Burnettiquette

American Idol contestant kicked off show thanks to dad: forgive/forget?

So the missus and I had this friendly debate last night while watching the start of AI's Hollywood week.

Apparently Michael "Big Mike" Lynch, one of the people who made it through to advanced rounds on last night's taped episode, made it all the way to the top 24, but was abruptly kicked off the show weeks ago after Lynch's father told hometown newspaper The St. Petersburg Times how far Big Mike had made it.

Now, Big Mike and his wife recently welcomed their first child into the world. Big Mike, like a lot of AI contestants, was putting lots of his eggs into the contest's basket. But he was pretty level-headed in his attitude and didn't come across like the kind of guy who'd have nothing to fall back on if he failed at AI.

Still, AI producers had the contestants who made it that far, as well as their family members, sign non-disclosure agreements about what was happening with the show.

In spite of that, Papa Lynch told the local paper and got Big Mike booted.

Question: If you're Big Mike are you ticked off at dad?

If not, you are a saint - a real saint, not a Who Dat? Saint - and you may as well stop reading here.

If so though, just how far does your anger go?

I know it's just a "stupid" contest, but top-24 is pretty far along. Big Mike was probably just starting to catch a whiff of what success smells like when his dad pulled the rug out from under him.

So I'm thinking I might be too angry to speak to my pops for a while after that one.

Overraction?

Let me know.

PS. Follow me, please, at twitter.com/jamesburnett.

Teen Pregnancy Up

I really have nothing earthshattering to say about this one. I'm just curious as to why for the first time in more than 10 years teen pregnancy rates in the United States went up, rather than sliding or holding steady. The abortion rate also rose slightly.

The Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based non-profit that researches and promotes sexual and reproductive health (according to its Web site), says teen pregancy reflected a 4% rise in '06, along with a 1% increase in abortions. The study also says that black and Latino teens are getting pregnant at essentially the same rate now, but that both are getting pregnant still much more often than non-Hispanic white teens.

Guttmacher suggests in its study that a corresponding sharp increase in abstinence-only education over the past decade or so might be to blame for the increase in pregnancies and abortions, since it teaches teens that their only safe option is to just not have sex and doesn't educate them on how to protect themselves if (they're dumb enough to not listen, and) they have sex anyway.

The old school side of me says it's a good thing to tell kids not to have sex till they're grown and in committed relationships, because if they have sex as teenagers they risk pregnancy and babies that they can't afford and probably aren't emotionally mature enough to care for either.

If you wonder why I left out "disease," it's 'cause that's a possibility with anyone having sex outside an exclusive sexual relationship - teenager or adult.

The pragmatic side of me says for every two or three kids who take the advice to abstain till they're older, there are probably a few more who are just oblivious, who just aren't going to listen, who just couldn't care less. For these kids, like or not - and regardless of your religious or philosophical beliefs, there probably has to be a safety net of safe sex education, if for no other reasons than to help stem the tide of disease and unwanted pregnancy.

Again, in my perfect world we'd just tell kids to not have sex 'cause they may die or have babies, and that would be enough. That would fit nicely with my religious philosophies, but that would not be practical...in my opinion. Most licensed drivers are relatively safe, according to data from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. And most drive at reasonable speeds and wear seatbelts, etc. But some drivers will always be jackasses behind the wheel. Thus driver's ed, speed limits, traffic lights, stop signs, etc. - all rules or requirements that all drivers are subject to.

The alternative is to have all teenagers watch a marathon of MTV's documentary series Teen Mom and 16 & Pregnant. If they don't listen to reason or subject themselves to traditional sex ed, then watching these shows should cure 'em of having sex as kids. If that doesn't work as a backup, I don't know what will.

Or we could go all Star Trek on the kids and give 'em brain implants at birth that will prevent pregnancy and dampen sexual desire, but dissolve when the kids turn 18. Hmmm, that might be illegal though.

If you have an educated guess or informed opinion that run contrary to what Guttmacher suggests, that don't involve aliens, black helicopters, brain implants, or immaculate conception, then do share.

PS. Follow me, please, at twitter.com/jamesburnett.

Playing the race ethnicity card

I have confessed to lots of things over the past several years, from knowing the lyrics to most of the songs from the movie Grease to getting manicures.

I can't defend knowing those songs. I learned them while watching the film in a moment of weakness as a nerd kid, back in the day...before I became cooler than the other side of the pillow.

The manicures? I stand by 'em. My grandfather, James Sr., once told me that there's two things a man must keep consistent about his appearance if he wants to convince women he's got class: clean, smooth fingernails, and well-polished shoes.

But I digress. My third confession is that I watch those Real Housewives shows...all of 'em.

I know. It's shameful, but I have watched every episode of Real Housewives of Orange County, Real Housewives of New York, Real Housewives of Atlanta, and now Real Housewives of New Jersey.

And I must say that this television franchise has convinced me of what I always suspected: that money gives people class and character.

Psyche! I'm kidding. The people displayed on these shows are about as classy as one of those tuxedo T-shirts. And my puppy has left more character in tightly coiled piles of lawn sausage in my backyard. I watch because it's like glancing at a car wreck as you drive by on the freeway: hard to resist.

But on a serious note, in the season finale of the New Jersey series Tuesday night, the female stars of the show got into shouting matches over who leaked to the public a book that revealed one of them had once been a cocaine-loving stripper, with prostitutish tendencies.

In the course of the argument, as they all swore in so much that their young daughters blushed in apparent shame, one of the women knocked over dishes, flipped over a table, and threatened physical harm to the subject of the salacious book...who probably deserved it. But that's not the point!

