"For those who suffer from #fomo (fear of missing out)..."

"... it’s a good idea to avoid the Instagram feed of Dannijo, a fashion jewelry line favored by downtown socialites and celebrities."

I'm impressed by the intrepid marketing here and the very extravagant bib necklaces (which go way out onto the shoulders, like epaulettes, and drape around the breasts, like a brassiere). You cannot find Dannijo necklaces on Amazon. (I checked.) You cannot even find a bib necklace that extensive. I don't know how much metal and rock you'd enjoy hanging from your neck, but I did search for bib necklaces. There's an awful lot of crap under that designation, and Valentine's Day is coming up. I don't want to steer you wrong. I think something like this is not what your wife/girlfriend is likely to want to think you think reminds you of her. This is a possibility, for the right person. And this or this. If she's adventurous (albeit not at the Dannijo level). This is one I'd pick if I had to have a bib necklace. And finally, if the 2 of you are all about Scrabble, I have located the perfect Valentine's gift.

ADDED: Here's the one I can wholeheartedly endorse. It's the official Althouse blog Valentine's Day present for 2013. Here's the official alternative.

"All Stephanie [Cutter] wants is results."

"She is an old-school, take-no-prisoners political operative. Losing is not tolerated."

In her role as Mrs. Obama’s chief of staff during the 2008 campaign, Ms. Cutter (who signed on after Mrs. Obama’s widely publicized comment that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country”) is largely credited for turning the would-be first lady from a potential liability to an enormous asset....

In addition, Ms. Cutter helped develop “Let’s Move!,” Mrs. Obama’s childhood-obesity initiative, and prepared Sonia Sotomayor for her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Ms. Cutter’s prep work involved not only peppering Ms. Sotomayor with sample questions and overseeing media coverage, but also taking on the more delicate task of asking Ms. Sotomayor to tone down her giant dangly earrings.

“She has an attention to detail that builds huge confidence on the part of the people she works for and, I say this parenthetically, especially women,” said Anita Dunn, Mr. Obama’s former White House communications director.

Women. Advancing. Right?

"For Your Love."

The other day I heard the old Yardbirds song "For Your Love" on the satellite radio in the car. This was a 1965 song that I bought as a single before the Yardbirds first album came out. I was an early adopter when it comes to The Yardbirds. (I was — and am — particularly attached to "Having a Rave Up with The Yardbirds," which is not their first album and does not contain "For Your Love." )

For some reason, the satellite radio causes me to notice song lyrics, and the lyrics to "For Your Love" are embarrassing:

For your love, I'd give you everything and more and that's for sure
I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door
To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright

So... diamonds, things, and more diamonds. He needs to work harder on that list of presents. And I don't have to pay so much attention to lyrics, but something about driving does that to me. Home again, I went to YouTube and searched for "For Your Love." Nice. But what really amused me was that the search brought up "Munchies For Your Love" by Bootsy Collins, a 1977 recording that I don't remember ever hearing before. (Here's the album: "Ahh the Name is Bootsy Baby.") I enjoyed that, and the singing style and the guitar (not the lyrics) reminded me of some of my son John's music. I sent him the link and he IM'd:

I can see why you'd say that, but I wouldn't do that kind of bass.
Also, it's very repetitious and amorphous, which I avoid.
I like music with more structure and drama.
The whole thing is just 2 chords, back and forth, over and over.

I hadn't noticed any of that, which just goes to show how different individual experience is, even when everyone's paying attention. I tend to get absorbed in lyrics, and the fact that it was just 2 chords over and over would have eternally escaped me. John did notice the song's title though, as he later IM'd "The word 'munchies' always makes me think of...."

"[A] plain wedding band made of titanium, engraved with big block letters on the inside..."

"It appears to be that will imprint 'I'M MARRIED' around your finger."

Because what you want your wedding ring to express is mistrust.

Bad engagement rings.

Yikes. This one is upsetting me:

A modest ruby ring for Mrs. Zuckerberg.

Priscilla Chan models taste.

If you're going to bury a half-million dollars in jewelry along with the dead body...

... you really shouldn't tell the whole world about it. And if your solution is a round-the-clock security guard... well, why would that guy be enough to hold back the nefarious grave-robbers?

Absurd!

"So, should a jilted bride give back the engagement ring?"

"Today, the answer is often yes. But back when rings first came into vogue, part of the point was that she wouldn't. It was a security against a default on the engagement."

