I've always looked at Valentine's Day with a jaundiced eye. It's silly. Cupid flying around shooting people with arrows? Chocolates in a red heart-shaped box? "Be my valentine"? Do these things celebrate passionate love or trivialize it?

Valentine's Day is for people who are not in love. They can compartmentalize their love to February 14, get it out of the way and return to their gray, passionless existence the other 364 days of the year.

Now I see that Islamic fundamentalists are attacking Valentine's Day. Damn them. They'll make me defend the holiday. If they hate Valentine's Day, then it must have some merit.