Someone, stop the Michaelmadness!

These are troubled times.

You’ve seen the pictures, read the headlines over blocks of print, heard the news stories and responded to the alerts, day after day after day of coverage whose grim message is that sometimes -- as a last resort, when your back is up against a wall, when containment will no longer work -- armed force is unavoidable.

I don’t know about you, but I’d go to war to stop another TV show from even mentioning Michael Jackson.

Things are happening so fast on this breaking news front that I fear this will be out of date by the time you read it. So I urge you to check news radio and TV’s morning shows and cable news networks for the latest.

As of Sunday, though, Michaelmadness was going like this:

Fox was moving ahead with plans to air Thursday’s “Take 2: The Interview They Wouldn’t Show You,” containing outtakes and other info Michael claims will rebut “Living With Michael Jackson,” which ABC showed Feb. 6 to an estimated 27 million voyeurs. That footage of British interviewer Martin Bashir with Michael fed interest in how he relates to his three kids and other kids he has in for sleepovers under his sheets. It’s all harmless and nonsexual, he maintains.

But it doesn’t end there, for “Dateline NBC” has expanded to two hours tonight’s “Michael Jackson Unmasked,” its own expose said to dwell on his visits to cosmetic surgeons, which it originally had slotted for a mere hour.

But it doesn’t end there, for ABC -- responding to “Dateline NBC” -- is repeating “Living With Michael Jackson” tonight, after it aired three times during the weekend on cable’s VH1.

But it doesn’t end there, for the USA network -- hoping to ride these coattails to green -- is planning its own high-wattage movie about Michael.

But it doesn’t end there, for CBS -- the only one of the Big Three networks without a Major Michael Presence this month -- is said to be pursuing its own sit-down with him after Ed Bradley of “60 Minutes” reportedly came away emptyhanded after appearing at Jackson’s Santa Barbara estate last week.

And it may not end there, for surely someone, somewhere, will air a rebuttal of Michael’s rebuttal, which also would have to be rebutted, as all eyes remain transfixed on the Nielsens.

On Friday, meanwhile, the Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly had his “exclusive” interview with a private detective who investigated Michael in the ‘80s and last spoke with him a decade ago.

“If I made the decision,” O’Reilly said about Michael’s kiddydom adventures, “he’d be doing hard time in a penitentiary somewhere.”

If I made the decision, the media’s moonwalkers would be doing hard time, not for reporting Jackson’s creepy, possibly destructive, allegedly criminal attachment to kids -- a legitimate story because of who he is -- but for turning it into another ratings-driven titillation of the century.

Something must be done -- before it’s too late -- to end this television of mass destruction.

Take “the most trusted name in news.” That would be CNN, where -- despite its frequent self-praise -- standards are vanishing faster than Michael’s face.

I was disappointed to learn last week that CNN’s oft-mentioned proposed merger with ABC News was off. I had looked forward to the synergy this hybrid would have yielded, an example being ABC anchor Peter Jennings on CNN, asking viewers for the day’s Quick Vote: “What do you think of my tie?” -- and announcing after the tally: “Remember, this is not a scientific poll.”

And who would have been first-string anchor in this lineup, superstar Jennings or goofy Aaron Brown, who was installed as primary anchor at CNN after a relatively obscure stint at ABC News?

Aaron of Arabia ended last week on assignment in Kuwait (probably in wingtips), affirming that CNN should never, ever let him leave the studio for anything other than a celebrity golf tournament.

At his best, he anchors and interviews thoughtfully. More often, he drives thoughtfulness into the ground, making him, at his worst, a wordy, ponderous, mannered, self-obsessed ham and self-parody.

My own impression of Brown in his deep-thinking, sensitive-to-all things anchor mode goes like this:

On my way to work, I realized that it was a day like no other (pause for dramatic effect). And an other like no day (pause for dramatic effect).

Here I am in Kuwait, where the sky above me is not blue, but sky it is. It reminds me of my youth in Minnesota because, as I studied the sand this morning, on a morning like no other, I realized there are no lakes in this desert. But a desert it is (pause for reflection). And lakes there aren’t.

About that sand, with grains so unlike grains of wheat and oat (pause for dramatic effect), I couldn’t help wondering if it would be possible for camels -- who I’m reminded are so unlike clams and beetles -- to exist on a broad expanse of breakfast cereal. And even if it were possible (pause for chin stroking), what would be the point?

Suggestion for a Brown Quick Vote: “How many grains of sand do I have in my shorts?”

Suggestion for a Brown special on the looming fracas with Iraq: “Me, Me, Me, War, and Much More of Me.”

Actually, it’s obvious now that Brown got a bad rap recently when criticized for declining to put away his clubs in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic golf tournament in La Quinta to join CNN coverage of the aftermath of the Columbia space shuttle disaster. He was preparing for Kuwait by getting accustomed to sand.

Finally, a memo to CNN: Merge with Michael.