Love has been a documented phenomenon for over six thousand years. A web of love connects us to family and friends like grapes clustering on the vine and anyone cut off from that web will wither and die. It is an emotion so powerful that it moves men to build monuments, write sonnets, and even face death for their wives and children.

Yet it remains undefined. We love our children or our spouse but unless we express the object of our love, it remains a mystery to the listener. It is defined only by the shared experience. When I say I love my sons, another father will understand exactly the depth of that emotion. When I say I love chocolate then anyone who has tasted it will also understand what I mean by that. The object of our love defines that love.

Yet there are some loves, even though they are ancient, that are forbidden by our modern society. I can love my friend Joe, but only if I declare it as a macho kind of love; a soldierly, ‘take a bullet for you’ kind of love that would bind us together as brothers. As long as that love remains asexual, then when I express it, the listener understands completely as long as they have had a close friend.

But there are those in our society who have the love of a close friend but also share a more physical side of it as well. Why is it that what we do with the flesh of our bodies will then take that love and ‘taint’ it in the eyes of many? Why has our nation built laws to codify love and the extent that we may express it with each other?

Laws are based on social values, which typically come from religion. In many of the religions of the world, homosexuality is taboo and thus the laws will mark it as a crime against society as well. But let’s not forget that it is just love, carried to a physical level.

There is a current debate over ‘gay marriage’. It is identical in scope to the arguments against interracial marriage that occurred in the 1960’s, and to the arguments against marriage between Catholics and Protestants at the turn of the century. Lawmakers make a stand based on numbers and polls, but ultimately should we care about this?

By being married to my beautiful wife who has an opposing (yet complimentary) sexual configuration, I am granted certain rights by the government. We share in our tax burden. We are protected together by certain laws (for instance, she can not be called to testify against me) and gain certain financial benefits and accommodations. Mutual custody over our property and children is assumed and granted by the legal system.

However there is a couple we know who have been together for longer than we have been alive. They share no such benefits. They face nothing but hassles and headaches from the medical community, financial industry, and government statutes. What is their crime? They love and have remained committed to a partner who shares the same sexual configuration. For this their marriage is considered ‘less true’ than my own, or that of a philandering (probably Republican) husband, or that of South Sea islanders who live in a grass hut and copulate freely on the beach every morning when the tide comes in (lucky bastards).

This is a foolish argument and we should not be squandering our time in the face of greater threats to the fabric of our society. What about the broken bond between government and citizen? A government that meddles in the lives of private citizens, constrains personal relationships, aids in the destruction of lives and welfare, and intentionally oppresses foreign peoples has lost the moral high ground to define what love is.

This and every future Valentine’s Day I’m calling for a vast protest. In defiance of our tyrannical government and the oppressive viewpoints of some of our neighbors, we must love. Take someone special to you and love them, regardless of their sexual orientation. Know that you do this with the complete support and understanding of everyone else who is participating in America’s Great Lovefest, as I have decided to call this day. We agree with your right to share the same legal benefits and protections of that love and associated commitment. We agree that all of us have a right to love anyone whom we choose in whatever manner we chose. So each of you, go forth and love … all night long.

According to Wired magazine, farm-raised salmon flesh is not naturally pink. Wild salmon eat a type of krill that contains natural pigmentation coloring their meat. So salmon farmers present buyers with a color palette … which shade would you prefer your fish? They’ll dye it for you with a super-strength food coloring that can survive the cooking process. It also survives the digestive process, but that’s a whole other issue.

An outbreak of mad cow disease (one cow) in the U.S. called into question the entire slaughterhouse process. The cow was brought in dead, making us wonder why we think it’s appropriate to eat an animal which wasn’t healthy enough to walk to its own execution. Then the meat packers announced that they would no longer be mixing brain and spinal fluid and tissue with regular meat. Ewww. I’ll take the chicken, thank you, Miss.

Now an outbreak of Asian Chicken Flu has made it to the United States. What do you feed a chicken with a cold? I’m guessing that chicken soup is out of the question. Do you get the flu from eating these sickly birds? Scientists who track diseases are speculating that these unhealthy avians could start another flu epidemic similar to the 1918 influenza outbreak. This has prompted the second largest slaughter of chickens in the U.S., the first being Kentucky Fried Chicken’s $1.99 nugget special in the summer of ’92.

