Every rose has its thorn

Anatahan coughs and I wake up hacking. So. Hack writing on a hackneyed subject. You got it.

♥It must be Valentine's Day.

♥Just another day hijacked by marketers, in this case greeting card companies, florists and chocolatiers. Diabetes by word and by food. Even better, they don't even know anything about the guy, except that he was probably martyred. The original St. Valentine's massacre.

♥Try sending flowers in March, or October. You know, when you haven't even done anything to apologize for. When you're just fulfilling an obligation it's not so much fun.

♥Enjoy those Ecuadoran roses. I read an article about microcredit awhile back. You know, loaning poor people a few bucks so they can start their own business and get out of the low wage trap, flower picking for instance. In passing they mentioned how much the pickers were paid, i.e. what's left after the growers and middlemen get theirs. Then again, they also mentioned how grateful the workers were to have any job at all. There's the trap. Stop buying and they get nothing.

♥Love thy neighbor. Totally unrelated, but who gets to win this battle: Trees, Shade and Solar Panels = a Possible Crime.