Miss America

New Orleans. -- I met Miss America. She was nice. And she was cold. We were seated before paparazzi at an outdoor table in Hollywood. She was wearing a wool coat. Still, she was shivering. She leaned right up against me and shivered some more.''Good coat,'' I said, meaning that it looked thick enough to me so that she shouldn't have been cold. ''Thank you,'' she said. I hadn't meant ''beautiful coat.'' I meant ''good coat,'' But I let it slide. You have to feel sorry for Miss America. She's 19 years old and every night she has to be in a different town to tell people that she's against hunger and homelessness.

On weekday mornings, I'll post the most controversial, shocking and (of course) ridiculous stories for your reading pleasure. That way, when you walk into work, you'll be the master of witty conversation. National  • Because he's such a proven political winner: Ralph Nader plans to challenge Obama (Politico)  • The spook shuffle: Gen. Petraeus to the CIA in shuffle  (AP)  • I miss Bush: George W. Bush jokes with ABC (The Blaze)  • She's got the look down: Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin (Gawker)

The Miss America pageant has crossed barriers before, but the crowning last weekend of Miss Alabama, Heather Whitestone, carried special significance. Ms. Whitestone, who is deaf, is the first Miss America with a physical disability.Her achievement underscores the fact that the most visible obstacles to success are not always the toughest ones to overcome. She won the contest's talent category with a classical ballet performance, following the music by counting beats and coordinating her movements with changes in pitch.

Two sisters are coordinating a pageant in Maryland to raise money for a teen injured in a car crash. The Miss Hope Eastern Shore Pageant will be held in May. Proceeds from the pageant will go to Courtney Bloxom, who is recovering from a single-car crash last year that left her in a coma for six weeks. The goal is to raise $19,000 to pay for specialized physical therapy equipment Bloxom needs. Miss America 2010, Caressa Cameron of Fredericksburg, Va., will be the pageant's master of ceremonies.

PASADENA, Calif. -- Miss America's going two-piece this year.That's the news on the 77th annual Miss America Pageant, scheduled to air Sept. 13 on ABC, according to Leonard Horn, executive producer of the show.Horn told television critics in California for the Summer Press Tour that contestants will be given the choice for the first time of wearing one- or two-piece bathing suits in the swimsuit competition.He said the decision was part of an attempt to give the telecast a "fleshly look." After hearing the laughter, he realized his slip and amended it to say "a fresh look."

Lindsay Heaps fidgeted in her front row seat, wide-eyed with anticipation, waiting for the big moment to arrive. Did the 6-year-old know whom she was waiting for? "Well, I think she's some kind of a queen," Lindsay said.Well. Kind of.She is Carolyn Sapp, the reigning Miss America who was at a White Marsh mall fashion show yesterday, on tour for the textile and apparel industry to promote American-made clothing.And Ms. Sapp, 24, did make a queenly entrance as she walked onto the stage while a tape-recorded version of "There She Is, Miss America" played in the background.

Here she is, you-know who.The annual "Miss America Pageant" (9 p.m.-midnight, WMAR, Channel 2) in Atlantic City continues its bid for a more NTC contemporary image, with new features including brief profiles filmed in each woman's hometown and an opening number in which, instead of costumes designed for the show, the contestants will wear clothing they selected to reflect their own personalities. But as usual, the current Miss America Kate Shindle will be on hand to crown her successor. Hosts: Meredith Vieira and Boomer Esiason.

The Miss America Pageant, which got the hook from network television last year, has signed a deal with Country Music Television, a division of MTV Networks, for a pageant to be televised in January. That means that there will be no pageant from the boardwalk in Atlantic City, N.J., this fall, as there has been most Septembers since the 1920s, although no decision has been made as to where the broadcast will ultimately originate. CMT has headquarters in Nashville. With CMT, the pageant will get a potential audience of 79 million households, said Paul Villadolid, vice president of programming and development for CMT. He added that the network would also work to overcome one of the weaknesses of the old pageant format, which did not allow viewers to develop a sense of familiarity and partisanship with contestants over several days or weeks leading up to the pageant, as popular reality shows like Survivor and The Apprentice do. "Many of these young women come from areas that our audience cares about," he said.

The Miss America Family, by Julianna Baggott. Pocket Books. 280 pages. $24. Memory is its own animal. It can hibernate, spawn, and rise up moths in a well-lit room, each thin body lifted by fierce wings," Pixie Kitchy notes in Julianna Baggott's second novel, The Miss America Family. Yet the memories that stalk this former Miss New Jersey are far more sinister than fluttering insects. Pixie, still beautiful and immaculately groomed almost 20 years after her failed bid for the Miss America crown, is now a dentist's wife and mother of two in suburban Delaware.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- It's that time of year again.You know, when women say their hobbies are "laughing" or "mushroom hunting," or "trampoline space ball," and boast they were once featured on a postcard of Shipshewana, Ind.!When common household remedies -- duct tape, Vaseline and tennis grip -- perform live on national television, augmenting cleavage, making lips slide back from pearly white teeth, and holding bouncing bottoms into body-basting bathing suits.You guessed it, it's time for the "Miss America Pageant!"