Salads are much safer. Legislation has been passed banning numerous pesticides (poisons) and chemical fertilizers (good for plant growth, bad for people) here in the United States. This was widely considered a good move and the topic moved off of the nation’s radar. The industries producing these toxins then were stuck with huge surpluses and production facilities and no market. So they turned to developing nations who didn’t have environmentalists looking after them. They were even able to bring out the recipes for some particularly lethal cocktails that were banned decades ago. Now in the interests of global trade, our food markets have opened up to these developing nations and those fruits and veggies treated so callously are now back in American supermarkets; comprising almost half of all imported foods. I’ll take the Tumor Caesar Salad, ma’am.

With pollution so high and rampant soil contamination and depletion, even organically grown fruits and vegetables contain trace elements of toxins either from the water, air, or soil. Unless hydroponically or greenhouse grown, they contain less nutrients and calories than their 19th century counterparts. Unless the trend is reversed then late 21st century veggies won’t be able to keep anything above the size of a small rat alive. While some of you may think that fewer calories in a salad might be the best thing since the Atkin’s diet, just wait until we face real starvation in the United States; widespread, constant, and long-term starvation.

The bottom line is that the rich who control the factories and government, as well as you and I who give them power, need to learn that the line separating the self from others is an artificial one. What hurts you, my friend, also hurts me. Ultimately, all gains made at the expense of others are short-term at best. We have to visualize our children and our children’s children walking hand-in-hand with our neighbor’s children, and children from across the globe. We can not think of humanity as an individual but as a gestalt. Only when everyone’s quality of life has been raised will we have achieved a true existence. Until then, we are less civilized than a tribe of Neanderthals living in a cave but caring for their young, the environment, and their aged relatives and we will have gained for ourselves no more right to the future of our species than the dinosaurs and the DoDo.

Oh, to soar like the eagles as the Wright brothers intended. Although eagles don’t contend with the indignities of air travel like we do; long lines, a ‘pat down’ while going through security, cramped conditions, and restricted lavatory usage. This is air travel in the post 9/11 world, but it’s almost the same as the air travel I remember from before that particular date.

Security was a hassle then, but now I get selected for ‘random’ screening. I question its randomness when it happens every time. What is it about my profile that gets me flagged by Capps II or whatever big brother system the airlines are using these days? Do the screeners read my work?

Of course this is business travel which makes me the lowest traveler in the airport pecking order. My company picks the airline on the basis of fares and discounts, so service doesn’t factor in. If it would shave some money off the ticket, they would probably allow me to be strapped to the wing or stuffed into the overhead compartment. Not that there’s much of a difference in comfort levels between those options and the seats we are given.

Now when you’re seated by the doorway over the wing they ask for verbal confirmation that in the case of emergency you WILL fulfill your duties as door-opener. Somewhere, sometime the assumption must not have been enough. Someone made a conscious decision to not open the door and confusion and chaos ruled an egress. Now, the executives say, we’ll put the responsibility in the passenger’s hands. Let’s make them agree in front of witnesses that in the event of a belly flop or water landing they will maintain their composure and open the door by following the instructions on their inflight safety card. That’s a lot to put on one person’s shoulders. Shouldn’t there be a committee which will establish a door-opening delegate in the case of emergency? I don’t trust that weasel-looking guy by the door. He might choke in a crisis, or decide out of spite to go out a different exit without informing us, leaving us all to die in a burning airplane while we stand stupidly by a closed doorway, waiting for him to return.

I jest, but even the safety briefing is laughable. Follow the safety lights which will activate in an emergency and lead you to an exit. The oxygen masks will deploy and grace you with life-saving gases, even though the bag won’t inflate. Your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device. All of this is based on the assumption that this monstrosity of aluminum and steel will maintain some sort of hull integrity when it impacts at over five hundred miles per hour into the side of a mountain. Hey, our door guy is getting up to go to the bathroom. What if there’s an emergency? Shouldn’t we establish a backup procedure here?

