Two minor points followed by the real one.

The cat looks sad. It's hard to tell with cats. Maybe he's just looking at me and reflecting?

The good news is that I got a check in the mail today. That's always nice. And it wasn't one of those phony $2 rebate checks (remember those?) that cost more to process and send than the check was worth. This one was a check for $198 from my dentist. It seems my insurance paid too much and he returned the excess. I'm way too cynical to have expected that. I think most physicians would have pocketed it and left the patient to wonder what happened to all that extra money my health insurance paid out.

Most of you know the disdain with which I view American Idol. There's another show, the grammatically hideous Britain's Got Talent that exposed dowdy Susan Boyle to the world via YouTube. The idea that no one wants to explore is that her voice, while nice, is made more so by her plain, if not unattractive looks. OK, she's kind of funny looking.

Celebrities (even made-up ones like on Idol) are supposed to look a certain way, and when they do we accept their talent, as though good looks equal talent. When one of them looks different (i.e. funny-looking) and can still voice a tune, our senses flinch and we carry on as though someone who looks funny couldn't be a good singer. Somebody agrees with me:

"American Idol this season has seemed conservative," he said. "They look like pop stars already. Idol has just become a star factory. Susan Boyle wouldn't qualify because of her age. And if she did, they'd play it for laughs for a couple of weeks and cut her out."
Jason Mittell, associate professor of American Studies and Film & Media Culture at Middlebury College, isn't buying the moment as a genuine shock to the judges. But he knows the global public is. Indeed, Simon looks like a Simon transformed, glimpsed in his home country, no longer the cynical outsider, hands-over-cheeks adulation over a true undiscovered talent.
"Do you want my cynical take on the whole thing?" Mittell asks. "The Susan Boyle thing was a setup narrative, 100 percent consistent with how these shows are produced. Everybody has fallen for it. I am unmoved." Mittell points out that to be truly surprised by her singing, you have to first buy into the idea that Boyle's unstyled appearance somehow is a predictor of her singing ability, which is ridiculous.

I don't think you're being cynical at all Jason. I think you're seeing the show for what it is: A manipulative, ridiculous excuse for a talent show that has, for years, adjusted its audience in such a way as to present what they feel are people worthy of recording contracts. Otherwise, how could you possibly explain the idea of whittling down a few hundred thousand contestants to six without knowing the outcome beforehand?

It proves the old adage: Nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the general public.