In the current economic climate, many men say it comes as a great relief not to have to produce a material manifestation of an intangible emotion.

“It has become such an ingrained part of our culture that women expect it and men expect they need to do such things,” said Marc Matsumoto, 31, a New York marketing manager who was laid off in December.

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The holiday, Professor Close said, may be coming full circle.

“It started as a very pure romantic holiday, until capitalism and marketing spiked it,” she said. “We are retreating back a little bit to the original meaning behind the day.”

I haven’t spent any money yet, but I’m spending the day with the woman I love. Happy Valentine’s Day

I came across this article today.

City bureaucrats will be drafting Toronto’s first urban food production policy in the coming months as part of the green agenda, but to nurture the brainstorming process the parks and environment committee invited the local gardening community to plant some seeds of inspiration.
“All of the city of Toronto is a farm. All of the city of Toronto was a farm,” said Debbie Field, executive director of Food Share, a grassroots group that promotes everything from cultivation to healthy eating. “We literally have paved over paradise and put up a parking lot on the most important agricultural land in Canada.”
Ideas stemming from a panel discussion suggested everything from turning more parks into community plots, edible landscaping and markets to sell of produce raised in leased-out backyard gardens.

Until now, the message that city has been sending to would-be gardeners is “No, go away,” she said, with policies that frown on fruit trees for being messy and veto tomato vines in front yards. Ms. Field said she envisions a first policy that opens up more public space for growing food, neighbourhood compost heaps that can be used on gardens (unlike the green bin program which includes contaminants like diapers and tampons) and a few pilot entrepreneurial urban farms.
Untangling a nexus of zoning regulations that hamper plowing under parking lots and bylaws that complicate rooftop gardens are expected to be a major part of getting Toronto growing, said Richard Butts, the deputy city manager. Examining the sale of food is expected to be an even thornier question with its public health implications.

Walden, the book I’m currently reading, came to mind. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get all our food from our own back yard? If I gave up tea and beef and lived off the land like Henry David Thoreau, I’d have more time for blogging. But its funny how moving back to simpler ways of living requires so much bureaucracy.