Last night's program ended with the Christian song "Shout to the Lord," sung by the Idols with a full-on gospel choir backing them up. Tonight's audience was treated to a similar performance.

Couldn't the producers have chosen a more inclusive song for this year's charity drive? America is full of Jews, Muslims, atheists, Hindus, Buddhists, Catholics, Taoists, Sikhs, not to mention the zillion different tribal religions out there. And guess what? They also might feel moved to donate.

For a program that is crossing borders to help people, perhaps the producers could have been a bit more sensitive to the rest of the world. There are plenty of secular songs out there that have an excellent message that wouldn't have alienated thousands of viewers.

To make matters worse, Carly did not get voted off the show. Instead, we lost Michael Johns, who may not have given a solid performance every night, but was still way more interesting to watch than, say, Kristy Lee Cook.

In fact, Michael was just warming up. His recent performances (aside from his copy-cat version of "Dream On") have been his best. I guess he should have warmed up faster. See ya, Michael. You didn't have a chance of winning anyway.

The rest of the show was an extension of last night's program, with a stream of stars beseeching America to give what they can to charity. So far AI has raised $60 million for six different charities, which is still a far cry (at least by my standards) from last year's $76 million. But, hey, we're in a recession, right? The African children dying of malaria will understand. We need our TiVo!