10:11 a.m. I wasted a good couple of hours watching, I'm embarassed to say, the Miss World pagent. I was flicking through the channels, bored, not wanting to read, when I saw the women robotically walking around the stage in long flowing gowns.

I was even more embarassed when the segment revealed the talent contest. In the top five was a roller skater. Seriously? I can skate as well as her. That's no talent,I'm afraid. Fortunately, the woman who won could actually sing. And it wasn't a ballad, thank god.

But I was compelled to watch it to the finish. Mocking their answers and criticizing the whole show till it ended. I couldn't believe how often the word charity came up: Miss world supports charity. I want to do charity work. Charity this, charity that. Like the act of charity compensates for the ridiculous notion of women walking about in bathing suits. I'm sure the time it takes to prepare for this sort of event could be effectively used for genuine work in charity. But first: I must become a beauty queen.

Oops. Tangent.

Then I couldn't help but see some parallels between this Miss World and our current election campaign. I was thinking why isn't there a mr. world (I guess there is an equivalent, but with bodybuilding - incidently women have their own bodybuilding competition, too).

In essence, we have Mr. Canada. All four candidates are backed up by a team of professionals to ensure they look their best, speak their best and coach them through the long competition. They have their signature wave (or hand jestures when they speak), their signature look (Jack, keep the mustash...regardless of what your people say). Their judges? The people of Canada.

The debate is their moment to reveal their charisma (hmmm, what charisma?), their passion (passion for slamming the Liberals),and their personality (cheese whiz adds per-son-ality!).

Since there are no women participating in the federal election (something like 23% of parliament is represented by women!?!!), elections will remain in my mind as a sort of male pagent contest. Especially since most of the words spoken are no more intelligent than the words spoken by Miss Iceland.

n@s