Just so I don't get accused of bashing any particular religion, I couldn't help drawing your attention to this brief article.
"Let's get married - for an hour" describes an Islamic practice in Iran. 
     "The penalty for having sex outside of marriage in Iran is 100 lashes.  So men wanting a dalliance or young unmarried couples craving a getaway turn to the legal loophole of 'temporary marriages': contracts of a specific duration - anywhere from 60 minutes to 99 years - and for a specified amount of money..."
     I'm not sure I oppose the basic idea.  I've always thought contractual marriage might be a good thing, and have written about it in previous blogs.  However, in this case, it is clearly a case of religious double standards.  The way it is being used, it amounts to little more than legal, Shia-approved prostitution. -Or, at best, a hypocritical approach to their religious morals.  I wonder if you can get temporary divorces to go with your temporary marriages. 

     I want to highlight a couple of great articles from Maclean’s magazine (Sept. 20 issue). 
The first is called “Third World America”, which outlines in frightening detail the collapse and decline of the American economy.  It outlines the disintegration of municipal services all over the country, including police, education, and infrastructure.  One report describes how many states are ripping up and crushing paved roads in order to replace them with maintenance cheap dirt roads.  Collapsing bridges, over-crowded schools, exploding pipes in New York, all demonstrate a dire and serious situation. 

     Rather than blaming this on the Obama Democratic government, people have to realize that 90% of this problem was inherited by the current U.S. administration and the crisis has been building for at least a decade.  If there is any responsibility, it should be borne by the previous administration, not the current one.  And yet, it is the philosophy of that previous administration, the Republican conservatives, who are the most vocal critics of the problems, hoping that the average semi-conscious voter will respond with a knee-jerk reaction of blaming the current administration. 

     Compare their situation to Canada, who has survived the economic crisis of the past few years relatively unscathed.  Why is this?  It is generally felt that we owe our good fortune to the built in regulation our system of government placed on banking and financial institutions.  Yes, regulation; that ugly word that American conservatives despise.  Our government is willing to step in and establish criteria and standards for the economic community which tries to guarantee the well being of our society.  Your average American conservative will say that they don’t trust the government to take care of the well being of society.  Well, I would ask why they feel they can trust the motives of big business any better.  The economic institutions of America have demonstrated without question the putrid core of their ethics.  Their greed and complete disregard for the well being of society was the principle cause of the recent depression, which in turn has accelerated the general demise of the American way of life. 

     We, in Canada, are in much better shape, but we have to be careful not to fall into the same trap.  How do we avoid ending up in the same boat as the U.S.?  Well, I would say the best way would be to not travel down the same road.  –the road of conservative deregulation of the economic system.  –the road of conservative policies that depend on economic institutions and big business regulating themselves in favour of the best interests of society rather than greedy self-interest.  –the road where a system does not support medical care for all people because of some irrational fear of abuse (as if the insurance companies never abuse the mandate they have to care for their customers!).  –and the road of knee-jerk, reactionary politics that promise short term, hard line, miracle cures instead of real long term solutions. 

     It’s not time to get tough.  It’s time to get smart. 

     If you were looking for a positive example of world politics and human nature, chances are that you would not look to Kenya.  Yet recent developments in that country are a "shining example" to the rest of the world.  (Info from Macleans, Aug 23) 

     Kenya has over 40 diverse ethnic groups with a history of conflict.  But it recently rearranged its political system by way of a new constitution resulting in a new era of peace, -all through non-violent action.  This is not what we normally assume is happening in Africa, or anywhere in the Third World.  If they can do it...

     Possibly the secret has been leaving them alone to develop the solutions to thier own problems.  Ironically, interference from American fundementalist (anti-Islamic) religious groups made an attempt to support the opposition to the new constitution.  Supporters of the new constitution still outvoted the oponents by a margin greater than two to one. 

     http://www.zeleza.com/blogging/african-affairs/birth-kenyas-second-republic

   Ya, I did say something about shrinking brains a few days ago.  The comment came from a great article in the September issue of Discover magazine, called "The Incredible Shrinking Brain". 
    It states that , after increasing in volume for a million or more years, over the last 20 00 years it has actually shrunk by a significant 10%.  The data has been replicated across gender and across every continent where paleoanthropology has been able to do comparative studies. 
    One of the explanations provided reminds me of the movie, "Idiocracy" (2006, by Mike Judge) which suggests that selective breeding in our culture favors the unintelligent, as they are more likely to reproduce in larger numbers than the wealthy or more intelligent.  In the movie's story, the main character is accidentally sent into hibernation as part of an experiment and wakes 500 years later to find the world populated with stupid people. 
    This theory states that in the past 20 000 years humanity has had to use it's brain less to insure survival, as communities and civilization make life easier.  Civilization requires less problem solving, less memory and less need for people to be generalists in their range of skills.  Hence, less need for brain power and volume.  Oh, but you protest that our society is far more complex and our brains must be far more sophisticated to have created all the wonders of the modern world.  That may be true, but when it comes right down to it, how many people really understand the way things work?  If the top 10% of our society's brain power were to drop dead tomorrow, it would not be long before our society deteriorated to a medieval state.  How many people out there know how an electric motor works, never mind how to build one?  How many people even know how to change the oil on their car?
    Another interesting fact from this article is that it claims that if Cro-Magnon cave men had been raised with the same education and toys that we have enjoyed, they would likely be just as smart, if not smarter.  Our civilization and technology is an accumulated event, with each generation building on the achievements of the previous one.  We've not become smarter over the past 20 00 years (in fact, the article suggests that we may be actually dumber), and a modern human's civilization is totally a product of his environment.  Without the benefit of modern technology and social structures, we would quickly degenerate into savages.  (Hence the idea of "a thin veneer of civilization" that I mentioned in the "Girl Next Door" review.  Or "Lord of the Flies".)
    This idea also brings to mind arguments by Jon Young at the Wilderness Awareness School, that how much of our brain that we actually use is determined by the amount of time we spend outdoors.  He says that the peoples that exhibit the greatest efficiency in brain use on this planet are the Bushmen of the Kalahari, because they are constantly struggling for survival.  Our safe and protective environment, with safety codes that allow crippled or blind people to navigate in most places with minimum difficulty, does not encourage problem solving or brain use.  In his book, "Last Child In The Woods", Richard Louv claims that we are producing a generation with "nature-deficit disorder".  Modern society is discouraging children from experiencing the outdoors, branding it dirty and dangerous.  The result is obesity and attention deficit, ...and yes, less brain use, which will lead to decreased size, one way or another.  (Evolution doesn't work that way?  I beg to differ, but that's a different story.  Besides, the evidence to the contrary is evident from the past 20 000 years.)