Valentine Hypocrisy, De Beers Must be Destroyed, and How I Segue from Gourmet Cooking to The Empire Strikes Back

Enjoy.

This is as civil a post as I can muster on this day. I vow to not collapse in tears at my loneliness, and I will not rant ad inifinitum on the fact that Valentine's Day causes more frowns than smiles, and I'll even leave the whole commercialism conspiracy theory alone. (Well, not entirely.)

Why? Well, besides being even more self-indulgent than my usual blogging fare, well, I have to be honest. I haven't spent all my Valentine's Days alone, and on those occasions when February 14th rolled around and I did have a current cuddle companion, I relished the opportunity to put together an expressive experience to show my affection for that special someone; and while I haven't had the opportunity since I've started to make "real" money, I think that's actually a good thing.

I learned a lot about putting my heart and soul into something, and not just my wallet.

I don't talk about it all that much on here, but my kitchen kung-fu is strong. I've watched a lot of food network (There's an entry on my list of "posts to do someday" where I'll outline my man-crush on Alton Brown.) and I'm Italian, so I kind of have the culinary version of a green thumb.

Creating a very special dinner for a very special someone is probably my favorite way to show how I feel. When you know someone so well, and in some cases, almost completely, the tiniest thing can mean so much; like replacing the lemon and parsley normally used in Shrimp Scampi with lime and cilantro, or putting sun-dried tomato in the pesto instead of pine nuts.

(Geek Alert Aside) When Han Solo is captured by Boba Fett and the Empire, and is about to be frozen in carbonite and brought back to Jabba the Hut; Princess Leia feels compelled to blurt out, "I love you!" Han's line was supposed to be, "I love you too..." but Harrison Ford knew that Han wouldn't say that, even if that's what he felt, and even if that's what he meant when he said instead, "I know."

A lot of people that hear that tidbit are like, "Yeah, Han's too cool to say he loves her back." But that's not just it. Leia just isn't saying it to Han, she's also saying it to herself because she's realizing it for the first time. He's saying "I know" because he knew her so well that he knew that she loved him before she even did.

Now, I'm not saying that making up a special dinner is going to turn me into Harrison Ford (saving what could have been yet another ackwardly clumsy George Lucas love scene;) but, well, sometimes it can mean a lot more than a pair of earrings that cost ten times as much as the dinner.

You can't really get around the roses though; they're pretty necessary.

Speaking of jewelry... that brings me to the original idea for this post. When I think of the commercialism of Valentine's Day, I always think of a WIRED article I read a couple years ago. To date, it's probably my favorite article from that magazine:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html

I would hope that you find the article so stimulating that you need no additional encouragement, but, I'm about to comment on the article, so if you don't want to be lost, read up.

I see a few major sections of the article. And while I'm certainly geeky enough to pontificate on the potential possibilities of powerful processors based on diamond semiconductor cores, I'll leave that off, and instead focus on the whole synthetic-diamond-as-jewelry thing.

Now, I haven't done a lot of research, I've only done some preliminary searching, but all accounts that I've read point to De Beers being evil bastards. I mean, Microsoft is evil, what with their monopolistic aspirations, but they don't come close to the list of the atrocities from this article "Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Accept a Diamond Ring from Anyone, Under Any Circumstances, Even If They Really Want to Give You One" by CPE Staff Economist Liz Stanton, written on Valentine's Day 4 years ago.

Think that I had to look hard for that piece? Try googling "De Beers Cartel." There's hundreds of articles that harp on the same points. (And yes, they are a CARTEL; they artificially control supply, price, and marketing for the industry.)

So, when I read about synthetic diamonds, I was elated. Not only is there tremendous potential for lasers, semiconductors, and file storage; but there are diamonds for jewelry being made outside of De Beers' reign, where no one was hurt or killed in the process.

Everyone heard about those miners that died a few months ago; I mean, jeez, there's a story like that practically every year. Mining is dangerous business, and despite advances in technology and safety, there are still accidents on a regular basis.

Combine this with the guerilla wars in Africa and South America where many diamond deposits are discovered, and there's a lot of bloodshed, accidental and purposeful, that goes into diamonds. (Don't believe me? Want to read this article on the diamond mines in Angola? And oh yeah, De Beers is there.)

Anyways, back to the WIRED article.

"Synthetic" diamonds and natural diamonds are the SAME. Chemically, physically, they're the same. I mean sure, the Gemesis diamonds often have traces of some of the metal solvents trapped in the lattice structure, but natural diamonds often have minerals trapped in their structure as well. If you really want to go crazy with it, diamonds made the Apollo diamond way (Microwave beam -> Plasma Cloud -> Precipitation) are even MORE diamonds than natural diamonds, because that's all there is to them, they're made in a clean room, and there aren't any other rocks invited to the party.

So De Beers is trying to say that real diamonds are the only REAL symbols of love because they were made over thousands of years; not in a week.

Okay, well, I know I just got through talking about the little things meaning so much, and the idea of love being eternal and being symbolized by this hardest substance known to man forged deep in the earth for thousands of years.. well that sounds great... but for the sake of Pete, when the guy in the lab coat takes the synthetic diamond out of the growth chamber, he doesn't get shot by a warlord with an AK-47!

So you can sort of consider synthetic diamonds as the jewelry version of buying organic. Now, when you buy organic or free-range or whatever, you normally pay a premium in exchange for peace of mind, the chickens aren't cramped up, the tomatoes aren't injected with salmon genes to withstand the cold, your beef isn't steroid-laced.

But oh yeah, synthetic diamonds aren't more expensive than natural diamonds. No, they're half, or sometimes even a third, of the price of natural diamonds; which aren't rare, and aren't expensive. All that is a myth to perpetuate De Beers' silhouette-laden marketing campaign of the mysterious and mystical diamond; and to continue to allow them to charge extortionist amounts.

By the way, did you know that De Beers also strongarms jewelers into never letting someone sell back an old diamond for a reasonable price? Pretty clever to implement that kind of strategy for a commodity that stands up to time and wear so well.

(Here's a good article about De Beers and their stranglehold on the diamond industry, entitled "Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?")

So much for "a diamond is forever."