestyle? I lived close to Boulder and that was first time I was introduced to the whole food, eat local, lifestyle. It was amazing, however I was only 19 at the time and my whole world revolved around having fun. I did take advantage of all the hiking though. One of the pictures prove it. Oh, and that was probably the last time anyone ever saw me in just a sports bra with my tummy showing. I’ve never had a 6 pack, but I wasn’t always as fluffy as I am now

The one in the sports attire was taken at a place called Eldorado Springs. It was gorgeous and the best part was at the bottom of the mountain. I real mountain spring facility where they bottled the water. I’m not even sure if the place is still there, but at the time it was kind of neat. Around this time I was weighing in at 150. Oh, and there wasn’t any ice on the road ahead…LOL. It was early summer.

The next picture cracked me up when I found it. Mainly because I look like a gigantic goober, but also because I look like a gigantic goober. Did I mention I look like a goober in this pic? Oh well, it was one of the few I could find of me standing in profile. I was about to turn 20 and was weighing in at around 150 and a size 10/12 (which may or may not be relevant to today’s sizing, but it was mid ’90′s). So without further ado, here is my super goober picture. Enjoy a laugh at my expense. Although, I did have some pretty nice curves didn’t I?

Over the next couple of years I gained a little weight, but not much. By the time I was in college, why yes I did take 3 years off between high school and college, I was in a solid size 12. No idea about actual weight because I stopped caring. Well, that’s not true, I just didn’t own a scale.

When Chuck and I met, I was in a size 14. I was still quite curvy and didn’t look terribly. I just figured it was normal weight someone puts on while in college and living the typical college kid lifestyle. Once Chuck and I got our apartment, well, I’ve been over this one before. We both gained anywhere between 25-50 pounds. Most of the weight went on after we were married, but quite a bit was on beforehand. I remember being fitted for my wedding dress and crying because of the size they had to order. I was so embarrassed. Well, the embarrassment wasn’t that bad, but it was still there. The nice seamstress told me she had to order it bigger because I was “busty”, but once it was in they didn’t have to take it in around the waist a whole lot. God Bless that little seamstress, she had my eyes dried before I showed it to my family.

From the time we were married to yesterday the pictures of me have been few. Not by my choice, but I am the one who typically has a camera in hand. The last picture I’m going to share is one of me standing in profile at the Y after a workout. You can plainly see I have some belly fluff. I’m not ashamed of what I have, it is what it is. However, I am trying to get healthier and if any of those little extra areas care to leave my body, then yay! Just so everyone can reference ahead, my current weight is 226 pounds.

Yes, I’m doing the “hard” way of changing my family’s diet and exercising 4 times a week. I’m so happy with the results so far (improved energy, happier outlook, and I feel stronger).

]]> http://my-complaint.com/the-biggest-loser/feed/ 0 http://my-complaint.com/father-complaint-on-facebook/ http://my-complaint.com/father-complaint-on-facebook/#comments Fri, 17 Feb 2012 02:50:00 +0000 admin http://my-complaint.com/?p=15817 Continue reading →]]>

In a note accompanying the video, he writes, “Today was probably the most disappointing day of my life as a father and I don’t know how to correct the situation. Since I can’t seem to make any headway with my daughter on Facebook, I chose instead to remedy the situation permanently”.

Jordan, who uploaded the video on YouTube to post on his daughter’s Facebook wall, thought the video would be seen by maybe 500 people – her Facebook friends and his own Facebook friends. Instead, it has gone viral: on YouTube, it was viewed 3.7 million times in just two days.

Parenting experts have advised that shooting a laptop is probably not the best way to deal with an entitled teenager, but the thousands of people who rejoiced in Jordan’s act of parental abandon don’t seem to mind.

“After watching this I laughed and applauded u (sic)!” Tonya Greider wrote on Jordan’s Facebook page. “I have a 15 year old daughter and I know how hard it is.”

“You sir are my hero,” wrote Jason Harbolt.

