The Obligatory Valentine's Day Post

I am not a big fan of Valentine's Day. Unlike other Hallmark holidays such as Father's Day and Mother's Day which at least demonstrates some respect towards the people that brought you into existence, Valentine's Day is a vapid excuse for people to be compelled to buy nonsense for their sweethearts. It also has the effect of making single people feel like lowlifes, and is frequently used by people with a partner to get out of work, while the single losers get stuck holding down the fort at their place of employment. I thought that being in an area of conflict would excuse me from the trite consumerism of Valentine's day, but I guessed wrong. I walked into the DFAC for lunch and saw little heart shaped balloons filled with helium elevated above the tables we eat at (lucky for me I ate outside). Besides being an egregious waste of taxpayer dollars, this reminded me that it was, indeed, a day to be angry.

In addition, my daily perusing of the Iraqi media brought notice of this story which shows how Valentine's Day is celebrated in the Kurdish autonomous region:

Red roses and romantic gifts are very much in demand in Kurdish Sulaymaniya as young people shop for Valentine Day. Gift shops in the northern Iraqi province enjoy brisk sales one day ahead of the occasion that falls on February 14. All the gifts sold for that day are symbols of love, a shopkeeper said.

The Kurdish region has been the big success story of Iraq that has gone largely unreported as economic development is the norm, the Peshmerga maintain such good security that the Coalition barely have a presence up there, and I heard you can even walk around with no body armor in Irbil. They also got the 17% of the budget that they were asking for. But I must urge the good Kurdish people to beware of what you wish for. While I don't advocate an outright banning of the holiday like Saudi Arabia did, I must forewarn that Valentine's Day will bring a flurry of compulsory spending to your peaceful region that will certainly drive you mad, like it did to us in the States. I revert to the same phrase I do around Christmas time, Bah Humbug.

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