My Valentine's Day Rant

Valentine's Day really irks me possibly more than any other day of the year, including national prostate exam day. Ok there's not really one of those, but if there was I might enjoy it more.

On any day named after a saint I have to ask myself, "Who was St. ________, and why do we _________ because of them?"

St. Patrick- we drink green beer. What does that have to do with slavery, snakes (false), and evangelism???

Unfortunately upon further investigation there is no hard historical evidence that a St. Valentine ever existed. It's more like a tomb of the unknown soldier, except of christian martyrdom. Apparently several of the early Christian martyrs took on the title of valens or worthy. Which would actually be a really cool holiday to celebrate. So how would we celebrate. 1. Drinking red beer 2. Fighting lions in an arena 3. Reenacting early Christian martyrs deaths.

But like all good things some jerk had to go off and ruin it for the rest of us. Thanks Geoffrey Chaucer. Thanks to you British people can't spell my first name right, I've had to read terrible poetry on several occasions (Canterbury Tales), and you completely botched a really cool holiday for the rest of us. I could be drinking red beer upside down instead of watching crappy Jared commercials on ESPN. Leave it to a poet to screw things up.

Which brings me to the second reason I don't like Valentine's Day. Jewelry commercials. I'm not against all jewelry, just diamonds. I have a serious problem with the whole diamond industry. It's an industry that has been marred by near slavery conditions for imported workers, contributing to financing several civil wars in Africa (Angola, Libya, Ivory Coast, Congo x2, Sierra Leon, and Zimbabwe), a monopolistic cartel that controlled most of the world's diamonds and jacked the price sky-high, and Cecil Rhodes. All for what? So that Westerners can have a piece of jewelry. It's exploitation, and we freely participate in it. Why do you need a diamond. "Because a diamond is forever." Who came up with that crap- the same people mining them. Why are diamonds engagement rings the standard? Because DeBeers had a brilliant marketing campaign during the 1920's. Who's DeBeers? Those dirty jerks who exploit the poor, import indentured labor, funded civil wars, ran everybody else out of the market, jacked up prices by controlling the market, and founded by Cecil Rhodes (that dirty jerk). They even managed to piss off Ghandhi, though be it indirectly.

I hate it. I refuse to participate in it.

Paul "Wishing he was watching commercials about drinking red beer while being flayed" Murphy