Happen to catch the Miss Universe Pageant Monday evening? Even know it was on TV? Yeah, we didn't either.
But this year was special. And now we feel bad.
For the first time in nearly two decades, the title of Miss Universe, at least for this year, belongs to Miss Mexico, breaking an apparent curse for our neighbor to the south.
And we couldn't be happier for a pageant none of us watched. For a country ravaged by drug-cartel violence, poverty and that is still recovering from the near $2 billion worth of damage Hurricane Wilma caused to some of the country's most popular tourist destinations, perhaps this is a simple start to recovery for Mexico. We realize a pageant winner can never hope to solve a country's problems, but Miss Navarette, you're surely going to have to try! You have the world's spotlight now, so use that crown well! And considering one member of the Editorial Board just returned from a vacation in Mexico, we know the poverty first hand in that country.
We've seen children, grown women, elderly women selling hand-crafted handkerchiefs for a dollar a piece on the road. We've seen the light in a child's eyes when we gave him a dollar for a handkerchief we didn't need.
So when we found out the United States lost again, (we haven't won since 1997 if you don't include Puerto Rico), we couldn't have been happier to continue our own what-did-we-do-to-deserve-this-we're-like-so-pretty losing streak.
It almost makes us sad we didn't have any idea the pageant was going on. Almost.
We're just glad Miss Mexico wasn't asked a really tough question about map reading.
