Burning hearts

I don't buy into hallmark holidays, and so unless I am dating someone on Valentines, I'm the last to do anything out of the ordinary on it. Corporate society has successfully managed to turn any dating man's inactivity on this holiday into an irredeemable relationship faux pas. So, I am indeed guilty of doing the bare minimum (Jin, hope you enjoyed the flowers) but don't believe you should require, or ever need, an occassion to let somebody else know how you feel about them.

On the other hand, I think there are extreme responses. The BBC "in pictures" feature for today had the expected spattering of images from across the globe of human beings displaying romantic affections for each other in a variety of weird and entertaining ways. The final image had me thinking a great deal more than the rest of them (displayed here). What does it say about the tolerance of people for other ideas if they fell they have to torch hearts and love paraphernalia on a harmless (though I will admit, annoying) holiday? There are moral standards worth standing up for, and then there's ridiculousness. I believe this is the latter.

More than just a couple of my friends in DC happen to be Pakistani, and discussing this image with them, they confirmed that while a certain element in Pakistani society could be expected to initiate such demonstrations, it's definitely not the norm; given the other images already on display for this feature on the BBC, I believe it would have been an editorially sound decision to include another, and undoubtedly more representative, Valentines day image in juxtaposition with this one.