Rachael Ray's Tempest in a Styrofoam Coffee Cup

Cooking show personality Rachael Ray has been doing moderately annoying ads for Dunkin' Donuts. Personally, I found her a little grating and a tad too perky, but - lax, standards-shunning liberal that I am, I wasn't bothered at all when she showed up in an online ad for Dunkie's wearing a scarf around her neck.

In fact, as a member of the society of every-day scarf wearers, I was delighted to see her, metaphorically speaking, waving our flag.

I can't remember when I started getting serious about scarves, but I think I was in my mid-twenties.

Like everyone else I knew, I'd worn bandana scarves on my head, tied behind my ears at the nape of my neck. And, this being New England, I'd worn wool scarves in the winter.

But all of a sudden I was wearing scarves around my neck or draped over my shoulders.

I remember my first few scarf purchases - a beautiful, silk Liberty of London scarf, light blue with flowers. It has some sort of stain in one corner, but - thirty years on - I still have it and still wear it. Ditto two wool challis scarves I bought about the same time: one is a maroon with small pink roses, the other is a bright floral central-Europa style scarf with a black border. I used to wear the maroon one with a lavender turtleneck, and the black bordered one with a black turtleneck. Come to think of it, I still do.

I have dozens of scarves: silk, wool, cotton. Even a couple of poly's that can pass for silk. I have several beautiful Liberty challis shawls. A gorgeous silk shawl I got in Bermuda. And several scarves inherited from my mother. (They account for most of the poly numbers.) I have a couple of Halloween-themed neckerchiefs, and several very nice silk Christmas scarves, the most recent of which is a cream colored scarf with holly trim, and some sort of "over the river and through the woods" sleigh scene.

I used to have my father's Navy tie - an almost-black heavy silk number with A.T. Rogers stamped on it in white block letters -  but I lost it at a pub in Ireland years ago. McDaid's, I think. I went back the next day but, alas, it was gone, swept aside or taken up by someone who could not appreciate the sentimental or historic (an authentic, WWII souvenir!) significance.

I wear scarves, or carry one with me, almost every day. When I'm traveling, I always throw in a few, which lets me vary the look of the same few tops I've packed.

Even in summer, I generally have a scarf with me - just in case the air conditioning's on high.

So I was delighted to see Rachael sporting a scarf.

But Michelle Malkin and other members of the vast, right-wing shriek-o-sphere weren't so delighted.

They went ballistic because the scarf that Rachael - poor, sweet, naive, let-my-dresser-dress-me Rachael - donned, when tied around her shoulders looked to Malkin et al. like a - gasp! - keffiyeh, the scarf worn as a headdress by Yassir Arafat. And just about every other Palestinian man and boy.

The scarf in question is said to be a black and white paisley fringed challis scarf - sounds lovely- but, paisley-shmaisley - to Malkin it cried "terrorist"! And even if it had been a keffiyeh, it happens to be an article of clothing that's worn by plenty of folks who aren't strapping explosives to their chests and setting themselves off on Israeli buses.

Now, if Ray had worn the scarf on her head, Arafat-style, one might have questioned her and Dunkin's judgement. Most would agree that would have been a dumbly provocative thing to do.

But she didn't. She just had the scarf worn around her shoulders.

And it's not as if the keffiyeh is a universal symbol of terrorism - or of anything else.

Unlike say, a black-visored cap with a death head's symbol, which would only have been worn by a member of the Nazi SS, the keffiyeh is worn by everyday people.

It's not as if she appeared in t-shirt with Bin Laden or I-Heart-Al Quaeda on it.

But Malkin makes a living - and a pretty good one - stirring the pot, all umbrage and outrage over things that are, the vast majority of the time, sheer and utter nonsense. Once in a blue moon, I'm on her side - as when she took on Beyoncé's children's clothing line, which last year had a catalog in which little girls - 5, 6, 7 years old - appeared in poses, outfits, and make-ups that screamed "hooker."

But this time Malkin, as she so often does, is brewing a tempest in a teapot - or, in this case, a styrofoam coffee cup.

Can't blame Dunkin' for caving in and yanking the ad, but the whole thing's pretty ridiculous.