The Pro­tec­tor Col­lec­tion designed by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt for Asprey

The Jolie/Pitt/Asprey col­lab­o­ra­tion is mak­ing head­lines today. At the cen­ter of the col­lec­tion is a crea­ture that is both reviled and revered — the snake. Jolie, from the lit­tle that can be gath­ered from her pub­lic image and polit­i­cal lean­ings, appears to be a spir­ited per­son­al­ity, the kind that could pro­mote this slith­ery, leg­less, car­niv­o­rous rep­tile, long a sym­bol of pro­tec­tion, and con­vince a wide pop­u­lar of admir­ers to pur­chase a bejew­eled one to ben­e­fit a char­ity she co-founded in 2006, Part­ner­ship for Chil­dren of Con­flict. The orga­ni­za­tion raises aware­ness and funds to edu­cate child vic­tims of war, con­flict and nat­ural dis­as­ters. While this is a heart­en­ing and cer­tainly worth­while endeavor, I would love to see a celebrity of such world renown shoul­der causes closer to home, those that affect our chil­dren. Nour­ish­ing, lit­er­ally, our nutrition-starved pop­u­la­tion should become a pri­or­ity in this eco­nomic down­turn, and for­ever after. Over the week­end, I had the chance to watch the doc­u­men­tary, Food Inc. An impor­tant mes­sage rises from the sur­face of the screen, and it’s aimed at car­ing par­ents every­where. What we feed our chil­dren is what they, and our future, will become. A bag of potato chips shouldn’t cost less and be more afford­able than a bag of carrots.

Snake pin owned and worn by for­mer Sec­re­tary of State Madeleine Albright

Ok…enough said, I’m off the soap­box and back to our friend, the slith­er­ing ser­pent. Other strong-minded women who have embraced the snake are for­mer Sec­re­tary of State, Madeleine Albright. Of course, by now, we’ve all heard about that tact­less com­ment the late Sad­dam Hus­sein made to the Sec­re­tary dur­ing a nego­ti­a­tion. He called her a “snake” which our rep­re­sen­ta­tive, in a show­ing of styl­ish medi­a­tion, decided to respond by wear­ing a Vic­to­rian snake pin to the next meet­ing. He got the mes­sage: Watch out, I may bite.

This in turn brings us to the bold, deci­sive, and ever indi­vid­ual, Queen Vic­to­ria. It was she who started the whole snake bit, by wear­ing one as an engage­ment ring, pre­sented to her by her betrothed, Albert. The snake bore emer­alds, the Queen’s birth­stone, and in bit­ing its own tail rep­re­sented eter­nal love. As his­tory has borne out, their match lasted a life­time, and per­haps beyond.