Breaking news: Bronx School of High Science Announces Miss (and/or Mister) Babycakes Pageant

(Bronx, NY) Jon Cruz, Director of Identity Politics at the Bronx School of High Science, announced today the first annual Miss (and/or Mister) Babycakes Pageant to be held at the school in lieu of his usual New York City Invitational Debate Tournament. “Debate is getting really old,” Mr. Cruz said, “while recognizing the relativistic nature of beauty, especially if it involves piercing, tats, or gender confusion, is where the 21st Century is truly headed.”

Anyone of any age and gender is welcome to enter the pageant. “We don’t care if Miss (and/or Mister) Babycakes is male or female or some mixture of both, or for that matter, neither,” Cruz said. “We search for the inner person, if we can find him, or her, or both, or neither. And age also doesn’t matter. For too long American culture has been fixated on youth. It’s time to start expanding the fixation to include old farts and living fossils.”

The pageant will be judged by a panel of celebrities including Ashton Kutcher, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Obama, Woody Allen, Paula Abdul (tentative), Whoopi Goldberg, Taylor Swift Beyonce, Bono, and Pope Benedict XVI. Hosting the ceremony will be Muammar el-Qaddafi, provided someone can correctly spell his name and find his tent.

“This will be a beauty pageant for the rest of us,” Cruz summed up. “What is beauty, after all? Immanuel Kant was the last German to seriously believe that there was any objective aesthetic, aside from Albert Einstein, who was, after all, pretty ugly and needed a haircut. For that matter, Immanuel Kant usually needed a haircut as well, and wasn’t any great shakes in the looks department. Anyhow, we intend to breathe new life into both beauty and the Bronx, both of which could use it.”

The pageant will be broadcast on the Food Network in between Rachael Ray reruns.