I told the spouse that I am not buying a diamond, ever, nearly 20 years ago, and I haven't. I like synthetic corundums: sapphires and rubies. I understand the

I told the spouse that I am not buying a diamond, ever, nearly 20 years ago, and I haven't. I like synthetic corundums: sapphires and rubies. I understand the synthesis process, which does not involve hired enforcer thugs and criminal exploitation of poor laborers. They are hard enough to resist scratches from most things, and they fracture conchoidally, instead of along 4 perfect planes of cleavage. I'm also good with nephrite and jadeite, which can take a pounding, due to their fibrous crystals and interlocking crystals, respectively. The spouse is not okay with this, and makes only token efforts to hide disdain, but I am stubborn enough to die before giving a single penny to some parasitic international diamond cartel, just for a little bit more refractive index, hardness, and thermal conductivity. We're still not a diamond-free household, though. Some have been inherited from more foolish ancestors. We have also "mined" natural corundums at a touristy dirt-washing operation in western North Carolina. This, of course, led immediately to talk about digging up yellow/brown rough diamonds in Crater of Diamonds (Arkansas) State Park, which immediately informed me that the venomous DeBeers brain-hooks were still set. It just makes me hate the cartel more. I think what irritates me most is that their marketing is so effective. You can show an entire feature film, starring A-list actors, about people getting brutally murdered over the diamond trade, and people will unabashedly say they still want diamond jewelry after watching. Hell, you can watch Marathon Man, and hear, "I'm afraid of dentists now, but I would also like to keep all the diamonds I can eat." They have somehow made diamonds bypass all reason, and link directly to the emotional center of the psyche, with nothing more than decades of persistent advertising.