Well, Martha Stewart's out of the Big House.

And I really don't care.

I can't help but know all about it because that's all there is on CNN. It's as if the whole world revolves around this women getting out of jail.

They had pictures of her jet sitting on the runway - for hours. Then they had pictures of her, clad in jeans, climbing on the jet.

They had pictures of her driving to her estate in New York in the middle of the night.

After she arrived, they had pictures of her through the windows of her home, walking around inside.

(It was a quick shot as she passed by the window, so they had to replay in slow motion a few times.)

They even had aerial photographs of her estate.

It all seems rather absurd to me, but what do I know.

They have marketing people at CNN, I'm sure, who help them decide what it is we really want to watch.

So Martha must be what we want to watch. If it wasn't what we wanted to watch, they wouldn't waste their time broadcasting so much of it.

I'm not sure I fully understand why, exactly, but we do seem to have some kind of fascination with celebrity.

It's that fascination that drives the whole tabloid industry, along with a dozen or so other "People"-type magazines and television networks.

It also drives the whole entertainment business.

Frankly, I can take it or leave it. Sure, I like to see a good movie now and then. I have favorite actors.

I don't find myself wanting to know what color underwear Cher wears. And I really don't care who's sleeping with who in Hollywood.

The other thing I find intriguing about Americans when it comes to celebrity is how we love to watch them get into trouble.

On the one hand, we love to put them on a pedestal. On the other hand, we love to knock them off the pedestal.

We like to drag them down to our level.

Like those tabloid photo features which purport to show celebrities without makeup.

See, they have bad hair days, too. They're really not that special after all, are they?

When it comes to our fascination with the rise and fall of celebrities, there is no better example than Michael Jackson.

Now, I don't really have an opinion either way on whether the guy molested a 13-year-old cancer patient.

Maybe he did.

Or maybe he's being victimized by somebody who's money hungry.

One thing is certain, a significant number of Americans can't wait to find out.

There is so much interest in his trial that one television network, E!, has hired actors and built a set that mocks the actual courtroom where Jackson is being tried.

They have a reporter in the courtroom who watches all the action and secures a transcript.

Then, daily, they reenact the courtroom "drama" for all of us to see.

I haven't watched a single episode. But again, somebody must be watching or they wouldn't waste the time, money and effort.

The Michael Jackson case really is quite mind boggling to me.

I mean, if you were Michael Jackson - given the big molesting accusation payoff ordeal a few years earlier - would you have a young boy anywhere near your home after dark?

I mean really, who is advising that guy? Shouldn't somebody close to him, an attorney or somebody, have told him to cool it with the teen overnights?

Comedian Chris Rock had a fairly enlightening take on the Jackson fiasco.

Rock says, "Another kid, Michael? Another kid? That's like another dead white woman showing up at O.J.'s house. And O.J. sayin' 'I know what you're thinking.'"

Sometimes our fascination goes beyond celebrity.

Take Scott Peterson.

Here's a guy who killed his pregnant wife. Now, while I admit that is a pretty heinous thing to do, I never understood why it involved such national fascination.

And why the trial took so long. And why the TV news people devoted so much time and effort to the story.

Plenty of guys - tragically and unfortunately - kill their wives in this country each year.

None of them get the notoriety of Scott Peterson. Maybe it's a California thing.

And that weird BTK guy in Kansas. Now there's a story you can fixate on. Serial killers always tend to pique our interest.

One thing is virtually assured. After Jackson, another celebrity will screw up and wind up in court.

There will be another wife killer or husband killer, another serial killer.

There always will be plenty of misfortune for us to feed on and plenty of airtime on the networks to accommodate our obsession. [[In-content Ad]]