Ugly Jewelry As Fashion Statement

Most of us peasants had to work at an outside job to make ends meet during our college and grad school years. I paid my way through law school working in the jewelry business, from small boutiques to large department stores. I saw plenty of ugly fashion statements being made during those years via personal jewelry. Remember the mood ring (pictured)?

Now that was one ugly hunk of junk, but they sold like hot cakes. I never quite understood why anyone would want to broadcast his or her current mood by wearing a large piece of badly-wrought metal with an unidentifiable stone in the center. On the more ascetic side there was the cute little 14 karat spoon. To show you how naive I was, I couldn't figure it out. Had we become a nation of cooks, or tea-drinkers? My more sophisticated friends finally enlightened me. They were representation of the spoons used by coke devotees to heat the popular drug of the day. I guess the heroin users wore stainless steel spoons.

Recently, the idea of telegraphing your views via bad jewelry has been carried into the political arena, reaching even the halls of Congress. I call it "insult jewelry." You want to let everyone know your contempt for the Constitution, national sovereignty and states' rights? You want to let everyone know what a great liberal you are? You want to announce your solidarity with illegal immigrants and the crude president of Mexico? Get a "Baca Bracelet."

Democrat Rep. Joe Baca of Rialto, California makes weekly trips from his home to Washington, and aside from refusing to fly there if there's a stopover in Phoenix, has ordered 2500 cheesy bracelets to demonstrate his disdain for another state. The bracelets were already on display on the wrists of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and many other Democrats during the appearance of the loathsome president Calderon of Mexico in the well of Congress where he insulted his hosts and held forth on American immigration policy by attacking the sovereign state of Arizona.

The garish bracelets, which are in the state colors of Arizona, will also be used by Baca to help fund his political campaign for re-election. The red, yellow and blue colors look great on a state flag, but they are a bit less than elegant when used in a cheapie bracelet. Noted experts on the Constitution and federal law such as golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez are already sporting these reincarnations of the mood ring. Baca says "they're gong like hot potatoes." Hot potatoes? Now that's an interesting metaphor (or was it a Freudian slip?).

Several conservative pundits have already expressed their pleasure at the introduction of the no-class ugly bracelets. It will make the open-borders, illegal immigrant, amnesty enthusiasts much easier to identify on sight--like Che teeshirts.