Miss America has been a target for envy, contempt and/or corporate marketing ever since the pageant was mounted many years ago. Women through the decades have surrounded TV sets around the world to ooh and ah or utter snide remarks about the contestants whose one claim to fame is strutting in a swim suit in front of millions through the medium of television.

I was one of those oglers year after year, secretly envying my sisters who managed to make it to the top in one of the few contests open to the female of the sexes - the beauty contest. No matter how often the contest sponsors insist that it is not a beauty contest with young women showing off their bodies, we all knew and still know that in our culture women make it because men in charge like to look at beautiful women. Certainly corporate sponsors like to flaunt the perfect female figure draped over the hood of their latest model automobile. I once knew a school principal who bragged about hiring beautiful teachers. He said, "I can't make an ugly teacher beautiful but I can certainly teach a beautiful woman how to teach."

In my day, a miss was a young woman who had not had sex and was unmarried. The hottest news story was when a Miss America contestant was found to be lacking in virginity. Wonder who checks out the contestants to prove they are truly in the "miss" category? Is one of the judges a gynecologist-in-residence to assure that the age-old requirement has been met? Never have been able to find a news story about that.

But the Miss America title has not changed even though the taboo against sexuality before marriage has changed for many young women. Protests are now being waged in the name of Miss America. Yes, there is now a young protester calling herself "I Miss America" and posing as the spokesmodel for Peace Action of Washington. She appeared at the Fremont Solstice Parade and recruited a few dozen "I Miss America" models to greet George Bush when he appeared in Bellevue recently.

I Miss America says she loves children, pets and world peace but is turned off by governments with huge deficits and corporations that manufacture arms and dole out campaign contributions. She says that she misses the true America when of late our brave soldiers are sent into battle by a president who says he is fighting for freedom and has declared that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq while taxpayers are told that Iraq oil will pay to clean up the mess.

I have one criticism of I Miss America. America is a term co-opted to mean USA when there are North, South and Central Americans who can also claim to be Americans.

But to make fun of Miss America, one needs to use her misguided title in order to complete the spoof of an administration that led us into policing the world for corporate gain. Have we finally stopped listening to the cry of wolf? At last we hope so.

Georgie Bright Kunkel is a freelance writer who can be reached at gnkunkel@comcast.net or 206-935-8663.