And Erika Jove wrote, “As a daughter, mother, educator, and a psychologist, I comment (sic) your actions. I could only hope to work with more children whose parents made them accountable for their actions.”

]]> http://my-complaint.com/father-complaint-on-facebook/feed/ 0 http://my-complaint.com/is-there-a-war-on-women/ http://my-complaint.com/is-there-a-war-on-women/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:09:23 +0000 admin http://my-complaint.com/?p=15813 Continue reading →]]> That issue rose to the top in budget negotiations and nearly caused a shutdown of the federal government. The congressional investigation into the operation of Planned Parenthood and its allocation of federal funds became the focus of much news this week when the Susan G. Komen foundation explained, at least initially, that was the reason it was pulling its grants from Planned Parenthood. After a veritable frenzy of reaction occurring in the wide open spaces of the world wide web, Komen finds its brand badly battered and Planned Parenthood is unexpectedly holding millions of dollars it didn’t expect. The Sunday talking heads and columnists are all over the map in their reactions. What conclusions ought we to draw? Are women really facing a violent and calculated assault? Or is using the word “war” in this context another attempt to fan the flames of an already overheated round-the-clock media machine?

First, a recap. In the year just ended, states passed 92 new laws placing restrictions on access to abortion, such as waiting periods of 24 hours or more, compulsory ultrasounds, or prohibiting private insurers from covering pregnancy termination for private individuals paying with private funds. Congress debated ending federal funding for family planning. i.e. contraception, and cutting off all funds for Planned Parenthood, where they are dedicated only to routine care, cancer screening, and contraceptive services. For the moment, funding continues for the non-abortion related services, however 9 states have passed laws which prevent all federal funding for providers who also perform abortions in those states, even though the money was and always had been used for non-abortion related services. So, women and girls without health insurance, dependent on not-for-profit clinics, find abortions more difficult to obtain, and even access to contraceptives dwindling, which defies all logic. Is this movement to restrict access to contraception and abortion equivalent to a “war”?

It’s remarkable that our elected representatives (and those who hope to be so), who claim that jobs and the economy consume all their working hours, can manage to do so much about a “women’s issue”. Historically, “women’s issues” don’t get all that much attention. Equal pay for equal work stubbornly remains a hope rather than a reality. Paid sick days as a basic labor standard, like safe workplaces or a 40 hour workweek, exists in California, New Jersey, and a couple of cities. Family leave under FMLA is available to about half the private sector workforce, but it’s not paid. Paid time off when a baby is born or a child adopted might be available at the employer’s discretion, and professionals may have this option, but it’s no guarantee, and very rare for shift or hourly wage workers.

One of the most repeated criticisms of the Komen/Planned Parenthood kerfuffle was the outrage that something as pure and wholesome as the mission to eradicate an indiscriminate killer of women should have become caught up in abortion politics. Really, this is a naive view. Women’s bodies, and women’s lives, have always been treated as a public good, the subject of the most impassioned debate, and fought over relentlessly like the “no man’s land” of the western front. Who decides whether or not we should bear children? Who decides whether or not we can control our fertility? Who decides what medical procedures are included in the health care insurance we can buy? Who decides if we work, where and for how much? When we work for money outside the home, who decides how and where and by whom our children are cared for? Who decides if we can slip the leash of work and home to be at the bedside of a dying parent? Do you decide, or do other people, through laws, social pressure, cultural values, and economic realities, decide for you?

Most recently, the financial crisis and economic recession have deeply affected women in many different ways as they struggle to meet rising costs of food, fuel, education, housing, transport, health services and are forced to take on more and precarious work in challenging and often exploitative conditions.

At the same time, women have long been negotiating fractures in the system and filling the gaps left by cuts in social spending. And there are many important experiences from which to learn. Indigenous, peasant and rural women building food sovereignty. Grassroots women developing strategies of resilience and empowerment in the face of both environmental and economic disasters. Young women and girls using new information and communication technologies in diverse and creative ways to mobilize and bring about social change. Sex workers, migrant workers and domestic workers redefining what it means to work and why care work should count. Women with disabilities, trans activists and women living with HIV/AIDS continuing to question unbridled emphasis on growth and productivity at the expense of human dignity. And feminist economists naming and analyzing the forces shaping and assigning value to social production and reproduction.

