School for Would-Be Scoundrels

About two years ago, the minds behind CBS's Survivor series crossed the line of the God-fearing and organized their landmark game-show-beauty-pageant-hybrid around race. And not simply around it, but hinged to the conceit of pitting races against each other to see which was better. And guess what? We ate it up! It's not much of a secret that this country feeds on the quasi-reality culture harvested for us by Big TV, at this point so scientifically formulaic that even you, the real, non-reality star, can enroll in a class to learn how to parlay your average-ness into the kind of average-ness America craves.