Miss Indiana may have TV reality hijinks in store for us!

My comments follow this story.
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The South Bend Tribune
http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071230/Ent/712300445/1041/Ent

December 30, 2007
On TV
Queen strives to restore Miss America's luster
Amanda Petrucelli, Tribune Correspondent

Nicole Rash is not like the other girls. Really.

For starters, Miss Indiana has her motorcycle license, likes to camp and is fluent in Spanish. (She was an exchange student to both Bolivia and Chile.)

"I can get my hands dirty. It's not like I'm a prim, proper debutante who sits in the house all day," the 2003 Plymouth High School graduate says.

And if you don't believe she's not a "big-haired, pageant girl," you'll get a chance to get to know her on the Miss America Pageant's "Reality Check" series, starting at 10 p.m. Friday on TLC.

"It's really fun," the 23-year-old Rash says.

"We had a lot of fun with it. There's some drama with it.

"For the series, she says, all state titleholders were housed in the Hollywood home where "The Biggest Loser" was filmed.

No TV, no music and no Internet.

"It's a really, really gorgeous, huge property -- a really nice house," Rash says, "but for 52 girls, we had seven bathrooms."

Contestants are presented with challenges, she says, and Hollywood icons show up with tips about how to be the next "It Girl."

"We're just trying to appeal to when Miss America was at its highest point," Rash says. "When little girls wanted to be Miss America."

Rash notes that a woman can be relevant, fashionable and pretty but not have to get into the trouble of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan to make headlines.

She works with the Children's Miracle Network, which is the national platform of the pageant and is affiliated with Indianapolis' Riley Hospital for Children.

As the Las Vegas pageant date looms, you can find Miss Indiana substitute teaching in the Plymouth school system. The daughter of Bill and Cindy Rash, longtime LaPaz/Plymouth residents, Rash's personal platform is "breaking down language barriers."

"Miss America is so much more than just about the pageant," she says.

But don't worry boys: Rash says there will be swimsuits in the reality show.

Tune in.

The Miss America Pageant's "Reality Check" will at 10 p.m. Fridays on TLC beginning Friday. The Miss America Pageant airs at 8 p.m. Jan. 26. _________________________________________

The TLC show has an encore time of Mondays at 10 p.m.

According to http://www.missindianapageant.com/history.htm

"Barbara Mougin (Miss Plymouth) became the 1977 titleholder and then went on to tie the best-ever finish for a Miss Indiana at the Miss America Pageant with a First Runner-up placing to the new Miss America Susan Perkins of Ohio."

Not that any stats mean as much as they do in baseball, but at least Nicole's got the advantage of being from the county that's done better than any other Hoosier candidate, so she has the county's tradition going for her if nothing else.

Call me old fashioned, but I liked the days back when I was in Bloomington, when the Miss Indiana was so often a smart, funny and attractive IU coed from SouthBeachHoosier favorite, the Tri-Delt house, which I think happened twice in 4-5 years in the early '80's.

I'd be minding my own business, reading my ids, http://www.idsnews.com/news/index.aspx over breakfast of some eggs and bacon and a bagel on a Monday morning and read that yet another sorority sister of my personable and charming friends Gail Amster and Terri Kearns -the two greatest IU Redsteppers ever!-had persuaded some very discerning Midwestern judges with their impressive talents, abilities and sheer nerve to put themself on the line.

(Even though I wasn't in a fraternity myself, one year, as a personal favor to a Tri-Delt friend of mine, a wonderfully funny, smart and sweet Hoosier-by-choice -like me- named Faith "Gus" Lawler, who was then the Panhel president (head of all the presidents of the IU sororities which composed the Panhellenic Council), because Gus knew I was already giving walking tours of campus to prospective IU students for SAC (and VIP tours for others) due to my knowledge of of IU trivia and facts and "talking points," I agreed to help lead the walking tours of the fraternities as well, though to save my voice, I usually stayed outside near the sidewalk.

While living in Evanston in the mid-80's, one year I went back to Bloomington over Thansgiving to visit my younger sister -and my mom, who was visiting from Miami. It was a really great trip, only one of my best ever, since we hadn't been together since the previous Christmas.

Just as it always seemed that I spent so much of my time in the IMU while going to school there, a few days later, probably the Saturday, I swung by to purchase a couple of IU souvenirs for my apt. up in Evanston, look for some pocket IU basketball schedules over in the Biddle Hotel, plus, leave some notes underneath the office doors of SAB and SAC with my contact info, so that if they heard from anyone I knew who'd left for jobs or grad school, they'd pass it along -and vice versa.

(This was before I knew that Wendy Mulholland, my amazing Alpha Chi and IU cheerleader friend, was living in Evanston like me, and going to Kellogg.)

