Fox is having its usual smash with "American Idol," with this season’s latest offering beating the Winter Olympics in the ratings. Paula Abdul walked off in a money dispute, Ellen De Generes is unexpectedly flat, and the show overall is starting to sag, but it’s still just about the best thing on TV. Now there’s a buzz about the best judge, Simon Cowell, leaving after this season.
Cowell is constantly booed and attacked as the nasty judge, the one who crushes young singers’ dreams his patented cutting remarks. It’s also true that he is painfully honest.
Almost every "Idol" watcher looks forward to hearing Simon offer those blunt and honest opinions every bit as much – or even more than – the actual performances. The other night, he responded to boos after one stinging analysis by shooting back at the audience, "I’m only saying what you’re thinking." That’s instantly a classic line, and very true.
It’s common now to hear viewers suggest they might just stop watching the show once Simon is gone, that the quality of the judging just will not be the same. That is definitely true if one believes the rumors circulating about the sewer where Fox is fishing for Simon Cowell replacements.

It was a year in which the dominant cultural story was the sad, but eerily almost predictable drug-addled death of Michael Jackson. But there were a few good moments sprinkled in with the outrageous and the tawdry in 2009. My choices for cultural winners and losers this year:
UPDATE:
Comedienne Joy Behar on HLN Monday jokingly accused former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean of releasing seven additional sex tapes "just in time for the holidays."
In case you missed it, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh will be expanding his resume - long-time political commentator, potential NFL owner and now Miss America pageant judge.
Perez Hilton has proved that demonstrable talent or skill is no longer a prerequisite for fame. These days, all that's needed is a proclivity for peddling the sleaziest material imaginable.
Carrie Prejean, the former Miss USA runnerup, has filed a lawsuit against the Miss California Organization claiming it discriminated against her religious beliefs thereby causing her emotional distress as well as financial loss.
The same-sex marriage controversy that hijacked the recent Miss USA pageant-and our televisions and radios every day since-has now claimed another victim: Miss California co-director Shanna Moakler. With Donald Trump having decided to let Carrie Prejean keep her crown, there is apparently not room enough for both beauty queens, and Moakler has chosen to resign out of principle, “to be a role model for [her] children.”