It's trivial in the grand scheme, but I, like a lot of people, have a fondness for keeping score of celebrity statistics. I'm not interested in marriages, divorces, prices paid for Hamptons estates, number of detox visits; my curiosity extends primarily to who's gay/lesbian, and who's Jewish (me: I'm 100% Jewish, and the sexuality thing's somewhat murkier). Anyway, one of the "is she or isn't she?" cases I've been following concerns the Jewishness of one Courtney Love -- I've heard her refer to herself as "a quarter Jewish," but I've learned not to believe anything coming out of that woman's mouth.

Turns out she's telling the truth (although pre-nosejob pictures of Love suggest a deeper level of membership in the tribe). The editor of Jewhoo, a consistently reputable who's-who of Jewish celebrities, has a blog called Red Sea Pedestrians, where he addresses the twisted and convoluted details behind Love's heritage. In short: He deduces that her birth mother is five-eighths Jewish. How he arrives at this conclusion -- it's mindboggling. Take a look.