The Miss Black America pageant announced Tuesday morning that it would revive the national beauty competition that featured past contestants such as Oprah Winfrey and Toni Braxton. In addition to bringing back the pageant after a 15-year absence, organizers will now offer a Little Miss Black America pageant for ages 9-12 and Miss Black America Teen pageant for ages 13-17. The Miss Black America pageant is open to women ages 18-29. The announcement was made at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore.

Dan Knott was just watching football in his hospital bed on a quiet Sunday afternoon. Then in walked Miss America, silver crown and all, to thank the 51-year-old Baltimore man for his long-ago Army service. "Just want to let you know how much we appreciate you," said Katie Stam, the 22-year-old brown-haired, brown-eyed beauty queen, during a goodwill trip to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in downtown Baltimore. After posing with Knott for a Polaroid snapshot, Stam moved on to chat with other veterans receiving medical care on Ward 3-B. She made the visit in conjunction with the USO, a congressionally chartered nonprofit group that has been boosting soldier morale since 1941, most famously through visits from entertainer Bob Hope.

Rush Limbaugh has once again found himself the subject of national attention, this time for his failed bid to become a part owner of the National Football League's St. Louis Rams. After the world was reminded of Mr. Limbaugh's history of racially charged commentary, the group trying to buy the team rightly realized that Mr. Limbaugh's involvement in the effort could cripple their chances. Rush was dropped - which is exactly how he should be treated by the Miss America Pageant. Mr. Limbaugh is slated to be a Miss America judge in 2010, in spite of the deep-seated misogyny that he has broadcast nationwide throughout his career.

Long before The Real World, Survivor, or American Idol, a phenomenally popular reality show was running in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. That show was called A Chorus Line, and it changed the face of Broadway. A Chorus Line focused on the true-to-life stories of ordinary people - in this case, 17 young dancers desperate to establish a toe-shoe hold in their chosen profession. For one woman (named "Sheila" in the show), the ballet studio provides a refuge from her parents' unhappy marriage.

Cecil County Elkton Woman dies of injuries from fire An Elkton woman died yesterday of injuries she suffered during a fire at her home Wednesday. The state fire marshal's office says Kathie Wilson, 54, died yesterday morning at the burn unit at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. It started in a sofa in the living room of Wilson's mobile home. Neighbors found Wilson lying on her kitchen floor after the fire broke out early Wednesday.

Just before doctors turned on her new bionic ear yesterday, Heather Whitestone McCallum saw that her son, John, 6, had lost a baby tooth as he ate a sandwich. When the device was activated, McCallum got to hear John explain what happened. "A seed in the bread took it off," John said, holding the tooth out to show his mother, who smiled and nodded. "I like his voice," said McCallum, who underwent cochlear implant surgery six weeks ago at the Johns Hopkins Center for Hearing and Balance in Baltimore and returned yesterday for the activation.

The Miss America contest is not a beauty pageant, it is a scholarship competition, the organizers say.Apparently, somebody forgot to tell the entrants. The most controversial part of the pageant, the swimsuit competition, is just fine with them. In a poll released yesterday, 42 of the 50 Miss America contestants said they did not have a problem with waltzing around in public in swimwear."Considering the current trends toward health and fitness, I think the swimsuit competition is more relevant than ever," wrote Paula Knoll, Miss Minnesota.

Miss America is an unlikely AIDS activist.But Leanza Cornett, Miss Florida since June and Miss America since Sept. 16, is an unlikely young woman. Complicated in a '90s kind of way.She's a pro-choice Republican, a Bible-reading Christian who calls "Murphy Brown" her favorite TV show. Her official platform is to increase AIDS awareness and assistance.Ms. Cornett is the first Miss America to take on AIDS, and she has many people asking if Miss America can really make a difference. After all, the Miss America organization is an old-fashioned institution that, despite its scholarship awards, is still seen as a showcase for big-haired young women in high heels and bathing suits.

To Brittany Lietz, the new Miss Maryland, there's nothing true about the phrase "beauty is only skin deep." The Edgewood nursing student's desperate quest for beauty, in the form of self-tanning sessions three times a week, eventually ended up lingering deep beneath her milk-pale skin. While the teenager tanned, malignant tumors reached sneakily into layers that had never seen the sun or man-made ultraviolet rays. By the time she was 20, Lietz had been diagnosed with Stage II melanoma - an elevated level of the most dangerous form of skin cancer.