WHAT HAPPENS IN WAR STAYS IN WAR.

The news media can be mocked readily, as they tend to fail at bringing "news" but succeed in fabricating jumbled nonsense and then present it as important, all with that winsome smile of the amiable mentally ill. So relating a story that greeted me today, I've re-written the headline, draining the caustic sponge of excess and leaving what I would like to call the "news fat."

MEDIOCRE COMMUNITY COLLEGE GAL NAMED BEAUTY QUEEN.

Isn't that the true travesty? An example of failed human judgment? Some group whose official duty it is to name beauty queens in the Minnesota area gave this honor to 22 year-old Jessica Gaulke, who is nothing above (physically speaking) your average girl that the world would never miss.



First, there is a ton of bullshit in the story. The point the media is focusing on is that she is off to Iraq AND she's a beauty queen. Like it's mind blowing that well groomed vaginas could, or would, carry a gun in the desert and shoot folks they've never met. Okay. It might work, it might get packs of beauty queens to join the Army.

The thing is, this girl joined the reserves years ago. She's no Pat Tillman here, giving up a million dollar career out of sense of duty. She goes to community college and from the looks of her, this whole "beauty queen" position wasn't exactly going to land her any big deals in Hollywood or Milan.



You know, hey, she's all right. Kind of cute. Not pretty. Not adorable or beautiful. Not "double take" worthy at all, but who is? This is obvious, so why would the media use her story? Is it to drum up support for the war? To show that various walks of life find their way to Iraq? She's going overseas because she signed a contract with the Reserves few years ago while a senior in high school, not exactly inspirational. Is it because they know she's not attractive, so how in the fuck did she become a beauty queen? Is it a joke? A sense of humor amongst this nation's editors?

"Check her out. Fucking beauty queen."

"Heard she's going to Iraq. Reserves or some shit."

"No shit? But she's a beauty queen. Check out that nose."

"Pretty unremarkable girl."

"Fuck it. Front page."

Welcome to your fifteen minutes, Jessica. In a span of two weeks you will be on Good Morning America, The Today Show, maybe Leno, some CNN program. Fuck it, Larry King might talk to you, but not about you, because this isn't technically about you don't forget, it's about the war and it's coverage. It's about the girl next door, not some dumbshit blockhead, signing up for the Army. It's about watching innocence and apple pie getting fitted for a bullet proof vest.

There might be a Movie of the Week when you get back, or if you die, better if you die, but that's for the papers to decide. Someone much prettier than you will play you, and when this TV version of you is a beauty queen it will make more sense than how it actually happened to you. When she dies it will be more tragic. The scene at the grave, as the flag is folded and handed off, your TV parents will cry. Of course this will make your real world parents cry, but they will do it on CNN or Larry King now speaking out against the war, asking, begging for answers, why innocent beauty queens had to die in Iraq.

But by then beauty queens will have enlisted in swarms. Like with blacks before them, they will get their own unit, pink sashes and all, they'll get teased and raped and one of them will earn the Purple Heart for getting shrapnel in her arm.

And that will be you. This will be your day. You will remember it all and if it were to manifest itself you would use the memory while in Iraq to masterbate to and you will start to wonder if female ejaculation is just a myth and you will recall the rest of your first day in the news as well, what else happened that ran parallel to your own news worthy life.

And you will remember this.



You shared headlines with the opening of Happy Feet.