The current dominant economic system also has profound impacts on women’s sexual and reproductive rights and LGBTQI rights. Times of economic crisis often lead to even greater attempts to control sexuality and further limit access to sexual and reproductive health services and rights, especially for women living in poverty and other marginalized groups.

We are also currently witnessing the impact of economic policies that promote unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, which have resulted in the massive exploitation of our planet’s natural resources, increasing conflict and exacerbating inequalities amongst the poorest and most vulnerable communities. At the same time, due to gendered divisions of labour, patriarchal cultural norms and laws and economic inequalities, women continue to be denied access to and control of resources, including land, education, health services, credit and technologies.

]]> http://my-complaint.com/is-there-a-war-on-women/feed/ 0 http://my-complaint.com/people-at-walmart/ http://my-complaint.com/people-at-walmart/#comments Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:10:23 +0000 admin http://my-complaint.com/?p=15807 Continue reading →]]>

I honestly don’t think Sam Walton wanted Wal-Mart to become what it has become! It’s really a pathetic joke to the American people! “Let’s all shop at Wal-Mart, where 80-90% of the items are made in China, who owns our debt”! “Let Wal-Mart (Devout) customers become the face of America”! Yeah right, a bunch of brainwashed idiots who act like zombies in that store. And I shop at Wal-Mart too, but my god, so many people who shop there are complete idiots! Mindless zombies wondering around!

People of Wal-Mart

I don’t mean the website, I mean the actual people that shop at Wal-Mart. Not only are they hardcore deal-finders, but they all seem to have some sort of an issue they feel it absolutely necessary to share with the world. Some of them have an issue with dressing – wearing clothing that is entirely inappropriate, and even unnecessary, for shopping at the big box retailer. Some of them have significant other issues that they feel it necessary to blather around the store on their cell phones, screaming at each other, or even sharing with the Wal-Mart employees. No matter what the issue may be, it seems like every person that shops at Wal-Mart seems to feel that it is their duty to turn the Wal-Mart experience into a therapy session/hillbilly fashion show. I just want to get my discounted goods and get the shit out of here. Why must I stand here and endure your issues?

A lot of people hate Wal-Mart for a lot of different reasons. In addition to these I have listed, I hate Wal-Mart and refuse to shop there because for years they have systematically broken down the notion of loyalty to a company. Big box retail took over small, locally owned businesses and the people of this world fell for it in the name of getting a good deal. In the end, though, there is no deal that is worth what Wal-Mart represents.

]]> http://my-complaint.com/people-at-walmart/feed/ 1 http://my-complaint.com/gas-prices-never-down/ http://my-complaint.com/gas-prices-never-down/#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:09:03 +0000 admin http://my-complaint.com/?p=15804 Did you know that gas price gouging almost never occurs as prices rise? Rather, it’s most often when dealers keep prices artificially high even as their costs fall. As gas costs were near $5 a gallon until falling and oil … Continue reading →]]> —>Did you know that gas price gouging almost never occurs as prices rise? Rather, it’s most often when dealers keep prices artificially high even as their costs fall. As gas costs were near $5 a gallon until falling and oil companies earn around $100 billion each year, it’s a good time to question what really goes into the price of gas. The numbers on the gas station sign hide a complex set of transactions. Before gas can power your car, it must be discovered as crude oil, traverse three markets, and be refined from crude into gas. Inside, we’ll explain the three markets, walk you through the role of refineries, and show how oil companies use creative tactics to manipulate gas prices…

The Three Markets: Contract, Spot and Futures

Both oil and gas are traded on three markets: the contract market, the spot market, and the futures market. Each is influenced by different factors and impacts the price of gas at different stages of production. Unlike the futures market, the contract and spot markets are not the kind of markets found on Wall Street; they are informal networks of businesspeople.

