Now They’re Messing with Miss World [Updated With Comment By John]

I knew John would be first in line to cover the congressional campaign of Erika Harold, but there’s another beauty pageant story breaking today that Power Line will need to un-cover fully: the Miss World pageant, to be held this year in Indonesia, has decided to ban bikinis to—wait for itavoid Muslim threats:

BIKINIS have been banned from this year’s Miss World contest – to ward off Islamic hardliners in Indonesia who threatened Lady Gaga.

The pageant is taking place in the Far East country for the first time and organisers are wary of upsetting Muslim fanatics.

In a bid to calm any tensions, the 137 women will ditch the traditional swimsuit round and instead wear more conservative outfits like sarongs.

The move comes after pop icon Lady Gaga was last year forced to scrap a gig in the world’s most populous Muslim country.

Here’s a suggestion for Lady Gaga: if she wants to get even, next time she decides to wear a dress made of meat, as she did at the 2010 MTV Awards, make it out of pork instead of beef.

Meanwhile, our pal Remi Munasifi (“Go Remy”) is out with a new video today entitled “Just Dance (Saudi Version).”  I especially like this lyric: “You hokey-pokey and you put your left hand in, you might not take your left hand out. . .”  Enjoy!

 

JOHN adds: The Miss World organizers come by their skittishness honestly: in 2002, more than 100 people were killed in Muslim riots over the pageant’s presence in Nigeria. But still: if pageant officials don’t think you can wear swimsuits in an Islamic country, then they should stop holding the pageants in such countries. In this particular case, the organizers seem over-cautious; women wear bikinis in Bali all the time. Which serves to emphasize the point: if Miss World thinks being in a Muslim country equals a per se ban on swimsuits, the contest should go somewhere else.

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