[silent_jonny]

Hi, Wolfstar :)

Sorry I missed you last night.

Earth to AI producers -- we tune in to be entertained, not to be harangued by limousine liberals and their entirely phony "give back" schtick.

Amen!

I think this whole charity thing has more to do with Idol wanting to shake off the "racist" label than anything else.

This entire season seems to have been built around that idea.

[A Citizen Reporter]

"Earth to AI producers -- we tune in to be entertained, not to be harangued by limousine liberals and their entirely phony "give back" schtick."

Absolute agreement. While all that telethon stuff was going on, I treated it like a commercial.... I was reading my book. This is NOT a recipe for success, and I don't look forward to more of it tonight.

[Palladin]

I think you are right! (As usual.)

[Wolfstar]

I agree with you, Jonny, about AI wanting to throw off their imaginary "racist" demons. Probaby also want to keep the race shakedown artists, Sharpton and Jackson, at bay. Also, Cowell truly does seem to identify more with black people than his own race. In England, "black" includes people from the Indian subcontinent.

But there is another aspect to this: big entertainment wanting to showcase their talent in an era of declining sales of CD's and movie tickets, as well as declining ratings for broadcast TV networks. AI reaches the largest mass audience in television these days, short of the Super Bowl, and that's a once anually event. We should never underestimate big entertainment's capacity for cynical manipulation.