Fellow travelers are interesting. Soldiers, businessmen, retirees, and single mothers hauling packs of children … all sharing the single hope that the pilot knows his business, and that nobody else on the plane is infected with SARS. At one point you could share a conversation with people from many walks of life. Now we all stare each other down, worrying who might be carrying a knife or a shoe bomb and struggling silently for possession of the armrest.

I’m getting worried about our door guy. He’s been gone a long time. Think he’s decided to sit somewhere else? Maybe he’s abandoned his post or cracked under the pressure. The inflight movie is Russell Crow in “Master and Commander”. Honor and duty and cannonballs blasting through the sides of wooden frigates make for interesting cinema, but I can’t help wondering if the pilot sees himself as Russell Crow’s character. Does he dream of commanding a crew of loyal seadogs while risking life and limb for Mother England? If so, he’d better do something about our door guy. I think a flogging is in order.

I have seen Janet Jackson’s boob. Frankly I can not understand what the big deal is. Google returned over 41,000 hits on the phrase “naked breast”. The words “hooters”, “boobs”, and “breasts” returned over 117,000 hits. Currently the phrase “Janet Jackson” and “boob” together returned 10,300 hits, including some that claim to take you directly to photos of Janet herself partially and fully nude. (Editor’s note: This research was exhausting.)

We see boobs on the Discovery channel weekly. We can see partial boobs of varying sizes and exposure on each episode of “Charmed” and after 10pm EST you may catch a glimpse of the golden globes on the cable channel of your choice. I’m not talking about the Spice channel here. Everything from the Comedy Channel to Lifetime will occasionally flash you with the money shot. So it’s not as if any male over the age of 8 and a working remote control is a stranger to this exclusively mammalian phenomenon.

CNN has run clips of the shocking event and commentary on just how shocking it is almost non-stop since the wardrobe malfunction took place. Pundits are lining up to throw their two cents into the ring and tell you how it’s a sign of the moral decline of this current generation, as if Marilyn Monroe’s billowing dress and undies didn’t become an icon for the 20th century. The nipple slip has become the saving grace of many an aging diva looking to cash in on America’s fascination with all things mammary.

And what other boobs are now showing? CBS was busy denying all knowledge of the intended act while revealing memos immediately hit the Drudge Report showing that everyone there KNEW what they were about to pull off. Stock of Viacom, the parent company of CBS, rose over 1% today as soon as the market opened and stayed there all day. The FCC jumped on the bandwagon saying there will be a full scale investigation of this whole breast thing (can you imagine the hours of mock-ups and simulations being run in their secret labs?) and they’re going to cash in on it in their own unique way as well. A maximum fine of $27,500 can be levied for a single hooter shot, BUT it can be levied against each affiliate showing it. In this case, the over 200 affiliates of CBS makes this a 5.5 million dollar boob. That’s MISS Jackson, if you’re nasty.

When all is said and done, we come away from this as a society looking rather tawdry. Overdone glamour and glitz and talent less popstars entertaining us while we watch overpaid athletes in what has become the lowest common denominator in the entire sports kingdom while meanwhile failing companies spend fortunes to peddle their overpriced wares. By making a big deal out of this we are looking like fools to the entire world, who quite frankly couldn’t give a damn if the entire United Nations discourse was broadcast in the buff. We are the only culture on Earth who still pretends to be horrified by anything sexual while simultaneously using it to sell our products, entertain us on television, and in some cases educate our children. To paraphrase Captain Renault from Casablanca, “Shocked, I am SHOCKED to find out there is vulgarity in our society.”

So let Janet enjoy her 15 minutes of fame. She hasn’t had a hit in ages and her brother is getting all the publicity lately. By making a big deal out of this we are demeaning ourselves and our society and making a laughing stock out of us all. It’s a boob. A breast. A hooter. A teat. 3 million viewers saw it for less than 2 seconds. The only interesting thing about it at all was the freaky little gold pasty. And even that got boring after I wore one around the house for a few hours.

Otto Von Bismark said, “To retain respect for sausages and the law, one must not watch them in the making.”

A recent case in Germany covers both. Armin Meiwes, a 41 year old computer programmer, stood accused of placing an ad on internet sites searching for a partner … a most unusual partner. He sought a healthy male who desired to be killed and eaten. As strange as that is, he found one.