Anyway, while either in the cafe writing the notes or while watching something on the giant TV in the IU Trophy Room, I ran into a mutual friend of Gus and I who had some good news.

(I don't know what it's like now, but back then, the Trophy Room was one of the most popular places on campus, since the giant TV screen there was where soap operas, news and other TV shows were watched by the hundreds everyday, in between classes, as well as ballgames by those with small TVs on weekends, and seminal events, like finding out that President Reagan had been shot the day we were all psyched to play and beat North Carolina in the 1981 NCAA title game.

Not to date myself, but among the things I watched there were the "Luke & Laura" wedding on General Hospital, the series finale of M.A.S.H., North Carolina State's frentic upset over Houston in the NCAA title game, which featured so much screaming that the walls seemed to be shaking, the Orioles' clinching victory in Game 5 of the 1983 World Series over the Phillies, and many others.

I loved that room which featured old basketball and footballs lining the walls and ceiling with the scores enscribed on them, as well as IU team photos in glass cases.
My personality being what it is, I tended to know just about every inch of that room!)

This mutual friend said that the last she'd heard, Gus had moved out to L.A. after graduation for an upscale retail management program of some sort, possibly with the May Company, which I could totally believe. Someone like Gus would've been absolute catnip to them!

She was charming as could be and clever as a whip!

Though I could be wrong, I seem to think that Gus was also on what can only be called a ridiculously talented Tri-Delt flag football team, a team whose games I often saw up on the Fee Lane fields on many cool nights, who seldom came across an opponent they couldn't handle with ease.

And their lanky but quick, dark-haired QB from roughly about '80-'82, was an absolute High Definition vision of loveliness, running thru flimsy and pointless grabs for her hip flags.

At times, I could practically feel myself faint when I watched her run and outmanuver some befuddled opponents. It was like watching a Roadrunner cartoon, since they could never lay a finger on her, much like Wile E. Coyote's success rate.

What can I say? Smart, good-looking and very athletic! That was/is my type!

Why didn't I ever think to bring my camera with me?!

Wow, I could SO kick myself now, thinking about all those great shots of Gail and Terri at the IU football and basketball games, or Gus up in her office at Panhel, which I could've shot back then to help illustrate how great they were, and such absolute delights to be with.)

Back to the Miss Indiana winner, though, if I didn't recognize the name right away, and there was no photo, though there usually was, I'd write it down and make a mental note to compare it to the house photo next time I was over there.

I really loved that house, too! It was just as great inside as on the ouside.

See photos at http://www.indiana.edu/~tridelt/home.html and http://bloomingtown.blogspot.com/2007/10/homecoming-at-delta-delta-delta.html

Trust me when I tell you, it wasn't luck that it was chosen by the producers of Breaking Away ( see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078902/ and http://www.bloomingpedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Away ) to serve as the sorority house used in the famous faux Romeo & Juliet scene, when Dave serenades Katherine, was no accident.

It's absolutely gorgeous!

While two Miss Indianas from one sorority in such a short period of time might not be quite as impressive a feat as the number of MLB shortstops that have come out of the town of San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic, "The Cradle of Shortstops," that's still pretty impressive.

(See Baseball Posse for some interesting background on baseball's hold on Dominican life. http://baseballposse.us/ )

Having somebody you actually knew in the national competition or a close friend who had a friend in it, gives you some sort of rooting interest, at least, and always made it easier to watch and overlook the often blah look of the telecast, other than the perennial questions.
Perennial questions? Why yes!

Would Miss Rhode Island be the palest competitor, yet again?

Would Miss New York continue to be represented by some small upstate town or a college town instead of someone from NYC?

Which college would have the most number of contestants, if not UCLA, some community college in Dallas or Missouri?

Who would go onto prominence first as a nationally known, ahem, "news" reporter or sports (sideline) reporter, Miss California or Miss Texas?

The current contestant from Florida, Kylie Jean Williams, is a 24-year old FSU grad from Jasper, east of I-75 up near the Georgia border.

The last pageant of any sort that I ever watched more than ten minutes of was the Miss Teen USA in 1999, where within ten seconds of ever seeing Miss Tennessee, Rachel Boston, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1036340/bio I knew that she had "it," that undefinable star quality that you know when you see it.

I even said it to a friend who had literally shown up a few minutes before.

My friend's exact quote in response to my eureka moment: "Whatever."

Rachel, one of my all-time favorite names, was absolutely awesome in one of my favorite cancelled TV shows of the past 10-15 years, American Dreams, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319930/ playing a wonderfully-written character who was about as realistic as you ever see on TV. I never ever missed that show.

The show's possible cancellation almost got me to the point of signing one of those crazy online petitions I always dismiss with derision whenever I hear about them.

