The last audition episode, on February 10, drew 1.6 million viewers nationally, peaking at 2.2 million. To put it in perspective, last year's star-studded Australian Idol finale at the Sydney Opera House, with thousands of screaming fans and a surprise appearance by Lionel Ritchie, had 1.4 million viewers. Last year's Big Brother finale had 2.3 million, and Seven's Dancing with the Stars had a disappointing 1.6 million viewers for its 2007 finale, the lowest in its seven-season history. The first-performance episode of SYTYCDA, on Sunday, lured 1.5 million.

"We loved the show and we had hoped that it would be very successful and once we started seeing some pictures coming back from the auditions we were quietly confident that it would be OK, but you can never tell," says Ten's head of programming, Beverley McGarvey.

More Letters to the Editor

Santorno's academic justification at last week's school board meeting was weak (the claims made are nothing a community school wouldn't do 10 fold) and her analogy to her own children was disappointing. I don't think of a junior cheerleader as the kind of mentoring a middle school male needs to stay focused. Yikes. If this is such a good idea, why isn't anyone doing it elsewhere? It looks like, smells like, and acts like costs saving masquerading as student benefit.

Why wasn't a plan to give Sealth a Taj Mahal of their own created? Certainly the architectural lack of merit of their building must have at least whispered a tear down at which point cost would be contained by new building construction costs. This is in striking contrast to the complexities and astronomical costs of remodel associated with projects like Roosevelt, Garfield, and Hamilton which I guess from the era they were built gives them something warm and fuzzy to hang onto and go to the bank with.

Hansen: Iowa conservationist is cool to global warming theories

Ptolemy, the zany Greek who said the Earth was the center of the universe, had them fooled for 1,500 years. Then Copernicus came along and said hold on a minute.

I doubt the politicians were handing out anti-Ptolemy literature back then - the church wouldn't allow it - but sometimes the scientific consensus does turn out to be wrong.

That's why I refuse to ridicule the five Iowa legislators who were touting a book last week that said human activity has nothing to do with global warming.

A rush to rent rich in the Hamptons

If you think it's too early to book your summer vacation in the Hamptons, think again. The first buds of spring may be weeks away, but in the Hamptons, real estate agents say, the rental season is already going full throttle.

The season traditionally begins during Presidents' Week, says Judi Desiderio, president and chief executive of Town & Country Real Estate, whose main office is in East Hampton.

"By the end of that week, 50 percent of the summer rentals are gone." This year, the season took off at least a month earlier, she says.

Video Reveals Violations of Laws, Abuse of Cows at Slaughterhouse

I contend that advocates of violence against animals (i.e., meat-eaters) pre-disposes such people for advocating violence against people. Yes, meat-eaters will swear blue that they are peaceniks, but that is just lip service.

Willy Northpole and the Phoenix hip-hop scene explode

The fact is, unlike trials for embezzlement or murder or even rape, CPS dependency hearings, which determine custody and whether parents continue to have the right to raise their children, are closed to the public. The agency's paperwork is also sealed.

And that means the entire system operates without scrutiny from outsiders, be they reporters or advocates. (There's a state ombudsman, but he is legally barred from releasing specifics about cases.) We never get to see the evidence that would determine whether kids are wrongly being taken from their parents, as so many callers insist on my voice mail, or whether CPS is instead erring on the side of leaving kids in unsafe homes.

We can write about the big picture because CPS has to release some statistical information every six months.