The Contract Market
Though it seems like oil companies spend most of their time ruining your day by raising the price of gas, their primary business is exploration. Once an oil company finds a field and coaxes it into producing crude, it takes that unrefined oil and sells to refiners. The vast majority of oil is sold by contracts. A veritable orgy of contracts signed between oil companies and dealers, oil companies and refiners, refiners and independent dealers predetermine the fate of most oil and gas.

Refiners plan their purchasing and refining activity to ensure that these contracts are fulfilled. In exchanged for this privileged standing, refiners charge contract customers a premium.

The Spot Market

Need some extra oil? Got a spare barrel you need to sell today? The spot market is for you. The spot market fills the gap left by the contracts market. When a refiner needs extra oil to meet its contracts, they find people with surplus oil on the spot market. Unlike the contract and futures markets, which trade pieces of paper, the spot market involves the trade of actual barrels.

The best deals are often found on the spot market. Since neither the buyer or seller is locked into a prearranged deal, the laws of supply, demand, and free market are mostly in effect.

The Futures Market
Crude oil is the bees knees of the American Mercantile Exchange. A futures contract might stand for 1,000 barrels of West Texas Intermediate to be delivered at Cushing, Oklahoma. The futures market represents that collective state of the oil market at any particular moment. When you hear reporters talk about the price of oil reaching $100 per barrel, they’re talking about the futures market. Because fluctuations on the futures market are driven by information, its prices guide the contract and spot markets.

The people buying and selling futures rarely, if ever, collect on their contracts; a seven year period saw 5 billion barrels traded, of which only 31,000 were ever delivered.

Refineries

Refineries are the temples where crude oil gets Bar Mitzvah’d into gas. Shifts in the refining world over the past two decades have helped ratchet up the price of gas. In the early 80′s, there were over 350 refineries, mostly owned by the oil companies. The oil companies didn’t see refining as a place to generate profit, but as an integral part of a larger operation.

If a refiner’s rack price is consistently too high, dealers will take their business elsewhere when their contracts expire. If the rack price is too low, buyers might swamp the refiner, leaving it unable to meet its contractual obligations.

To ensure pricing continuity, refiners used to call each other and share pricing information. Activist judges on the Supreme Court called this “collusion.” The refiners, unfazed by the justices, came up with a crafty alternative: publicly posting their rack prices. Somehow, the Ninth Circuit Court found this to be illegal, too. Nobody knows how refiners discuss their pricing arrangements nowadays, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it involved a members-only group on Facebook.

Despite multiple warnings, the American political system is so dysfunctional that very little has changed since a president named Jimmy Carter tried to get us to get serious about reducing our dependence on gasoline. Oh, cars and trucks get better gas mileage than they did back then. But the nation still lacks a coherent policy for radically reducing consumption.

The frustration over prices at the pump is likely a major contributor to Obama’s sagging approval ratings.

Earlier this month, Gallup’s daily tracking poll showed that the president’s favorability rating had slipped to 41 percent, tied with his lowest ever. Voters tend to blame the person in the Oval Office when gas prices soar.

I understand the frustration. Families struggling in the post-recession economic landscape — some still jobless, many earning less than they used to — are hard-pressed to fork over more and more money at the gas pump.

And for many of those families, driving has become a necessity. They’re not taking leisurely spring-break road trips. They’re trying to get to work, to the doctor’s office, to the grocery store.

Over the last 30 years, suburban and exurban development, especially in fast-growing Sunbelt cities, have produced sprawling mega-lopolises, wherein workers may live an hour’s drive (or more) from the workplace. Those suburbs aren’t exclusive enclaves of the affluent, either. Many suburbs are economically and racially diverse, so more families of modest means live far from work. A dime a gallon can break the budget.
]]> http://my-complaint.com/gas-prices-never-down/feed/ 1 http://my-complaint.com/world-without-religion-better-or-worse/ http://my-complaint.com/world-without-religion-better-or-worse/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 01:39:19 +0000 admin http://my-complaint.com/?p=15800 Continue reading →]]> Obviously, given how totally dominant religion has been throughout human history, up to about 250 years ago, that means that every human institution or idea that’s more than 250 years old was originated by religious people. So science, the hatred of science, war, peace, tyranny, rights, racism, the opposition to racism, slavery, the movement to abolish slavery, all were originated by religious people and in that sense you can say that all of them are “products of religion” or “launched from religious roots”. This isn’t evidence for whether any of these ideas or institutions are essentially compatible with or opposed to religion.