Now I now better.

Rachel just knocked me out in my favorite episode ever -in 2005- of The Closer, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0542955/ a terrific ensemble show I've watched since episode one, and which only gets better and better each season.

No matter how many times I've seen an episode, if there's one on TV at the time, that's what I watch.

Henceforth, anything Rachel Boston is in, I'm watching.

Consider for a moment this thoughtful answer to a question posed to her in 1999: http://www.geocities.com/ehhhh_mon/Tennesse99.htm

Describe how you envision yourself in five years.
An honors graduate from Columbia University with a theater background from Julliard, with at least on Broadway play under my belt. I will probably living in a tiny apartment without air conditioning, pursuing my performing arts dream in New York City. By continuing my public speaking, I will be know as the actress who is determined to use talents for the benefit of worthy causes.

The hypothesis is thus proven!: http://alumnae.gps.edu/?page=boston

Apropos of pageants in general, I'll have a post in the future on a most remarkable woman I once knew and spent a fair amount of time with at IU, who not only was a very successful
pageant contestant, but who's continued to do some really amazing things in her community of St. Louis. It's quite a story.

See http://tlc.discovery.com/tv/miss-america/miss-america.html and http://www.missamerica.org/

Chelsea Clinton the mannequin; serial jerk Bob Kerry

My comments are below the story
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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071231/D8TS58V00.html
Chelsea Clinton Guards Her Words
Dec. 30, 2007
By Beth Fouhy, Associated Press

VINTON, Iowa (AP) - It's one thing for Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign to turn down interview requests for the candidate's daughter, Chelsea. But can't a 9-year-old reporter catch a break?

Sydney Rieckhoff, a Cedar Rapids fourth grader and "kid reporter" for Scholastic News, has posed questions to seven Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls as they've campaigned across Iowa this year. But when she approached the 27-year-old Chelsea after a campaign event Sunday, she got a different response.

"Do you think your dad would be a good 'first man' in the White House?" Sydney asked, but Chelsea brushed her question aside.

"I'm sorry, I don't talk to the press and that applies to you, unfortunately. Even though I think you're cute," Chelsea told the pint-sized journalist.

Such is the paradox of Chelsea as she campaigns across Iowa in the closing days before the state's caucuses Jan. 3.

Tall and attractive, Chelsea cuts an impressive figure on the campaign trail; she plunges enthusiastically into the crowd after her mother's speeches, shaking hands and posing for pictures while asking, "Are you going to caucus for my mom?"

But onstage, Chelsea never speaks; she stands next to her mother and applauds but utters not a single sentence and doesn't even say hello. And reporters covering the campaign have been put on notice that Chelsea is not available to speak to them. An aide follows the former first daughter as she works the crowd, shushing reporters who approach her and try to ask any questions.

Famously protective of their daughter's privacy, Bill and Hillary Clinton have taken pains to shield Chelsea from the harsh glare and rough edges of presidential politics. She stayed largely absent from her mother's campaign until December, when she made her first visit to Iowa.

For her part, Sydney looked a bit crestfallen after Chelsea turned her away. But luckily for Hillary Clinton, Sydney's mother has made up her mind to caucus for the former first lady.

"I like her position on family values and health care. And I think it's time we have a female president," Robyn Rieckhoff said.
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For more on the topic of Chelsea as a mannequin, see this Associated Press story from May 14th, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18654658/ , which compares Chelsea's experience in Washington to Patti Reagan Davis, titled Chelsea Clinton weighs role in mom’s bid, Could become the first first daughter to do it all over again.
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Letters, we get letters...

Dear SouthBeachHoosier:

We love it when women are seen but not heard, and used mostly as props for whatever political or social purpose suits us at the moment, including death by stoning for fraternizing with men outside her family, or whippings for being gang-raped.

Sort of like how we often score political points at home and abroad by tweaking President Bush and Secretary Rice and the U.S., by asking for Bill Richardson to deal with some problem that, if it even involves the U.S. in the first place, is more properly the domain of the U.S. State Dept., since that's their actual job, and they are, after all, overseen by an elected U.S. Congress, while Richardson is not. We love the free lancer!


Meanwhile, we do nothing but complain about U.S. 'meddling' from the sidelines, as we do in Darfur, as we allow thousands of innocent people to be killed because it suits our larger political purposes and goals, and their religion is the wrong one.

Love,
The Middle East, Islamic parts of Africa and Asia and parts of macho South America not named Chile.
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As to the AP story, here's what nobody wants to say out loud but knows is true: the fundamental differences b/w Chelsea Clinton and Patti Reagan were that Patti was actually quite interesting; from California not Arkansas; had lots of friends back home and because she was older and independent, didn't have to always be in D.C, and play the dutiful daughter card; wasn't forced to play the role of a young scholar.

