Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Flesh! Oh, No! VIII
As this story came out, I had feelings of real ambivalence about whether-or-not to give a rat’s ass. Things other countries do, culturally…it’s pretty hard to get me all uppity & slobbery about those things, whatever they may be. I’m a live and let live type guy. Ultimately, my phobia about letting noteworthy items pass off into the ether, never to be seen again, uncaptured, unsketched, undocumented, won out. I decided I needed a quick write-up about it. The deciding factor, was that overseas or not, the decision described is just plain harebrained. We like to capture hairbrained decisions. We, here at The Blog Nobody Reads, like to explore the yawning chasm between the things people do, and the things that would make more sense. We make lists of such things; if we do that, and said lists are missing items like what you’ll read about below, it places unnecessary doubt on whatever else remains on the lists.
In the meantime, the story has lost its freshness, so news-junkies are advised to skip this one.
No swimsuits for Cambodia’s Miss Universe contenders
Mon Jul 31, 2:46 AM ETPHNOM PENH (AFP) – Cambodia is to choose its first
Miss Universe contestant in more than a decade, but organizers have said that the qualifying competition would lack the customary swimsuit round.Kem Tola, marketing manager for Planet Communication which will run the Miss Cambodia pageant, said the competition will begin next month and winners will be announced in October.
“We hold this event because we want to make our culture known worldwide,” Kem Tola told AFP.
But he said the competition’s co-organizers, the ministry of culture, had slapped a ban on the swimsuit section of the event in the interests of Cambodian culture.
Sim Sarak, a director-general of the ministry of culture, said the last Miss Cambodia contest in 1995 also went ahead without a swimsuit round.
“We are not that civilized yet but we want our culture to be a sustainable one,” he said, adding that no pageant had been held for 10 years because the government thought it was a waste of money.
The winning Miss Cambodia will receive about 1,000 dollars prize money and will likely be nominated to take part in next year’s Miss Universe contest, Kem Tola said.
Now, you see the source of my ambivalence. I really don’t care about the political influence of Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture, whether that is a formal influence like a constitutional-type thing, or whether it’s more of a mafioso-type influence involving bribery and blackmail and horse heads in beds. I don’t care. But the thing I have to keep reminding myself, is that it’s impossible to be “passionately apathetic” about something; to not care about something, means to not care about whether ensuing events cause you to someday care. There is difficulty in that for us all. Someday, maybe that would be a subject worth exploring.
But as members of the human race with a God-given gift for logic and intellect, whoever these people are in the Ministry of Culture — which, according to AFP and Yahoo! News, I guess isn’t even deserving of capital “M” and “C” letters — have sold out to something, I know not what. Look what they’re doing here. They’re having a national competition, carefully expunged of that oh-so-offensive swimsuit competition with the “unsustainable culture,” from which they will produce a winner. Said winner, who may or may not have the assets necessary to partake in a swimsuit competition, may then be nominated to partake in the worldwide Miss Universe pageant, where…well, do I really have to draw a flow chart?
You know, as a guy who appreciates good-lookin’ ladies in swimsuits, I can think of just a few things that are important for a female who wants to look good in one, and/or compete with other females in one. Not being a woman, I’m pretty sure my list falls short of the real story, but what’s on the list is stuff about which I’m pretty certain. I’ll bet you some good money if I were fortunate enough to interview a Miss Universe, or someone who actually competed there, the list would lengthen considerably.
All of which gives me cause to wonder. Could this decision be explained, by anybody, with some genuine passion? As opposed to an apathetic talking-head like Sim Sarak, simply mouthing the words because her paycheck depends on those words being mouthed? I suspect not, but what do I know.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.