"Elizabeth Warren and her little gold ball earrings are running for Senate!"

Inexplicably sexist headline on a Bloggingheads video.

Wisconsin 8th grader sues her school district and principal for banning "I (heart) Boobies!" bracelets.

"Students do have First Amendment rights... Silencing the speakers because other students might react inappropriately would amount to a constitutionally impermissible heckler's veto."

It's a breast-cancer-awareness bracelet, though literally it merely asserts enthusiasm for breasts. That's what makes it funny and attention-getting.

Infiltrating the crowds at the Wisconsin protest, Meade sometimes wore a lapel button.

We didn't buy any new buttons, just used buttons we had in the house. In this video, I show 6 possible buttons. Which button or buttons did Meade use?

"What was it you were looking for that took your life that night?/They said they found my high school ring clutched in your fingers tight."

Jean Dinning, who wrote "Teen Angel," has died. Just sweet 86, and now you're gone. The lovely recording, a hit in 1960, was sung by her brother Mark Dinning. Jean recorded with her sisters Lou and Ginger — the Dinning Sisters — and they had a million seller, "Buttons and Bows."

To some, “Teen Angel” raises more questions than it answers. Why was the ring loose in the car? Had he just given it to her? Had it fallen off her finger?

Sigh. Doesn't everyone know that a girl wouldn't put the boy's high-school ring on her finger? It wouldn't fit! She wore it on a chain around her neck. Obviously, somehow in the rush to get out of the car that had stalled on the railroad track, the chain broke and the ring fell somewhere.

"It's most likely an industrial-type diamond, not gem quality."

If you scorn the merchandise enough, can you get out of the felony range... if you're Lindsay Lohan?

ADDED: You know who I feel sorry for? Jewelers. Here is is, 2 days before Valentine's Day, and you know they're hoping guys will run in and pay $950 and up for something that looks like the sort of thing that might make a woman feel that he didn't fuck up. And just at that moment, the clueless males of this world are getting an insider's tip: The junk in those stores isn't worth anywhere near what you see on the price tags. Diamonds? You Valentine's Day chumps need to know there are mere industrial-type diamonds, and you have no idea what you're buying, do you?

Here, buy a diamond necklace — see how cheap they are?

Hey, everybody mistakes 4-star generals for waiters.

"In fact, when military personnel wear their dress uniforms of short jacket and striped trousers to black-tie parties, they themselves often make jokes to each other about waiting tables. [ Four-star Army Gen. Peter Chiarelli -- the No. 2 general in the U.S. Army] wears a chestful of medals, which [Valerie] Jarrett apparently did not see."

"This is my little hourglass, and it has like over 5,000 little diamonds in it. And they're real."

A view from inside what Kimora Lee Simmons calls her "brain" — that is, her closet, her "satellite closet, a smaller version of the the mother ship."

***

Meade overhead me playing the video that's at the link, and asked, from across the big room, who it is...

Me: Kimora Lee Simmos.

Meade: Mara Liasson? NPR?

Which — you've got to watch the video — is really quite hilarious. Imagine Mara Liasson showing off her fancy shoes and handbags like that. But maybe the NPR folk actually do go home to posh mansions and wealth beyond belief.

Now, "go in peace, and be fabulous." That could be an NPR sign-off, don't you think?

Get up in your grill/grille.

I'm reading the transcript of the oral argument in Summers v. Phelps — the First Amendment case that we were talking about yesterday — substantively! — here and here. This post is about the English language. At page 40, Margie Phelps, arguing in favor of the right to express outrageous opinions in the vicinity of a funeral, is quoted as saying:

I think approaching an individual up close and in their grille to berate them gets you out of the zone of protection, and we would never do that.

(Boldface added.) Then, at pages 47-48, she's quoted saying:

Your body of law about captive audience... where they, by the way, specifically said at footnote this isn't about content. You've got to be up -- again, I will uses [sic] the colloquial term -- up in your grill. The term I think the Court used was confrontational.

And page 49:

I do think that you could have a public event where there was not an element of vulnerability in the people going in. You might even let them up in their grill.

So what is it? Grill or grille?

You cook on a grill (perhaps in a “bar and grill”), but the word for a metal framework over the front of an opening is most often grille. When speaking of intensive questioning “grill” is used because the process is being compared to roasting somebody over hot coals: “whenever I came in late, my parents would grill me about where I’d been.”