(Or, have a mother like Hillary that talks piously in public about the benefits of public education, perhaps to appease the NEA and AFT -and the powerful education lobby, largely unregistered, that so many of my frieneds belonged to- but when push came to shove, enrolls her own daughter in a prestigious private high school like Sidwell Friends, a school that I used to live only a few blocks from, and would occasionally watch their field hockey or soccer games; just be honest and say it's for security purposes and nobody would argue the point);

Patti was cute and crazy mischievous; more importantly, she was always up to something that would make for good copy, especially if it would somehow allow the press to highlight the differences between what her father said and meant, and what Patti actually did.

In the comparison, Chelsea Clinton, while likely a perfectly nice and relatively normal person, honorable considering what she's been thru, is, frankly, a bore.
Even now, all these years later, nobody can remember a single memorable quote of hers, much less, have any audio or video of a single interesting thing she's ever uttered about anything.
If she had, we'd all know it, thru its sheer repititious airing since 1992.

But friends of mine and people I know in Washington, D.C. who are still very connected to the political and media fray in D.C. STILL remember Senator Bob Kerry's cruel joke about Chelsea, which is ironic now, given that Kerry's a Hillary supporter, and only too willing to help malign Obama, like Gov. Jean Shaheen's husband, Bill, thru calculated false charges.

(See Shaheen's mea culpa at:
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2007/12/obamas_nh_leade.html
and http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/12/13/clinton_apologizes_to_obama_fo_1.html )


Whether it's done to perhaps further Kerry's career in a possible Hillary administration, after his very mixed-record at The New School comes to its end, or just because he doesn't like Obama's lack of experience, should hardly matter.
He still said it.


You have to wonder, at what point does the national media take away Kerry's perpetual 'hall pass,' and start asking the question of why having the support of a serial jerk like Kerry is such a bonus for Hillary & Co.?
The guy whose own family restaurant business ran afoul of many state business wage regs?

Frankly, his dating actress Debra Winger -a SouthBeachHoosier favorite- while Nebraska's governor was about the only interesting thing about him. Let me paraphrase some comments of a friend of mine who was a veteran staffer for a Nebraska congressman.

Kerry's Vietnam experience and the attention he received for the Winger thing gave him lots of traction in Washington at first. But he fundamentally misread it.
He started believing he really was that fascinating, and started believing what he was saying, and both bore little truth to the reality.


Once it dawned on Kerry in Washington that he was just one vote in a hundred, and that he no longer held sway over a semi-cowed regional press, his ego got out of control.
He became eager to tell others, esp. reporters, how truly exceptional he was, what a statesman he'd be when the time came... blah, blah.


You don't have to take my word for it, but a Republican congressman most of you have never heard of named Doug Bereutter, had much more influence over the intersection of U.S. agriculture and foreign policy than Kerry had.
That's what Nebraska cares about because farm exports are what pays the bills.
It's as simple as that.
That's why even conservative Republicans from there want to lift the trade embrago with Cuba.
I saw Bereutter in action dozens and dozens of times in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, under both Chairman Dante Fascell of Miami, whose picnics I often attended, and later, Hoosier Lee Hamilton, before the GOP took over after the 1994 congressional election, which sent real shock waves thru my circle of friends, since a few lost their jobs at the committse as a result of the switch.
(As you may've already guessed, given my background and the subjects of this blog, I lived in both of their congressional districts over the years. More on these great men in a future post.)

While I often disagreed with Bereutter's particular ideas or proposals, they were always tethered to the reality of his state's economic future and some commonly accepted facts.
Eventually, Bereutter became Chairman of the re-named House Committee on International Relations. Honestly, did you ever see him on Meet the Press?

(See my earlier mention of Bereutter in a from April on the Washington Post's anti-Putin editorial:
http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2007/04/wash-post-editorial-aims-right-at-putin.html )

Kerry on the other hand was a guy who really loved seeing his reflection in a camera lens, whether TV or newspaper. This banner was later grabbed by yet another Nebraska egomaniac who wanted to be recognized as a brilliant and thoughtful statesman, Chuck Hagel.

(See Kerry's apologia: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/kerrey-apologizes-to-obama/ and http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/12/16/kerrey_for_clinton.html )

Sad but true: Chelsea is a cipher.

Also, if you didn't know, I believe it was the Washington Post that once wrote in quite laudatory fashion about a bill in Congress that Chelsea's current boyfriend's mother, Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky -who was also a very popular TV reporter in Philly before she was elected to the 103rd Congress- voted for to support President Clinton, but which most observers said would all but ensure her re-election defeat in '94.
It did.