Lively Earth

I'm watching the Live Earth concerts around the world, which are visible on NBC, CNBC and Bravo. Live Earth is a series of "concerts for a climate in crisis" and all the concerts occurred to day in eight cities on six continents: New York, London, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hamburg.

Hey -- why do the Europeans and the Asians get two concerts apiece? Also, if the organizers are so big on protecting the environment, why are they disrespecting the penguins by ignoring Antarctica?

For all I know, the concerts are on some other channels as well, but I am having fun surfing the three channels. My timing's been good, so I've gotten to see Kanye West singing with Sting, and then doing his own set, which actually was earlier in the day. Ahhh, the miracles of television and remote controls ...

Speaking of Sting, he's still got it. He put on a great set. So does Madonna, who wrote a new song ("Hey You") for the concerts and also did a fabulous set.

By the way, what's up with MTV? This kind of thing used to be their bailiwick. In fact, they used to be the only people who did this kind of stuff. While CNBC was bumping Larry Kudlow reruns to air the concerts from 'round the world, MTV was running a Real World Las Vegas reunion. With silliness like that becoming its signature product, is MTV becoming irrelevant?