Some of you last-minute Christ­mas shop­pers may have received a solic­i­ta­tion from a com­pa­ny will­ing to sell you a star. For a fee of $35 the com­pa­ny (actu­al­ly, there are sev­er­al out­fits in this busi­ness) will name a star for the recip­i­ent of your gift. The name will be reg­is­tered in some­thing called the “Inter­na­tion­al Star Reg­istry,” per­haps with the promise that the list of names will sub­se­quent­ly be copy­right­ed by the Library of Congress.