IveryimportantN, the plug for my tree is being difficult. I don't have the patience to deal with it ( old house , worn out plug receptacles)

Things there is little choice over, not going to lend themselves to funny joke

I like that definition, it's clear and precise.

if ungrammatical

love when I post and don't read -- and then do it again

Hil, re: your Star of David necklace story:

Here wearing such necklace became recognized as a political statement for a short period of time (about 2-3 years, 4 years ago, IIRC). I can't generalize, but let's just say you would rarely find leftists (or people over the age of 22) wearing it. It started as a patriotic thing, but became very fast "I love my country and I think it's right and should be favoring Jews so it can do whatever it wants".

It started as a patriotic thing, but became very fast "I love my country and I think it's right and should be favoring Jews so it can do whatever it wants".

That's pretty much the history of flag lapel pins here.

Sunday's paper had an article about an Atlanta native who is a member of Blind Boys of Alabama gospel group. The headline was "He’s climbed to unseen heights." I thought that was in questionable taste at best, although as a person involved in writing the headline "Everyone wants to get into Heaven" for an article in my college paper about a stripper named Heaven Lee, I really don't have room to talk.

I can't generalize, but let's just say you would rarely find leftists (or people over the age of 22) wearing it. It started as a patriotic thing, but became very fast "I love my country and I think it's right and should be favoring Jews so it can do whatever it wants".

Interesting. At the university where I went for undergrad, which had a pretty big Jewish population, generally (though not always) the preppier Jewish girls wore a star, and the less preppy ones wore a hamsa. (I was a hamsa person. Mostly, I liked the way it looked, but I think that, as a group, there was a sort of "Oooh, Middle Eastern Jewish symbol -- that makes it way cooler than my usual American / Ashkenazic / suburban Judaism" motive behind why we were all wearing them.) The really preppy Jewish girls wore this star.

OK, sorting through my jewelry box, I've got way more Jewish jewelry than I'd thought. I've got Jewish power beads (ugh -- fad that lasted about a week), a mezuzah necklace (made by a Judaica artist in New Orleans), several star necklaces of various sizes and metals, one star necklace with colored stones in the triangles (the one that started the discussion with my mother -- I liked it for that day, because the colors of the stones matched the colors in my skirt), one silver hamsa necklace, a few little hamsa and eye pendants that used to be on a red string bracelet that I got at the Kotel and are made of some metal that turned my skin green, and a silver necklace with my Hebrew name on it (birthday present from my mom a few years ago -- ordered from an Israeli artist at a "Support Israel!" fair at her synagogue.) And I almost never wear any of this stuff. I ought to wear some of it more often. Well, except the power beads, which are silly, and the ones that turn my skin green.

I looked up Hamsa. I find it interesting that both Islamic & Jewish traditions share it.

although as a person involved in writing the headline "Everyone wants to get into Heaven" for an article in my college paper about a stripper named Heaven Lee, I really don't have room to talk.

Oh, we ALL wrote seriously questionable headlines in college, didn't we? I mean, I did.

There was never anything as good as Headless Body Found in Topless Bar, but what really is?

I never wrote any questionable headlines, but I did get in a few questionable photographs. My favorite was one for a story on a Newcomb College tea with the Dean. Photo showed the white-columned academic building in the background, and a student with a cup of tea in one hand, a plate of little tiny sandwiches in the other hand, and an "I t heart Porn" t-shirt.