A Miss World Pageant without riot or death. Imagine that! What's this "world" coming to, eh?

I don't have much use for beauty pageants ... nothing against them ... they're just not in the middle of my radar screen. But when a bonnie lasse from my ancestors' homeland wins "Miss World", I take notice.

Dublin University student Rosanna Davison made Ireland proud this past weekend, when she was crowned Miss World at the pageant held this year on the resort island of Hainan in South China. That's right. A resort island in South China! Go figure.

Note that there were no riots associated with this year's contest. You see, in last year's pageant held in Nigeria, over a hundred people were killed and 500 more injured in riots between Christians and Muslims, after a Nigerian newspaper ran a piece suggesting that ... had the Prophet Mohammed been alive, he would have approved of the beauty contest. It offended many. Well, enough to cause a hundred or so deaths with hordes of young men chanting, "Down with beauty" and "Miss World is sin."

So congrats to the Chinese "resort" for putting on a good show this weekend, and to the Chinese newspapers for not speculating that Chairman Mao would have liked the swimsuit competition.

Oh, and about that other beauty pageant this past weekend ... the one naming the two teams to compete for the mythical National Championship of college football. Southern Cal lost out by several computerized decimal points ... not on a grassy playing field ... causing a prescription-strength case of the "Red A--" in some circles.

And that, my friends, is why beauty pageants aren't really on my radar. But I'll sure tip a Guinness for Ireland... anytime!