After things calmed down, the table flipper dismissed her behavior by shrugging and explaining "I'm Italian...." Her sister-in-law chimed in later that the tantrum was the result of the table-flipper's "hot Italian temper."

And that was that.

I know that this is just a dumb TV show, but it is popular on the entertainment culture landscape. So I have a major problem with that sort of cop out.

If I drop-kicked my annoying neighbor from three doors down - the one who has a perfectly manicured lawn and well-kept house but arrives home from work every evening blasting Freebird from his pick-up truck, sometimes shouting "Git 'er done!" - and then casually shrugged it off with "I'm African American," or "it's my hot black temper," I'd get blasted in the court of public opinion.

Even worse, and more accurate to the example from this TV show, what if I blamed my temper tantrums on being "African" - not "African American," but "African?"

You guys would never let me hear the end of it. I'd be slapped with reminders that folks born in this country should acknowledge and even embrace their ethnicities, but if they're born here they're American, yada yada yada.

And don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. What gives with this type of hypocrisy?

I have my thoughts, but I'm gonna save 'em for when we re-start our occasional blog series "Real Talk About Race." If you'd like to catch up on old installments of that series go here, here, here, and here.

Otherwise, skip the first four chapters, and we'll kick off the next installment on Monday.

Till then, follow me at http://twitter.com/jamesburnett. And if you read books or pretend that you do, you can befriend me at http://shelfari.com/jamesburnett. It's sort of a Facebook for readers. I just joined a couple days ago, so I haven't had time to add my whole library - just three books. More to come.

Televangelist Joel Osteen and the Prosperity Gospel

What's crackin' friends? Welcome to another bailout Monday, in which a reckless bank gets more money and reckless auto industry bosses get told to sit and spin on Capitol Hill for, um, being reckless.

Some of you may know that I am a student of formal religion, an amateur, but a student nonetheless. What can I tell you? I'm a geek who is always curious about how people worship - if they worship - and who or what they worship. And no, I don't think my father being a minister had anything to do with my dull hobby. Seriously, I don't.

So over the past couple of years I've been hearing more and more about this preacher from Houston, Joel Osteen. I've heard people say he's the greatest thing since sliced bread, and I've heard people say that he's delusional 'cause his sermons tend to be one-track messages that if you believe that good things will happen for you, they will, because God, on the strength of your faith, will make it so.

Can we say twist on Norman Vincent Peale, anyone?

So I finally managed to catch Osteen on television a few months ago and watched several of his sermons. And sure enough, they were all about what Kanye West might call "The Good Life." Themes to the effect of If you're down, don't be! Be up! Being up is much better! If you're broke, believe you won't be, and soon enough you'll have cash in your pocket! Of course, I'm oversimplifying. Respectfully, the sermons were  more complex and involved Osteen's exhortations to have faith. Then today I read this article in one of my old newspapers about a recent Osteen concert.

And I won't lie. I found the tone of his messages uplifting. But at the same time I was bothered by a missing element of reality in his messages - the element that addresses heartbreak that doesn't come with a quick fix, failure in spite of ambition, persistent tragedy, etc. You know, the kinds of things that Average Joe and Average Jane deal with everyday but you never hear about 'em in the news?

My open-minded side says maybe religious folks need positive-only messages, since they're probably immensely aware of the negative things in life without some guy in an expensive suit reminding them.

But my cynical side says it's easy to subscribe to a philosophy that tells you to use your faith like The Force to think your negativity out of existence, when you preside over a ministry that brings in more than $70 million a year. And it's easy to tell your parishioners and fans that true prosperity is about health and happiness and spiritual and mental wholesomeness - all "free" things, when after you've delivered that message you pass around collection buckets so that they can share with you that other kind of prosperity, the green kind.

But I'm not here to poke fun at anyone. Well, I am, but not in this particular case. Worship how you want, if you want, and if you believe positive thinking alone, or more than anything else will make your life better, then more power to ya. When we meet and compare notes down the line, you can tell me how that worked out for you.

Still, I'll leave you with this food for thought: Keeping in mind that I am a religion junkie, there was something about the nature of Osteen's message that seemed vaguely familiar to me. And then I remembered. It seems to be a modern, more polished incarnation of the messages of the late evangelist A.A. Allen and Dr. Frederick Eikerenkoetter AKA Rev. Ike from back in the day.

If you're my age - 30s - or younger, you probably don't know about either of these men, unless you too are an egghead. But if you're my folks' age - late 50s - or older then I'll bet you've heard of 'em.

In the late 1970s, at the height of his popularity, Rev. Ike preached a prosperity message that, for all intents and purposes, said that if your faith was strong enough all the good things you wanted out of life should happen for you.

Allen, who died in in 1970 of liver failure caused by alcoholism (with a name like A.A.?), also preached a prosperity gospel.

The funny thing is when Rev. Ike and Rev. Allen used to preach prosperity and positive thinking they were called con men by mainstream cultural critics. Osteen gets love and accolades. What has changed about how we view this brand of formal religion? That question isn't rhetorical. If you have a theory, I'd like to hear it.

Anyway, I'm not saying Osteen is a con man. I told you, I found his style of delivery very uplifting. And apparently so do millions of other people...people who, unlike me, give money to his ministry.

But just for fun I'll leave you with this legend about A.A. Allen.

They say that like many preachers Allen used to collect cash offerings after his sermons. But unlike many preachers, either Allen or his ushers would toss the cash in the air, and as it floated he would say "What goes up is the Lord's, and what comes down is mine!"

Given the evidence of gravity on our planet, you can probably guess who hung onto that cash.

Miami Man Wins MTV Reality Show From G's to Gents

Another article on a guy who gets a second (or third or fourth or fifth) chance to straighten up and fly right.