Because the Miss America pageant is now held in Las Vegas, it gets quite a bit of local coverage. Here are some tidbits from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The Presidential Inauguration was broadcast on huge-screen TVs along the Las Vegas Strip and the pageant people made some of the Miss America contestants come outside to watch and get their pictures taken. Regular people thought this was offensive because the contestants obviously didn't care about the event and stood there with big fake smiles trying to pretend they did.

One of the local columnists wrote:
"Your new Miss America thinks 2009 is a great year, partly because, hey hey, SHE became Miss America on Saturday. She said so during her first, post-victory news conference:

"What an incredible year it is. We have a brand new president. The very first African-American president -- and he was just inaugurated several days ago -- and now I'm Miss America! What a fun year! What an exciting year!"

I was sitting in the 12th row near two Miss Americas: Kaye Lani Rae Rafko from 1988 and Susan Powell from 1981. Scores of people in the crowd got in free as seat fillers, for TV effect. Rafko asked a seat filler if he would swap seats with Powell, so the two former Miss Americas could sit together.

"YOU ask her," the seat filler told Rafko, apparently not recognizing her, then he sat down like a rude bastard.

When contestants were introduced on stage, they tried to personalize their locales by declaring what their states are known for. Miss Georgia said her state is the proud home to Usher, the singer. Miss Minnesota said her state is home to Best Buy. Miss Connecticut: home to the first hamburger.

And Miss Texas? She described her people as heavenward, as she cut the line of the night: "The bigger the hair, the closer to God."

But these rivals' hairdos weren't big, like they were in the past. Quite a few Misses were not the usual stereotype of perfect teeth and perky ta-ta's. Today's contestants include scads of A-cups, big noses, squinched-up faces, five-heads instead of foreheads, and most looked short.

I'm not saying that in a mean, critical way. I'm saying, as celebrity culture has become even more focused on big boobs, invisible noses and anime faces, contestants in this "scholarship pageant" have become more normal."

Reading this, I'm sorry I missed seeing the pageant on TV or maybe had gone down there to get in free - there were lots of seat-filler seats available.

Up until the last few years I've always tried to watch the Miss America to see the dresses and decide who I thought was the best and see what Miss Colorado looked like. In recent years when they tried to make it younger and fresher the evening gown competition switched to short dresses, and some of those were really ugly and I started seeing instances where the wearer was definitely not shown to advantage. "That dress makes her look fat," I pointed out to Mr. Tbend. "Probably because she IS fat," his standard reply when that question comes up. No, I never ask him that in case you are wondering; we haven't stayed married 31 years without learning not to go there.