Who wants to marry a millionaire?

I just watched a pageant in which a millionaire chose his bride from among 50 women. It was just like a regular pageant, except that the prize was becoming this guy's wife. The pageant culminated in an actual wedding, conducted by a justice of the peace.

Oh well -- can't be any worse than those good ol' fashioned arranged marriages, right?

I'm sorry -- I'm having trouble coming up with anything witty or sarcastic to say about this whole thing. Frankly, I'm pretty stunned by the whole thing, and yet, I keep telling myself that I shouldn't be.

Chirping through the night, (The formerly engaged) Cricket

"Cricket" wrote in message news:[email]...

among 50

becoming

conducted by a

marriages,

sarcastic to

thing,

Waste time watching what passes for entertainment on most television shows and stunned is what you're likely to get.

"Proud as in 'stunned'."--Daria

Unless you're upset that you weren't among the contenders.

"You can marry for money but you'll earn every penny"--I read that someplace--Playboy I think.

So what happens if the millionaire suffers a business reversal and suddenly becomes poor? Is the marriage off?

Isn't that in essence what millionaires usually do? Perhaps the only novelty is televising it. Check out the lonely hearts column, especially in some big city publication. The men seem to often advertising their wealth and status, the women their youth and attractiveness. It's all very depressingly Darwinian. Richard Dawkins would approve.

I was prepared to make a big stink about this being a sign of Stephen King's prophecies in "Running Man" coming true...

but then I ended up watching it anyway. It was fun. Quite frankly, I've never been much of a crusader.

On 16 Feb 2000 03:11:11 GMT, [email] (Cricket) wrote:

Kyle, he who means well The Shane Andrews of alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs

On 16 Feb 2000 03:11:11 GMT, [email] (Cricket) wrote:

Absolutely. I'd even say it's better.

At least in this case, it's the bride's greed and not her father's...

Just wait for some of the more extreme feminists to get their word out on this. For once, I may actually agree with them...

(For the record, I do usually agree with the more moderate feminists but some of the more extreme ones almost seem like they're *trying* to provoke men into stereotypical male aggresion...)

y'know thinking about this when I went to bed the first time last night (a later thought was "Dammit! I have to type this poem explication!" causing me to get out of bed)... anyhow... when I was talking to my father about "The Magic Christian" he quoted someone- I think it may have good ol' William F. Buckley- about a guy saying to a girl "Would you sleep with me if I gave you a million dollars?" and she says yes, and he says "Would you sleep with me if I gave you twenty dollars?" and she says "What do you think I am? and he says "We've already determined what you are, we're just haggling on price"

OK. That's it. Except our radio station is using part of "Come and Get It" to promote a "win stuff" thing, which I found weird, and they had a new DJ who's like "Check this out... 1963, you could buy a macaroni and cheese dinner for thirty five cents! You could feed a family of four pretty good on the wages back then!" when you can buy macaroni and cheese for forty five cents now, and back then $4/hour was goood money, and now it's below minimum wage :) And he told the whole life history of this guy before playing his song "Interested in football, he got scholarships..."

Dagny

http://firefly.cc.st

"This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper." -T.S. Eliot

Daria code: Ap D+ T5 W1 Q+ Fn^Fr O+ OH m c MV- C5X F:113,201,305 BB+ FCJ -DT+ q+ fT^fD

Cricket chirped:

How about: You get what you pay for, I guess.

I'm really glad I missed that charade. I think I'll go put on an old "Max Headroom: 20 minutes into the future" tape and try to tell myself we haven't gone quite that far yet. Though I'll probably end up depressed over how close we're getting.

Peace Kevin

On 17 Feb 2000 02:53:37 GMT, [email] (KTrick45) wrote:

Hmm. I noticed Fox went porno early this year.

-- Blank Bob

Bob Mellish wrote:

How so? I've been so busy I've only been watching bits of "Northern Exposure", taped eps of "Whose Line is it Anyway?" and "Daria", and whatever's playing at the time I get to eating lunch/dinner. I guess I should be lucky then, huh?

LI, who's got enough videos to last her awhile until TV gets good again

Lady Interference wrote:

That's a Max Headroom reference. (That one's from the original movie, and the first ABC-TV episode). Another, from a later ABC episode appropriate right about now, would be: "Sex and Politics. I smell RATINGS!"

Peace Kevin

Bob Mellish wrote:

KTrick45 wrote:

D'oh! Sorries, never watched the show. Saw some of the promos in passing, but I wasn't too interested in a show like that at that time. Was too involved in finding out what happened in Natalie's and Jo's love lives, what else Alex P. Keaton would say, what *fun* story Rose Nyland would have about farmtown life, the antics of Judge Harry Stone's courtroom, and stuff like that. I was a little girl like that. ;)

LI

Cricket said:

Yeah. I accidentally tuned in to that at one point and my mind was boggled. Basically, they found a guy willing to marry a girl based on knowing her solely from a beauty contest, and 50 girls willing to marry a guy on these terms because he's rich, and the guy's ok with this motivation, too. I'm not sure which part of this horrifies me more; looking at it philosophically, there's like 270 million Americans, and this is far from the most harmful manifestation of insanity amongst our number.

Heinlein had a word for the "postmodern" period in his Future History. (the first "future history" ever explicitly done as such in science fiction). He called it "The Crazy Years".

I don't know what I can add to that.

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

"Man, as we know him, is a poor creature; but he is halfway between an ape and a god and he is travelling in the right direction." (Dean William R. Inge)