One of these things seems not the same.
Not so much not the same, as it turns out.
The thing....
Fox is pulling the plug on "American Idol" at the end of next season. The music reality show that was once the most popular on U.S. television will return in January, but Fox announced on Monday that it will be a farewell season for the series. Jennifer Lopez, Keith Urban and Harry Connick, Jr. will return as the judges for the final season as will host Ryan Seacrest.
The other thing...
(Opinion posted online by Greta Van Susteren)
The prosecutor in Baltimore MUST step aside! This is dangerously unfair to the police in Baltimore - she is trampling on their rights!
Prince held a concert in Baltimore this weekend and I am all for concerts in an effort to uplift people and heal wounds — we need that! But when the message dangerously tramples on Constitutional rights, that is where I draw the line.
Prince requested the crowd to wear gray…as a nod to Freddie Gray. The concert is fine - but telling them to wear gray? What’s wrong with that? Well, of course people feel horrible about Gray’s death (and we all should, someone died!) but the crowd is the potential jury pool for those police officers and encouraging all to wear this color in support does covertly impact (reinforce) peoples’ opinions before the trial.
Secondly, Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby getting up on stage with Prince was tone deaf at best, and at worse, contributing to the tainting of a potential jury pool. What was she thinking? Or was she? She should know her position and her responsibility
Any first year law student, regardless of their political stripe, would likely agree, at the very least, with the last graph in Greta's statement.
And although it's a reasonable assumption that the questions she poses are meant to be rhetorical, we think the literal answer isn't all that hard to calculate.
Ergo, connecting that first thing with the other thing.
As a by-product, if not result, of 15 years of American Idol, and, of course, all of its offspring, we are experiencing the behavior of a generation that feels no more uncomfortable, or out of place, on a performing stage than they do at a backyard pool party...or a family gathering...or a press conference lectern should their, say, duties as State's Attorney require said press conference.
Additionally, celebrity is not longer something necessarily attained or achieved, rather it is, far too often and far too undeservedly doled out, like flyers distributed on windshields in store parking lots.And because celebrity and whatever stage happens to be associated with it at any given moment is so much an everyday part of this generation's mindset, it's unfortunate, but entirely likely, that Marilyn Mosby didn't give a second thought to climbing up on that stage to share a little limelight.
Not necessarily because she felt as if she deserved it.
More than likely because she simply didn't give it any thought at all.
You see, that's what young people do these days.
And, back to Greta's questions.
Tone deaf?
Yup.
Possibly damaging to the process of assembling an impartial jury?
Bet the little red corvette, baby.
And should she, at least, be taken off the case and, at most, shown the door?
One would think.
But don't count on it.
Because making a major game change like that now will make an already mucky situation even more mucky.
Not to mention that Mosby will almost assuredly find such a move without justification.
At least in her own field of vision.
Because, you see, the spotlight has a way of both deafening and blinding one to those things that would ordinarily be as clear as the screams of a gravely injured prisoner in the back of a van.
And while it's both insane and incorrect to blame a TV show for what's going on in Baltimore right now, it's worth considering where this deafening and blinding originated.
Marilyn Mosby's generation obviously feels right at home on the stage.
Whether that's even close to the right place to be or not.
And that feeling of being right at home on the stage began to seep its way into the youthful DNA fifteen years ago.
American Idol ends its fifteen year run next season.
And a television chapter comes to a close.
The barn door, on the other hand....well, it will never be closed tightly enough.....
...to fully contain all that light that got turned on fifteen years ago.
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