I watched some trash tv last night - even trashier than usual. One of the shows: How to Marry A Prince (approximate title.) There is apparently a very narrow range of acceptable schools, clothing and vocabulary. I also watched an interview with Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens, too, has a very limited range  of what is politically and intellectually acceptable. Given a choice between Hitchens and Wills as groom,  I'd choose a frog.

The weather here is beautiful. Sunny, about 12 degrees warmer than the expected temperature for this time of year. It's also very dry and going to be a harsh summer. Global warming in action; my husband tells me that a constitutional amendment has been proposed to outlaw global warming. I don't think even a frog expects his croaks to change the weather.

The BBC has a show that comes on at odd times - The Weather Show. I watched sections on tornadoes, the moon and tides, etc. It's another of those shows that teach me things I should have learned in elementary school science but I didn't pay attention so am now awed at what every reasonably clever eleven year old knows.

There are things the BBC reports in its strange little five minute segments. This morning, I learned about a UN program in Zimbabwe which supplies bicycles to students. The program begins by defining the problem: female students walk miles to school. During the walk, they are exposed to being raped and kidnapped to work as prostitutes. The UN gives them bicycles and these dangers are averted. A young girl was interviewed. It took her several hours to walk to school every morning; she gets to school on her bike in 15 minutes. Some questions: how does a bike prevent rape and prostitution? Can a bike really cut a journey from two hours to fifteen minutes? Some of these programs raise more questions than they answer.

I flipped channels. I watched NHK, the Japanese national tv channel. Again, I discovered things I should have known. Japan has a subtropical rain forest. I watched a show about it and saw beautiful ferns and magnificent butterflies. One, the Orange Oak butterfly, looks like a dead leaf when its wings are closed. Open, the butterfly is blue and orange and very beautiful. The area is full of streams, ferns, trees similar to the banyan. We watched a little bird bringing insects for its fledglings, then cleaning the nest, taking fledgeling fecal matter to deposit in a nearby stream. This defeats the nose of a snake that eats little fledgelings. Here's another place I'd like to go someday.

After the nature show, NHK has a series on Technology and Science and their impact on social organization. This morning, I watched an interview with Kengo Kuma, a Japanese architect and looked at some of his buildings. He discussed his evolving goals: first, to convey history by suggesting an underground, hiding much of the building. Then, to achieve a harmony between nature and building. He uses bamboo, glass, water and the structures look magnificent. Another thing to visit someday.

There are times when I want to watch tv, usually very odd times of the day or night. I flip through while drinking coffee or eating lunch and look at the least objectionable. Sometimes I find something that is not trash tv, just not what I’d usually watch - like the NHK series. Sometimes it really is trash and  sometimes I get hooked. The Housewives of Orange County is such a program.

Now this is really trashy tv: trailer trash with lots of money. A very snobbish statement, worthy of Hitchens. But the O.C. housewives would bring out the snob in St. Francis. It's on here every day, so I've rapidly seen the second - fifth series and watched housewives evolve and new housewives replace old ones. While this was going on, the economy changed. We saw them at the height of the bubble then tracked them through the crash. It's like a morality tale of the evils of capitalism.

The women, with the exception of Jeanna and Lynn, all look the same. Thin and blonde. Sometimes I have trouble telling them apart. A guest on a talk show last night explained this: he said when he first went to Los Angeles it was like being put in the middle of a very large related family. Then he realized why. They all used the same plastic surgeons, had the same little nose, same cheek bones and slightly stretched look from the face lifts and slightly pouty lips from the botox.

In the second show of the series, they mainly went shopping and visited their plastic surgeons. Jeanna, slightly different than the rest, sold houses. She specialized in houses that cost more than a million. Vicky, blonde but also different, sold insurance. Vicky is very rich. The other women are, more or less, trophy wives. Except for Gretchen. She's a trophy fiance, nursing her fiance as he dies of cancer. (The other women suggest she's not really a fiance, she's a housekeeper. They also say she's got a man on the side.}

Then the economy suffers. Vicky, supposed to be Jeanna's best friend, places a house she has to sell with another realtor. She also refuses to lend Jeanna money. Jeanna drops out of the show for a season, saying she has to work. (Jeanna is probably the favorite housewife and is described on the sites devoted to the show as the 'most down-to-earth'.)

Things get worse as the years proceed. They lose their houses. We learn about losing houses in America. You can arrange a short sale - this means you sell the house for less than you owe the bank and the bank doesn't pursue you. Or you go into Chapter Eleven. Declare bankruptcy. Or another kind of Chapter that is not quite as bad. Glancing at the internet, a number of the housewives and their husbands have been sued in the last couple of years.

The women's reactions? They walk. Second season, most of the housewives claimed to have splendid marriages with husbands who were their best friends, Then came the credit crunch.  If he hasn't got the dosh, his loving wife will look elsewhere.

Lynn's two daughters were home when the eviction notice came. The girls and Lynn were hysterical. Her husband had not told her that he hadn't payed the $10,000 deposit on the house they moved into when they had to downsize. She went on and on about trust. He said he didn't want to worry her. She took the girls and stayed with her mother. He went to a hotel. Then she went on a trip with the other OC housewives to San Francisco - a shopping trip. She bought a leather jacket for $1,250. She came back and forgave her husband.  Lynn is clueless in many ways. She's not returning to the show; perhaps because her two underage daughters repeatedly get very drunk. For awhile, Bravo ran a disclaimer: we do not approve of underage drinking. (Most of the children on the show are pretty unpleasant. Like their mothers, they spend. I consume therefore I am.)

Then there's Jesus Barbie. She's very religious. She says she must devote herself to pleasing her husband and carrying for her children. She's got two nannies and a personal trainer and spends her time shopping or working out. She's one of the nastier housewives.

Vicky, the rich insurance one, treated her husband Donn very badly during series 2-4. The other husbands commented on this. So did the audiences. She's basically a bully.  Then, in series 5, she was nice to him. I looked on the website and discovered in series 6 she leaves him. He apparently is due a big settlement.

The reality tv show opens up opportunities for the women.  They have a contract with Bravo TV, and I don't know if Bravo pays them or if the contract simply is very profitable in other ways. Gretchen starts a make up line. Lynn makes jewelry.

Most of the women are not stupid. They are women that rely on their looks to get what they want; when Jesus Barbie says she has to work to please her husband she claims the Bible as the source. Not the Bible - but Orange County. If you don't stay in shape and get the facelifts, there's always another gold digger out there ready to take advantage of your failure.

It's an odd concept for a show: on one hand, the lifestyles are presented as something to aspire to. On the other hand, the women themselves are almost always presented as unpleasant. Five women who live in the same area are filmed together: they are friends because of Bravo TV. Good television requires somebody to like and more somebodies to dislike and somebody to stir the mix. There are housewives of other areas: Miami, Atlanta, Beverly Hills, New York. I haven't watched any of them, but I'd expect the same features. 

There's nothing more unreal than reality tv. It's like counting votes. Stalin said once that people could vote for anyone they wished as long as he counted the votes. As long as Bravo reduces the hundreds of hours of filming to ten to twelve 44 minute segments, the women can be presented in any way Bravo wants.