Beauty pageants

Miss Universe 2015: The Undercard

Featured image On Thursday, I previewed the favorites in this year’s Miss Universe contest, which wraps up tomorrow beginning at 7 p.m. Eastern. As always, the betting favorites aren’t necessarily the contestants that I (or anyone else) likes best. So this post is devoted to contestants who probably won’t win, but whom I think you will appreciate. First, Miss Albania, Megi Luka: For some reason, Balkan beauty queens tend to look a »

Miss Universe 2015: the Favorites

Featured image Betting odds on the Miss Universe competition are now firming up, with the finale just 72 hours away. Some of the betting leaders we have already previewed here and here, others not. It is interesting: this year, I am not particularly impressed by the betting favorites, as compared with others in the field. The current betting favorite is Miss Australia, Monika Radulovic. As we see over and over in international »

Miss Universe Preview #2: An Embarrassment of Riches [Updated]

Featured image The Miss Universe pageant is in full swing. My initial preview was just four days ago, but since then a profusion of photos has appeared that confirm my impression that this is one of the strongest beauty pageant fields ever. Between now and the contest finale a week from Sunday, I may need to do a post every day just to keep up. In my initial post I featured some »

Miss Universe: Trumpless, But Still the World’s Premier Beauty Pageant

Featured image It is time to start previewing the 2015 Miss Universe pageant. The contestants have gathered in Las Vegas and the competition is under way. The finale will be on Sunday, December 20, and will be broadcast on Fox. This year’s competition could have had an interesting tie-in with the 2016 presidential campaign, as Donald Trump has co-owned the pageant with NBC for some years. However, in the initial burst of »

Miss Colombia Wins Miss Universe

Featured image Miss Colombia, Paulina Vega, won the Miss Universe pageant tonight. No surprise there; she has been the betting favorite for the last few days. Miss USA, Nia Sanchez, finished second. In general, tonight’s Miss Universe finale followed form. The 15 semifinalists were announced early: Colombia, Italy, India, France, USA, Indonesia, Venezuela, Spain, Philippines, Argentina, Jamaica, Ukraine, Brazil, Netherlands and Australia. Not a lot of upsets there. None of my favorites–Miss »

Final Preview: Miss Universe 2014

Featured image The finale of the 2014 Miss Universe pageant is Sunday evening on NBC, at 8:00 Eastern, 7:00 Central. And no, that isn’t a typo. They must know it’s 2015, but this is indeed the 2014 Miss Universe pageant. And a good one it has been. The contestants have been in Miami for the last three weeks engaging in a variety of activities, which are documented at the Miss Universe site. »

Politics Invades the Miss Universe Pageant

Featured image A week ago, Miss Israel, Doron Matalon, posted this nice photo of herself with Miss Lebanon, Miss Slovenia and Miss Japan on her very active Instagram account: Nothing happened immediately, but the picture began attracting negative attention in Lebanon, where some criticized Miss Lebanon, Saly Greige, for appearing in a photograph with an Israeli. That led Greige to disown the picture. She wrote on Facebook: To all my supporters and »

Beauty Queens for Free Speech

Featured image We have written here and here about the Miss Universe pageant, the finale of which takes place a week from tomorrow. Earlier today Miss Israel joined Miss France in expressing support for free speech and opposition to Islamic terrorism: Miss Israel, Doron Matalon, posted the picture on her Instagram feed with these words: I am against every murder. The murder in France and the murder of Jews in the grocery »

Miss Universe Gets Hot

Featured image The finale of the Miss Universe pageant is a week from Sunday. It will be televised on NBC at 8 Eastern, 7 Central. We wrote about the pageant and previewed some of the contestants here. Miss Universe now easily eclipses Miss World as the leading international beauty pageant. It is on television, for one thing; it still has a swimsuit competition, for another. Also, Miss Universe promotes itself far more »

Miss Universe Keeps Swimsuit Tradition Alive

Featured image In 2013, the Miss World organization dropped its swimsuit competition for the stated reason that the pageant was held in Indonesia, and violence was possible. Last month, the Miss World pageant was held in London and, without fanfare, the organizers again dispensed with the swimsuit competition. Many people didn’t notice, since the pageant wasn’t televised in North America. This leaves Miss Universe as the only major international beauty pageant that »

Miss World Wrap-Up

Featured image Around 11:00 this morning I scouted for broadcast information on the Miss World finale, and found that it was already in progress. It started at 2:30 London time, 8:30 on a Sunday morning, Central time. The only place where it could be televised in prime time was Asia; I assume they got it there, but here in the U.S., as best I could tell you had to watch on the »

Miss World’s Finale Approaches

Featured image We are just one week away from the finale of the 2014 Miss World competition, and I have to admit that the preliminaries so far have been of limited interest. There was the Miss Sport competition, which was won by Miss Finland; she is in the center on the photo below: The contestants all traveled to Oxford for what was billed as a debate about beauty pageants at Oxford Union. »

Miss World: The Early Betting Favorites

Featured image I previewed the 2014 Miss World competition, the finale of which will take place on December 14, here, and posted a few photos. Preliminary competitions are already under way; you can read about them, if so inclined, at the Miss World site. The contestants are here, but the photography is so bad–a recurrent problem with the Miss World pageant–that they are hard to evaluate. Nevertheless, betting odds are starting to »

Miss World 2014: A Preview

Featured image I didn’t cover the Miss World pageant last year because the organizers, fearing possible terrorism in Indonesia, canceled the swimsuit competition. This year the event returns to London, its original home. The finale will be on December 14, but the contestants have already arrived and the sports events are under way. More than ever, it seems that beauty pageants mirror the themes of current news headlines. This year, most tragically, »

And Now for Something Completely Different

Featured image Well, perhaps not really completely different, but this seems to be the time of year when there is a dearth of beauty pageants to cover, which is why the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition comes out around now.  At least I think that’s the reason; I have to confess I don’t follow the pageant calendar with the same fervency of Power Line’s Chief Pageant Correspondent, John H. This year’s SI swimsuit »

Bottom Story of the Day: Coffee Capers

Featured image There’s a story in the front section of today’s Wall Street Journal that seems perfectly suited to Hinderaker’s beat: “Towns Fret as ‘Bikini Baristas’ Draw Crowds.” “Bikini” or “lingerie” coffee stands have caused a stir across the Northwest, a region already crowded with drive-through coffee outlets operated by mainstream companies such as Starbucks and Dutch Brothers. According to a consumer website that functions as a guide to kiosks, more than »

Miss Universe: A Final Preview [Updated With Results]

Featured image The finale of the Miss Universe pageant is tonight, broadcast from Crocus City Hall in Moscow. The show is on NBC at 9:00, 8:00 central. It will be taped–that is around 3:00 a.m. Moscow time–so if you are desperate to find out who won, the news will be out sometime this afternoon. The biggest controversy surrounding the pageant has related to Russia’s recent laws against “homosexual propaganda” directed at the »