As of April 11, the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. was $3.79. And I hear people complaining about it all the time.

Still, they don’t think twice about spending much more per gallon for bottled water.

During a recent visit to a local sandwich shop, I noticed that 20-ounce bottles of Dasani water were selling for $1.75 each. That’s $11.20 per gallon. Those bottles of water were practically flying off the shelf during the busy lunch hour. And I didn’t hear a single customer complain about the price of the water.

Why the double standard?

Perhaps some people think that bottled water comes from purer sources than tap water, and is actually worth the price. But such an assumption is naive. In fact, the Coca-Cola Company has admitted that Dasani is nothing more than filtered tap water. And, with the wide availability these days of home water filtration systems, filtered water pitchers, and filtered water bottles, purified water is available to virtually everyone for pennies – not dollars – per gallon.

Perhaps some people believe that bottled water is healthier and safer than tap water. This, too, is naive. In fact, bottled water is less regulated – and therefore possibly lower quality – than tap water.

Perhaps some people see bottled water as a status symbol. But is your own personal (perceived) social status, as reflected in a bottle of needlessly expensive water, really worth the cost to the planet and its inhabitants?

The website BottledWaterBlues.com sums up the environmental impact of bottled water in these four points:

– 60 Million plastic bottles a day are disposed of in America alone!

– Massive amounts of greenhouse gases are produced from manufacturing the plastic bottles.-

– Millions of gallons of fuel are wasted daily transporting filtered tap water across America and around the world.

– It requires 3 times as much water to make the bottle as it does to fill it… it is an exceptionally wasteful industry.

So, even if you recycle your own Dasani or Poland Spring bottles, there are all those other factors to negate that well-intentioned gesture.

Finally, and most importantly, if you buy and drink bottled water, you are supporting the privatization of something that is supposed to be a natural resource. And, in willfully paying corporations for something that you could otherwise get for free, you are compounding the problem. If water is something we have to pay for, then the poor will not be able to afford it. And, without clean water, it is impossible to survive.

Do you want that on your conscience?

The Planned Parenthood organization is under attack from the right. With ACORN out of the way, I guess they needed to invent a new bogeyman to distract us from their failure to create all those new jobs they promised us during the 2010 campaign season.

But their war on Planned Parenthood is a threat to the health and wellbeing of low-income women everywhere. And, sadly, I don’t think the GOP gives a damn about that.

Fortunately, the Republicans were not successful in their attempt to defund Planned Parenthood during the recent budget fiasco. But I don’t think they’ll stop trying, either at the national level or within the states.

Last year in New Jersey, for example, Governor Chris Christie successfully vetoed a bill that would have provided $7.5 million for women’s health clinics around the state. As a result, facilities throughout the Garden State have had to tighten their belts at best. Planned Parenthood of Southern New Jersey had to close a clinic in Cherry Hill, and services had to be scaled back at those that remain open.

Anti-choice zealots call it a victory for “the babies”. But in saving those “babies”, the GOP is endangering so many more lives.

First of all, as Ezra Klein recently pointed out in his Washington Post blog, pregnancy termination represents only three percent of Planned Parenthood’s services. The other 97 percent of their time and resources goes towards women’s health and family planning – contraception counseling, cervical and breast cancer screening, STD prevention and treatment, and even vasectomies. (I wonder how many of the male Planned Parenthood opponents have had vasectomies of their own.)

As Planned Parenthood loses its funding, low-income women who rely on Planned Parenthood for their gynecological services will suffer. I was one of those women when I was a young adult working for $4.00 an hour with no health insurance. I could not afford to pay for the services of a private gynecological practice. So I relied on Planned Parenthood for my routine cancer screenings and contraceptive needs. And I’ve never had an abortion. Indeed, it’s perhaps because of Planned Parenthood’s contraceptive services that I never had to make that choice.

But, if the GOP gets its way, other low-income women might not be so fortunate. As clinics close or reduce their hours or services, some women will need to travel farther to get the medical and family planning services they need. And, depending on their locations and other circumstances, that could be difficult or impossible.

This could result in an increase in cervical cancer due to harder-to-obtain Pap smears. It could result in an increase of sexually transmitted disease due to reduced availability of STD education and treatment. It could result in more unwanted pregnancies due to harder-to-obtain contraception and family planning education. And, ironically, more unwanted pregnancies would lead to more abortions – safe ones or otherwise, as available.

I wonder: Is that really what the Republicans want? (Of course, they would probably just respond with a call for abstinence – as Sarah Palin taught to Bristol. Enough said on that.)

When Jared Lee Loughner opened fire at a Tucson shopping center in January, killing six people and seriously wounding U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, he might or might not have been directly influenced by Sarah Palin’s map that marked Giffords’ district in crosshairs. And we might never know. Nevertheless, the map clearly represented a culture of violent talk that has become all too pervasive in Tea Party circles and the right-wing media that influence them. Each and every act of violent symbolism encourages a violent mindset that can all too easily incite the mentally unstable to violent action.

And it can also inspire our enemies. This was sadly demonstrated by deadly protests that have played out in Afghanistan in recent days in response to the ceremonial burning of a Koran by Florida preacher Terry Jones. Dozens have died so far in those protests, including several United Nations staff members.

Jones, mimicking Sarah Palin’s defensiveness on the Tucson shootings, insists that he is not to blame for the Afghan protests. Denial, as they say, is not just a river in Egypt.

Violence begets violence. And so does violent symbolism.

A rational person cannot stir up her followers with tweets like “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” and then expect them to react calmly and peacefully. Calm and peaceful is not how the right wing works.

And a rational person cannot hold a public burning of the Koran and not expect the Muslim world to see it as an act of Holy War – because, in a sense, it is.

Violence begets violence. And so does violent symbolism.

And these are not two isolated cases.

During the 2010 campaign season, Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R-NV) suggested “Second Amendment remedies” if the elections didn’t turn out as the Tea Partiers would hope.

In September of 2010, a male Sharron Angle supporter pushed a female Harry Reid supporter and then punched her female friend in the face at a Nevada Senatorial debate. Coincidence?

Violence begets violence. And so does violent symbolism.

Then, in October, a defenseless female MoveOn.org volunteer was assaulted outside the site of a Kentucky Senatorial debate. While engaged in street theater trying to get Rand Paul’s attention, Lauren Valle was pushed to the ground by some of Paul’s supporters, and then one of them stomped on her head. She ended up with a concussion.

I tend to think it’s no coincidence that the right-wing media are constantly bashing MoveOn.org, at least rhetorically.

Violence begets violence. And so does violent symbolism.

In cases such as these, one has to ask: Who are the real terrorists?