American Idol Follies
Dr. Michael L. Ford
5 April 2007

	Let me go on record right now that I could care less
about the program called American Idol. I saw a few
minutes of it a good while back and determined two
things about it right away. The first of these was
people who appeared favored seemed to fit into a
certain mold of “entertainment” that jangles on my
ears in the best of times. And secondly, the fellow
called Simon Cowell does a pretty good job of
appearing as a rude inconsiderate bore. My opinion is
canceling the show and replacing it with a fixed
camera focused on a chicken coop for the time slot
would be a definite improvement in programming.
	Now having said that, let me get on to the reason I
feel compelled to write this piece protesting the
actions of a person who has made a career of being
rude, crude, and demeaning of others. The person I am
speaking of is a man described as a “shock jock”
called Howard Stern. It is reported that he has been
trying to persuade his listening audience to vote for
the poorest performer on the show. I understand
someone did this to a similar program in England and
it did result in the cancellation of the program over
there. So, Mr. Stern is not even being original in his
childish, unethical ideas.
	What form of envy or need for attention motivates Mr.
Stern to want to destroy other people’s livelihoods I
do not know. It seems to me he would have some sense
of kinship with the American Idol production since
both of them look to cater to some of the worse
characteristics of human beings. His actions remind me
of the kind of kid who would tear up another child’s
new toy simply because he did not have one. And I
guess that is the issue.
	We cannot expect Mr. Stern to behave as a Christian
ought to because it is my understanding he actually
holds real Christians in contempt. And, I must confess
the hopefulness of the competitors to American Idol
that Stern will succeed puts me off. They forget that
they might be the next target of his “corrupting the
entire thing.” This story is likely to continue its
sleazy little soap opera until a final conclusion of
some sort is reached.
	But we can learn a lesson or two from it about the
behavior of evil people and not behave ourselves as
those given to the precepts of the world do. This
short moment is all of they have. Why envy it?