Skip to main contentThe Nose is frowning so much he's thinking about getting a shot of Botox® to relax his worry wrinkles.
What's got the schnoz all stuffed up? The seeming disintegration of all that is right with this world, the erosion of the very principles that make the Nose proud to be a member of the human race. It's turning the Nose into a curmudgeon way before it's chronologically appropriate.
What's burning the Nose? Many things. The inability to get a decent Reuben sandwich in this town. The stalemate in Salem. Congress' unwillingness to decrease our dependence on foreign oil--an anti-terrorism policy if there ever was one. The dogs next door who start yapping EVERY MORNING at 6:30. The French judge who was so "emotionally fragile" that she sold Canada down the proverbial river.
But most of all, more than any of this, the Nose is steaming about the treatment of Miss America, the former Miss Oregon, Katie Harman. In what should be the finest year of her life, Katie is instead experiencing something closer to one of Dante's circles of hell.
The Nose has no inside information to share with readers. He has yet to meet the reigning queen of America's most famous beauty pageant, and he hasn't spoken with her parents, whose letter, beefing about their daughter's treatment by the Miss America Organization, made headlines last week after it was inadvertently made public. But he did read a delicious story about the dispute that appeared in the Saturday edition of The New York Times. In it, Times reporter Alex Kuczynski outlined the Gresham couple's complaints against the pageant: that it had denied their daughter a number of appearances, stuck her with a number of bills and treated her like, like...a defrocked ice-queen from Clackamas County.
The story also profiled Robert Renneisen Jr., the chief executive of the pageant and a man with the diplomatic skills of Rasheed Wallace. Renneisen dismissed the complaints as "the rebellion of the beauty queens." And to Katie Harman's apparent objection to his plan to license a Miss America slot machine, he coolly replied, "By the time it comes out she won't be Miss America anymore, and her vote won't count anyway." Last week, Renneisen dragged Harman back to Atlantic City, N.J., to appear with him at a press conference, swear it was all a big misunderstanding and say she never had any problems with the pageant. She sounded as sincere as Jeffrey Skilling's congressional testimony. As Kate Shindle, a former Miss America who attended the press conference, noted, "The thing that makes me laugh is [the pageant claims it wants] an independent, intelligent, strong woman who wants to change the world."
The Nose isn't rushing to Harman's defense just out of a sense of chivalry. He has a far larger concern. When Miss America gets stomped on, what does it mean for us, the little people? How can a ratepayer expect to stand up to his phone company? How can a voter expect to get answers from an elected official? How can an employee expect decent treatment from his boss--if Miss America, for God's sake, can't get no respect?
Forget Mumia Abu-Jamal. The Nose has a far better idea for a bumper sticker: Free Katie Harman.
MY-T-SORRY 'BOUT THAT
If you've been looking for a copy of Willamette Week at your local Fred Meyer, there's a reason you've come up empty. Two weeks ago Freddie's, which is now owned by Cincinnati-based Kroger Co., told us we'd have to pay a fee to continue to distribute our papers at its My-T-Fine stores. We declined and have moved those papers to some new (even finer) locations. If you're having difficulty finding a copy of WW, simply call our front desk (243-2122) or check our website for a location near you.
WWeek 2015