tsuwm, I have to agree with you this time. This same argument is what Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" (a book I do not recommend) comes down to.

I differ with the author on one point, though. The interpretation originally given the cross bones/star of david/thumbs up arrangement is not *just as likely as any other interpretation. I think she is attributing the randomness of signs to the concepts they signify. The anti-semetic connotation is a more likely interpretation than the connotation "jews make good pesticides" simply because the thought is far more common and carries a much greater cultural weight. (I would add that "connotation" here refers to the product of an action of the interpreter only and does not refer to how the signs may have come to be arranged, whether purposively or no).