I have a friend who claims that internet matchmaking services never work and that you can’t find anyone who suits your taste. Obviously she isn’t trying hard enough. Our hero met his friend who joined him for dinner and apparently went to his fate willingly enough. They first removed parts of his anatomy and cooked them for dinner which they both enjoyed. Then it was time for the parting … oh such sweet sorrow. Sweet, succulent sorrow.

He killed him and then ate him, storing bits in the freezer for later. Oh, and in case there was any doubt of his guilt, he videotaped the whole thing. Court TV and the Food Channel are undoubtedly fighting for the rights as we speak.

But guilt may be a harsh word here. Cannibalism isn’t a crime in Germany. The murder is a bit tricky, but the victim willingly came to his fate. He wanted to die. Think of it as similar to the American Doctor Kevorkian, er, make that Chef Kevorkian.

One could argue that if someone came to you and wanted to be killed and eaten that they weren’t in their right frame of mind and the ethical thing to do would be get them some kind of help, not start digging out your pots and pans. However, is someone who wants to kill and eat people REALLY in their own right frame of mind? And to what extent does one deranged person needing help really have responsibility towards another deranged person? It’s a clear case of two sick puppies finding each other in the world.

Civil liberties even come into play here. Can society really put boundaries on what two consenting adults decide to do with each other? Well, apparently so. The line has been drawn, at least in Germany. If you kill and eat your friend, however willing, you will be convicted of manslaughter.

You really can find anything on the internet.

Politicians hold up the welfare mom as the second greatest threat to our way of life, only following the global terrorist. As if a tired, overworked (usually black), mother of three who can’t find a job is the equal of a bearded zealot with bombs strapped to his chest. This is laughable, and plays to the worst element in all of us; the fear that while we’re working so hard that someone else might be getting a free ride.

I would rather pay twenty, or thirty, or even fifty percent in taxes to support homeless, hungry, education, free medical care, and welfare moms, than I would to pay even one percent towards bombs, soldiers, or propping up corrupt foreign dictatorships. Right now the tax dollars you spend are oppressing someone in a Third-World country. Right now your tax dollars are going into the pocket of a weapons maker here in the United States. Right now your tax dollars are paying for the missile that’s going to land in an urban neighborhood in Iraq, killing children.

Currently a number of states have programs to force welfare mothers to pay back the money they are given after a period of time. They are forced into working two low-paying jobs, because nobody will hire them for a single high-paying one. Where there is a father paying child support, the checks are confiscated by the government to pay back the welfare, which is now considered a ‘loan’ to help get the poor mother on her feet. Forcing hungry, desperate people to take a loan and then putting them through extreme hardship to pay it back is not welfare or social justice; it’s loan-sharking.

I don’t want my money back. If you can’t find a job and need money to feed your hungry children until such time as the corporate dirtbags in America stop sending jobs to Third-World sweatshops, then by all means take it. Most of us would gladly sacrifice that small percent of our income or spending to help you through your rough time. It’s the thieves in Washington who have decided that you are a burden on society. They need the money more than you, to give back in tax cuts to the ridiculously rich or to pay Halliburton or Lockheed-Martin and the rest of the Beltway Bandits.

If you’re a welfare mom and you can get off work, or the pathetic public transportation system in your area will allow for it, please find time to go vote in this next election. Vote for someone compassionate. Vote for someone who loves peace. Vote for someone who believes that Americans are America’s greatest resource. And then drop me a line to let me know who that person is.

In each of our lives there is a circle. This circle encompasses those whom we care about. They are family and friends. Within the radius are those for whom we would drive across town to help change a flat tire. Those we are willing to feed and shelter. People to whom we could gladly loan money.

If we are right-minded souls, the circle continues to expand. New friends are welcomed into the circle. Their own circles begin to overlap with ours and a rich tapestry of friendships, families, and shared experiences develops over time. A full life could be measured by the number of people within one’s circle, and even the number of concentric circles that share space with your own circle. Happiness is found by having many for whom one cares about and having the widest circle possible. Bitterness and cynicism causes one’s circle to shrink.

Imagine for a minute there is no circle in your life. Not a small circle that only encompasses yourself, but rather an infinite, boundless space that encompasses every living person and thing. A stranger is cared for as one of your own family. Imagine the richness of such a life.