All right. So when you get up in somebody's grill/grille, what's the image: getting very close to the front of his car or somehow snuggling under the lid of his Weber? I Googled "what does get 'get up in his grill' mean" and – the world is so strange! — the second hit was to my blog:

k*thy said... I'd have no problem if she'd get up in his grill and then gone after his cycles with a bat.

Well, I didn't write that, and I think it's "grille." We're talking about the car, aren't we? Or do you think it has to do with that hip hop-style jewelry, worn over teeth? But what is that a reference to: the car part or the cooking surface? Wikipedia spells that "grill," but Googling around, I see a lot of pictures of Corvettes with "grille teeth." I even found one that I took:



Have I resolved it yet? If not, I submit the truly humble and unexceptionable request that spelling should be consistent within the transcript (and, if it's not too much to ask, all of the work of the Supreme Court). So pick one. I say "grille." (And I love those old Corvettes!)

Everyone's talking about Obama not wearing his wedding band at the big press conference today.

"A White House spokesman tells POLITICO that Obama's ring is being repaired, though it's unclear what needed to be fixed."

Aw. Come on. What could need fixing on a wedding band?

ADDED: You know, if they were just staying together for the sake of appearances, he'd be sure to wear the ring. In the comments, XWL thinks the repair might be a size change:

Maybe he's losing a lot of weight... He was skinny to begin with, trending towards bone thin for a man in his late 40s can't be a sign of improving health. Don't remember any shirt off pictures from his recent spate of vacations, might be that he's looking sickly. He certainly looks more haggard facially, of late.

Meanwhile Palladian says:

Maybe it was dropped in the fires of Mount Doom...

Female Washington Post reporter is impressed that Sarah Palin isn't fat.

I mean, I think it's a female reporter that I'm about to tweak, but here's the text at the WaPo blog called 44 Politics and Policy in Obama's Washington:

Sarah Palin watch: She looks trim, fit -- and brimming with energy and plans
By Ann Gerhart

It had been a while since we had seen Sarah Palin live and in person. And then she popped onto stage Saturday night at the National Tea Party convention in Nashville, and we made these observations:

1) She's lost a lot of weight, perhaps 15 pounds. She looked trim and firm, like she's hoisting the barbells or maybe chopping wood. Her chair at the head table was empty; if she had the shrimp and filet mignon served to attendees, she ate in her hotel room.

2) She wore a fitted black suit, black hose and high black platform heels. She had on three opera-length strands of pearls, two white and one multi-colored. In her lapel, a small pin with two flags -- for Israel and the United States.

3) She was animated and full of energy, so much so that she kept knocking her microphone with her hand as she made her points. Hope the Texans are ready for her when she campaigns Sunday for Gov. Rick Perry. She certainly looks like a woman who has some plans.

By Denny McAuliffe | February 7, 2010; 12:08 AM ET

So who wrote it? Ann Gerhart or Denny McAuliffe? I'm trying to decide what I think about this discussion of how Sarah Palin looks. Would a male politician get such a detailed description? I doubt it. On the other hand, a male politician wouldn't be likely to be wearing anything as detailed as "three opera-length strands of pearls, two white and one multi-colored." But a woman's necklace is no more significant than a man's tie, is it? I guess "black hose and high black platform heels" is pretty interesting. It interested me enough to screen-grab a close-up from the cool pic Glenn Reynolds took:

And I do think we'd talk about a male candidate wearing 2 flag pins. I do not like to see an American politician wearing the flag of a foreign country. I'm going to write a separate post about that.

But what about this talk of Sarah Palin's body? It's called "trim, fit" in the headline and "trim and firm" in the text of the post. There's a difference between "fit" and "firm," no? Interestingly, both words can describe both a body and a person's character. SP may be "fit" for office and "firm" in her opinions. Would we talk about a male politician that way? Would we cattily drop the info that his weight had previously been up 15 pounds? Speculates about the fitness routine — "hoisting the barbells or maybe chopping wood" — Ann/Denny seems able to peek under SP's clothes. Yes, it was a "fitted black suit," but how do they know how muscular her body is? And why do they want to share that opinion with us?

Squirrel feet earrings.

They're real, and they're squirreltacular!

Wondering what jewelry to wear for Valentine's Day?

"Wear your heart…on your ears. These tampon heart earrings display both your romantic sentiments and your menstrual pride."