This part perplexes me: Given an "inspiration music" theme, "American Idol" contestants choose songs that are only borderline inspiring, at best. Most ignore the hugely inspirational world of gospel and religion.

On Tuesday, even Michael Lynche -- who could have done wonders with any gospel powerhouse -- went mild. Casey James went ultra-bland with "Don't Stop" and almost lost.

After spending the weekend with Elvis Presley, I was delighted to find his music and memory also appearing on "American Idol."

My mind was there, anyway, thanks to 20 hours of weekend riding in a car that happened to have Sirius XM satellite radio. I flipped channels furiously, ranging from disappointments (Radio Classics) to delights (Rabbi Bob Alper on the laugh channel). In particular, I savored the all-Elvis station.

You may have heard about the global lights-out exercise last Saturday. At 8:30 p.m. in each time zone, many homes and businesses turned off their lights for an hour.

I mention it now only because of this: I'm quite sure that all the electricity saved then was cancelled out by Diddy's number tonight on "American Idol."

Lights flashed, lights glowed. I could almost hear people rushing new power plants to keep up. Beyond that, here are my comments; please add yours:

Hey, I'm starting to like this no-surprises thing.

For the second straight week, "American Idol" voters have followed my instructions. Last week, they dumped Lacey Brown; tonight, it was Paige Miles. Their only error was putting Katie Stevens alongside Tim Urban in the bottom three; I'm quite sure I specified that Andrew Garcia should be there.

Anyway, here are a few of my comments; please add yours:

Lots of times, no-surprise is a really good thing. That was the case tonight, when "American Idol" voters sent Lacey Brown home.

I was still recovering from last week -- (see a couple blogs back) -- when Lilly Scott and Katelyn Epperly were wrongly ousted. This time, there was no such shock. Lacey seems like a nice kid with a great hair stylist, but that still doesn't make her tour-worthy or top-10-worthy. Here are a few of my other comments; please add yours:

So it turns out that guys can sing songs, too. After the early weeks of "American Idol," I'd almost forgotten.

In the first two weeks of live shows, we saw 22 performances by guys. Exactly two of them (one by Casey James, the other by Michael Lynche) were memorable. The rest seemed to aspire to adequacy.

At first, tonight's show seemed like more of the same. Lee Dewyze and Alex Lambert were OK, nothing more.