n the case of science, specifically, the reason it has “been perfectly able to stand on its own” is that it is essentially incompatible with religion. Religion requires that you accept certain truths on faith, with no backing in evidence and logic or in contradiction to the evidence and logic; science requires that you make evidence and logic your only criterion for the truth. That is why progress in science required that it be separated from the influence of religion

Religion is akin to physics in that each adheres to metaphysical laws: laws that are outside of the natural system itself. The university itself was originally a product of the church, and science a product of those universities, developed by religious scholars who postulated that, since the universe had a legislator, it must follow laws, and then set out to discover what those laws might be. Galileo himself was a religious scholar, and he continued to regard himself a good Catholic for his entire life, writing “the book of nature is a book written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics.” His problems mostly resulted from his arrogance in defying the pope who had urged him to make it clear that his work was based in science, not theology. There’s a good account of the affair in Rodney Stark’s For the Glory of God. Thus were the disciplines of math, science, ethics and economics first developed. To the extent that science requires a continued belief (“faith”) that nature follows laws, I suppose one could say it is religious, but that is not what I was saying. Since its launching from its religious roots, science has been perfectly able to stand on its own. I was simply saying that both adhere to laws and that those laws can be discovered.

The pages of history are filled with violence orchestrated by various religious groups seeking to impose their beliefs on others. Violence remains with us today on a world wide scale as religious organizers continue to make claims that their religion represents the absolute truth over all others. The recent gathering in Assisi hosted by Pope Benedict XVI included some 300 representatives of world religions as well as a small group of agnostics gives rise to the hope that maybe someday we will find common ground albeit probably without the support of organized religions.

The idea that such meetings could prove to be cathartic was vividly illustrated when Benedict used this occasion to finally apologize for events such as the Crusades or the use of force to spread the faith in the New World. Pope John Paul apologized in 2000 for Christianity’s historical failures. In recent years an increasing number of awakened and informed people have rightfully become suspicious and alarmed about the real aims of some institutional religions.

While in Assisi Benedict suggested that these suspicions may have caused people to doubt in God’s existence. But this argument, if it was intended to support the institutional hierarchy, may be rather ill founded. It is far more likely that more people today believe in a loving God but do not see the need for a heavily politicised and dogmatic religion that does not serve their particular needs or sympathies. This rejection or disappointment is clearly reflected in the number of Catholics who have left their beloved church in droves in the last two decades. Sadly the Church hierarchy continues to avoid meaningful dialogue with the people they serve.

Acts of violence in all its forms carried out in the name of God can never be justified. God does not make demands, punish, or reward or ask us to act as his soldiers or martyrs. Our common deity does not need our help to accomplish his work. We merely need to treat each other as we would like to be treated ourselves. God simply loves us unconditionally regardless of our beliefs. We need to embrace a new way of understanding one another. We must free ourselves from rigid beliefs and rid ourselves from some of the trappings which institutional religion has brought us.

We now share the planet with more than 7 billion inhabitants all with unique and separate qualities or abilities. More significantly our technological advances continue to bring us closer and closer together resulting in the inevitable clash of differing cultures. While we may celebrate our individual cultural differences they must never be used as means of establishing a cult of superiority. Such displays and attitudes will only hasten conflict and hatred. Exterior religious signs and symbols cannot serve as a substitute for the much more needed interior expression of the heart.

In the meantime world peace will remain elusive perhaps until the divisions and separation between the world’s religions are finally resolved. In God’s realm there are no institutional religions, or separate levels of equality. Man or woman, In the eyes of God we are all equal and holy creations. This Creator desires to save all, not some, not just Catholics, but all!

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