A tree-killing Valentine’s Day

Last year at this time, New Republic published an article called Valentine’s Day Is an Environmental Travesty. It noted:

Sure, you could criticize on environmental grounds all manner of small pleasures, such as eating burgers, or driving gasoline-powered cars, or drinking frostily refrigerated beer… Yet sending a greeting card is worse as an example of personal carelessness, because its greener alternative is so painless and, indeed, so much more convenient. I don’t like veggie burgers, I can’t afford a Tesla, and I hate warm beer. But forsaking a paper greeting card for an emailed Valentine? I’m pretty sure I— as well as my family and you— could live with that.

Reason is no match for emotion, of course, so it’s no surprise that the dead-tree greeting-card industry continues to thrive.

Sentimental sap am I – guilty as charged. No, I’m not sending The Wife an electronic card. It feels too ephemeral. And if you’ve ever seen The Wife’s e-mail inbox – it had been over 1000 unread messages for a time, and is still over 800 – you might conclude that she might not even SEE my e-card.

So it’s the dead tree, carbon footprint Valentine. At least I walk to the store.

And NOT this.

Oh, I was reading the magazine Redbook in a waiting room. There’s an article in the December 2014 issue, “Things that (mostly) happy couples know” by Lisa Miller. LESSON #1: “Go looking for signs of relationship trouble in a self-help book and you’ll find them.” Makes sense to me.

Here are Top 50 ‘Love’ Songs of All Time, from Billboard magazine.

Here’s a 12-minute film Encore un Hiver.

Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto. View all posts by Roger