Missed Miss Universe

I would have watched Miss Universe over “the Education of Charlie Banks” last night.

Go Venezuela! We need all the positives we can get to end this summer.

It’s move date for incoming freshmen also. A generation which I am told never had to make a decision on their own:

Mom is only a text away. (We can expect a lot of walking and texting on campus, which is better than public bus drivers

texting their spouses while on duty).

Back to the movie. Charlie Banks happens to grow up in a rough neighborhood, whose chief bully one day ended up

seeking sanctuary in his dorm room. Charlie learns to be assertive but its the bully who by happenstance stumbles upon the exclusive upper class world, where people discourse philosophically about “what is Reconstructionist?”.

The bully brought street justice to campus, while Ivory tower itself has a rub on him.

This reminds me of Tom Brokaw’s observation that those National Guards who were called in to hose down campus demonstrators back in the 60’s could never afford the education to be on campus in the first place (Columbia, Berkeley etc..).

That’s brain. Now onto Beauty.

Donald Trump has his franchise on Beauty Queens.

Last year, the venue was moved to Nha Trang, Vietnam.

And that event in itself was a mind-boggling one: Miss Universe contest in the middle of VN, not too far from MyLai?

Time must have changed, and our perception of place and people should follow suit.

Actually, last summer brought us the Beijing Olympic also.

With China and Vietnam having seats in the UN Security Council, it would only be fitting that Miss Universe or the Olympic, both international in scope, to be taken place in Asia, our newest incubator of  the consumer movement.

The young demographic there will dictate many upcoming changes: math and engineering graduates,

the off-shoring manufacturing and IT jobs, the leapfrogging of mobile phone technology, and the rise of a consumer class (which links with Madison Avenue, and eventually Wall Street).

Meanwhile, my heart sank when reading about the Iraqi refugees starting all over in Portland.

One month rent, an empty apartment, and a whole new life. They wish they were in a Witness Protection Program instead.

At least with the latter, they don’t have to learn a whole new language.

It’s not starting over in a new country that makes the news. It’s starting over during the worst Recession in years.

War and displacement go hand in hand. The Pentagon’s “whiz kids” weren’t set out to compute the hidden costs of war.

In fact, it’s the other way around sometime, with the now well-known X-times cost of toilets billed to the DoD.

Today is Monday. First day on campus for freshmen, first day of miss Universe and first day of rent for Iraqi refugees.

Day by day, oh dear Lord, the things I pray. God hear a different request every day, depends on who asks it.

Miss Venezuela must have concentrated quite hard last night. Sorry, I missed it.