UP NEXT: GOOD LOOKING PEOPLE RULE! FIRST, HERE'S JACKIE WITH THE WEATHER...

After I jotted down the notes for this month's ramblings, I came across an article of note in Newsweek magaizne. The writer, Dahlia Lithwick, was obviously pondering the same notion that I was: that Good Looking people, apparently, rule.

For those who have not read or do not intend to read the article, Dahlia observed that "...the less attractive you are, the more likely you are to receive a longer prison sentence, a lower damage award, a lower salary." She pointed to a new book written by Stanford law professor Deborah Rhode, that proposes laws be enacted to halt "looks discrimination." "The Beauty Bias," is its title. In it, all kinds of low, vile, and shallow employer practices are cited, like those at Abercrombie and Fitch. Evidently, these yo-yos hold Sorority-type management meetings in which they review photos of their sales kids, and fire them for acne breakouts, weight-gain, and (as Dahlia Lithwick writes), "...unacceptable quantities of ethnicity."

Ms. Lithwick's article illuminates exactly what was running through my mind, though my thoughts are more in line with the root cause of this kind of discrimination: Innate human nature, and repetitive exposure to our national addiction...TV.

Look--as humans, we've always been drawn to beautiful things: flowers, cloud formations, and other people. First paintings, then photos, movies and celebrity, via television, simply compounded the allure. I figured it might be a great idea for those of you with young children if, one evening during a power outage, you regale the kids with tales from days of yore--not about a era before plastic surgery and dental veneers, but more recent times. For example, when ugly people delivered TV news.

'Tis true. Especially in Los Angeles. A sign has been posted and fully accepted: No uglies allowed, especially when it comes to delivering the WEATHER! Oh, sure, they let a bald guy with brains cover politics, or a heavy-set woman in horn-rimmed glasses report from the Pentagon. When it comes to Highs and lows and the marine layer, staggering good looks are a necessity.

Though attractive lead actors and actresses have always dominated soaps and prime-time TV, it's taken time for the prerequisite for what I call "beyond telegenic" looks to completely overtake the news. In TV's first 25 years, broadcast journalism was more sacrosanct. What we would now consider ridiculous looking human beings (that is, every day folks) would bring you the daily forecast.

On KNBC, Channel 4, in the late 60's-early 70's, there was a gentleman named Bob Hale, who illustrated his weather reports with a huge, magic marker. He'd draw cute little seals, puppies and kitties next to the southland's predicted highs and lows. A bespectacled man who looked like an insurance agent, Bob disappeared from the air one summer, never to return. Former KNBC Anchor Tom Snyder told his late night audience (years after Bob had passed on) that in between drawing cuddly characters, the weather artist pounded the sauce with a vengeance, and swerved his way out of TV.

Also on Channel 4, around the same era, was a genuine meteorologist named Gordon Weir. With looks a bit like an aging James Mason, he took a professorial approach to assessing the next day's weather, using a pointer and science instructor's monotone. His forecasts were so deadly dull, you could almost hear the director yelling "WAKE UP" through the cameraman's headset. Old Gordon may well have nodded off, himself, between the overnight low in the valley, and the high in Manhattan Beach. You couldn't tell. When he drifted from TV, around the middle of the 70's, I imagined he went back to his perch in some ivory tower, to be dusted, occasionally, by a bored, university scrub woman. In truth, he passed in 1987 after a long illness.

Over on then-highly rated KNXT Channel 2 (now CBS2), Bill Keene held forth. A weather fixture with the visage of a basset hound, under his very perceptible rug, Bill left TV for KNX, the radio station upstairs at Columbia Square in Hollywood, where he'd spend the rest of his professional life as the area's preeminent traffic reporter and punster.

Who could forget Dr. George Fishbeck on KABC Channel 7's Eyewitness News? The pixie-like Dr. George was the very image of fatherly befuddlement, as amusing as he was sincere. He often held his right hand over the "7 in a Circle" crest, just above the heart on his Eyewitness News Blazer. As late as 2008, he was still doing forecasts in his living room for his wife. He's what they like to call a "spry" 88 years old.

This era of pallid, old weathermen with limp, damaged hair started crumbling while they were at their height, when KNBC hired the comely Kelly Lange to do weekend forecasts. With the recent retirement of CBS2 Weather clown Johnny Mountain, who'd been on the air in Los Angeles for 32 years, the crypt is nearly sealed. Comics like Fritz Coleman on KNBC4, and dimpled, leading men-types like Dallas Raines on KABC7 are the last of their ilk.

Turn on most TV news in L.A., today, and you realize why no one makes time to watch the Miss America Pageant, anymore. Why should you when you can watch someone just as stunning do the weather on TV?

Cases in point: Jackie Johnson, CBS2. Just try and mentally process weather information and remember tomorrow's high while being exposed to those curves for two or three minutes. I regularly go to the internet for the weather, but watch Jackie just for the diversion. What's worse, I easily admit my shallowness, and I'm not alone.

Early in the morning on KNBC4, a voluptuous distraction named Elita Loresca is gainfully employed. They must spend a fortune on her wardrobe, what with those cashmere sweaters being stretched beyond capacity. A lot of coffee must get spilled with Elita on display. Those who don't get up early can see her layout in FHM. there's wet clothing involved.

Turn to KTLA, Channel 5, and there's Vera Jimenez, who once did morning traffic on CBS2. Thinking back, I have to say she's soooooooooo much cuter and cuddlier than Bob Hale's drawings of kitties and seals, especially when she did traffic. Something, however, is amiss at Channel 5. KTLA lights her differently than CBS2 did. A petite young woman, her look is diminished by Channel 5's inability to light her correctly. Even in HD, you half-way expect a screeching cackle, a broom and smoking cauldron to accompany the graphics. And this is a seriously good looking woman. TV has never known how to properly light performers with brown skin, I suppose.

Finally, I submit to you, the strapping Indra Petersens, on KABC7, every Saturday and Sunday morning. A Swedish Beauty. She may well have been on Tiger's short list, but she's obviously too smart for anything like that. If you're up early on the weekend or just falling asleep, it does you good to know there's someone who looks like that on TV.

My point: The latter sentence says it all. Even I, as immersed in the history of broadcast journalism as I am, as acutely aware of discrimination as I am, have to concede that it's a treat seeing women so beautiful present news. It's sexist, yes, and unabashedly superficial, but evidently, we love it--at least according to focus groups, galvanic skin response tests, and the almighty Nielson ratings.

The author of "The Beauty Bias" may well be correct. Of all the forms of discrimination, though, this would be the most difficult to adjust or to legislate against. It's a deeply ingrained part of our flawed human nature. Besides, is beauty not, as they say, in the eye of the beholder?


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A final observation: I hope at some point in time that, as day must follow night, AUTO-TUNE will go the way of the WAH-WAH PEDAL. For an example of autotune at work, think of Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls." The robotic computer program is used to keep him on key and in tune. After while, it's like finger nails on a chalk board.

For memories of the equally hideous wah-wah pedal, think back to the old Cheech and Chong bit where, in a fit of wah-wah induced rage, Cheech snatches the offending pedal out of its power supply. It's on Cheech and Chong's Wedding Album. Still funny, after all these years.