Witnessing a Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) annual shareholder meeting is not to be taken lightly. The four-hour meeting was more like an entertainment venue and circus more than anything, and in between the festivities, the chairman of the board and other executives slipped in the proposed shareholder proposals for consideration by the proxy holders in attendance. This year's meeting featured 13 proposals, with 11 of those being submitted by smaller and much larger institutional shareholders.

In the midst of covering this, it was amazing to see that 6 of the 11 shareholder-submitted proposals featured the theme of limiting executive and/or board compensation or executive/worker pay equity proposals. In other words, some shareholders want workers to be paid more and executives less, even though these executive pay packages are generally based on peer group measurements -- or so the board of the world's largest retailer would have you think.

Last night's American Idol final made one thing clear to me -- 17-year-old Jordin Sparks should win. And if DialIdol is an accurate indicator, Sparks has the votes -- with a score of 45 to Blake Lewis's 30.

I've never heard of DialiIdol, but according to its website, DialIdol's software speed dials votes for Idol contestants. DialIdol measures the busy signal to predict who will be voted off and it claims that it was 87% accurate for American Idol's fifth season. Moreover, DialIdol claims to have accurately predicted the winner of every show it has covered.

While I enjoyed the story about how Lewis started "beatboxing" because his father wouldn't buy him a drum set, I thought Sparks demonstrated that she was the better singer. She turned the mediocre winner of the songwriting competition -- This Is My Now -- into a tear-jerker that left voters with a much better reason to vote for Sparks than did Lewis's embarrassed rendition.

So I think Sparks will win -- the big question is whether she'll have the kind of post-Idol career that Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood have enjoyed -- or whether she'll fade into Taylor Hicks-like obscurity.

Tonight and tomorrow mark the culmination of 40-plus hours of prime-time broadcast, hundreds of performances, and millions of tears as American Idol crowns its sixth champion. The ratings juggernaut for News Corp's (NYSE: NWS) FOX network has three more hours of advertising revenue before it wraps for the season.

For those among us who still care (I tuned out around final-four time), it's the critical moment where America (ostensibly) decides between eccentric beatboxing innovator Blake Lewis and teenaged belter Jordin Sparks.

The Kodak Theatre will be bursting at the seams, Simon Cowell will likely have traded his trademark plain tee-shirt for a suit, and Paula Abdul will have a bandaged face after a mishap with her Chihuahua. According to her publicist, the kindest of Idol's judging trio fell this weekend, breaking her nose and fracturing her toe as she avoided trying to step on her miniature pooch. The spokesman for the former pop star said that "She's a little sore, but is doing fine."

The dog was not hurt.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

I was outraged this morning when my local news station broadcast the results from last night's "American Idol" -- Melinda Doolittle was voted off.

Simon Cowell made his preferences clear on Tuesday night. He wanted Jordin Sparks off and expected two finalists: Doolittle for her consistently excellent singing and Blake Lewis for his risk taking. I am guessing he thought those two had the best chance to make him money through record sales. I would have preferred to see Lewis go since I find him a mediocre singer who uses -- what I find very annoying "beatboxing" -- to make up the difference.

So why did Doolittle lose? There is no way to find out why she got fewer votes but my hunch is that she lacks charisma. Lewis probably took up the Sanjaya Malakar slack with the 12 year old girls and 17-year old Sparks exudes confidence and talent. While Doolittle lacks that magical quality, there is no doubt that she can sing better than the two finalists.

And if her post-Idol career is anything like last season's #4, Chris Daughtry's, Doolittle will be fine. However, with Doolittle off the show, it may hurt the ratings a bit for Idol owner, CKX Inc. (NASDAQ: CKXE) and News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Fox.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in CKX or News Corp.