Happy Valentine's Day

It's an awfully strange day for the goddess of love (pictured here from StoryPeople.Com), but then maybe that's the point of Valentine's Day anyway... it doesn't matter if you're prepared for it... Are you EVER really prepared for love?

Clearly, our world and our country is not particularly prepared for, nor even open to, love at the moment. Bush is busily ramping up the war machine again, spouting off words like "preposterous" to describe the suggestion that he might make up "evidence." Now where on earth would anybody get that idea!?

The House of Representatives is busily debating a resolution against Bush's latest escalation of the war, a resolution that does nothing except say, "we don't like this." I suppose that's better than nothing, but it seems remarkably inadequate under the circumstances.

A tornado ripped through New Orleans yesterday, once again tearing open the scars of a massive wound now 18 months old, yet still not even beginning to heal. Last week a kid turned himself in to the police for killing another kid after HIS MOTHER gave him a gun and told him to do it because he got beat up in a fight.

And that's just the first few things that come to mind.

It seems to me that in the midst of all this, Valentine's Day really is the perfect moment to turn around and remember those Burt Bacharach words about "What the World Needs Now..." The song may have been ludicrously commercial (is there a song written by Burt that isn't?) but it still hits the spot.

We do need love... and we need it right now.

Happy Valentine's Day...

Stop the War(s)!