jquery appendTo() with divs, strange behavior
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I am using Jquery, making table cells that contain multiple divs.  the divs contain some data and a radio button.  my code works, but i want to know why i had to use a "middle-man" variable.  seems really weird to me, was very frustrating, and im curious why. perhaps i just dont undestand this well enough.  here is my code

        // my radio button
        var rad_button = $('<input type="radio"...
        // my object, div w some attributes, text
        var my_Object = $('<div class="selected...
        rad_button.prependTo(my_Object);

        var middle_man = my_Object;
        middle_man.appendTo(bigger_object);

this is the only way i could get this to work.  i tried the more direct way:

        my_object.appendTo(bigger_object);
but that didnt work.  anyone able to tell me why this is done this way?