just a note:

textarea.sortingElement
{
  /* a sortable element */
  border: solid 1px #aaa;
  font-weight: bold;
  height: 2.2em;
  text-align: center ;
  width: 8em;
  background: 0% 50% no-repeat;
}

.pivot
{
  background-color: #000000;
  color: #ffffff;
  border: solid 1px #ffaaff;
}

trips up when I

// using jquery
$('#SomeTextarea').addClass( 'pivot' ) ;
// where SomeTextarea already has class="sortingElement"

but works if you change the textarea part in front of the css class def

.sortingElement /* removed textarea from in front,
even though this is being applied to a textarea, it seems
to trip up jquery. */
{
  /* a sortable element */
  border: solid 1px #aaa;
  font-weight: bold;
  height: 2.2em;
  text-align: center ;
  width: 8em;
  background: 0% 50% no-repeat;
}

weird.