Michael Jackson, who has had enough plastic surgery to be defined as a personality disorder, not to mention thinks it’s okay to have young boys spend the night in his bed, or shroud his children in public while dangling them over balconies?*
Or the fanatic woman who was releasing one dove for every not guilty verdict?
Or me, who spent all morning writing up this amazing post about an important experience in my life that (almost) no one will read because BLOGLINES DECIDED TO STOP UPDATING MY FEEDS AGAIN!!!!! (Although I’m totally blaming Colleen for this one….;-) )
It’s truly a toss-up. Lots of frustration at January One.
*What’s the matter with his family? Are they so dependent they can’t tell him that what he’s doing is dangerous – to himself if nothing else? Or is there something inherently wrong with all of them? A prosecuter who was interviewed by some all day all night news channel said that predators purposefully pick weak victims. To wit, the boy who accused Jackson in this trial was damaged way before Jackson got his hands on him. And he’s a perfect victim – his family was so screwed up they’d never be believed in court.
I also believe that this country has literally gone star crazy. Imagine your son in the bed of a grown man – someone not related to you – specifically not the child’s father or father figure. Could you find ANY circumstance where that would be appropriate? Something’s wrong here. But since O.J. we’ve known celebrities won’t be punished in this country.
I told Georgie this. His first question – what about Martha?
I told him, she’s a woman. And it was all about money.
I’m glad to see I’m not alone in the belief that fame and money will get any MAN out of any legal problems here in the good ol’ US of A.
BTW, love your blog!
AND Martha was a different type of celebrity … not the L.A. type. I don’t get it, either, but one thing I’ve learned from sitting in a courtroom all my life (well, 26 years of it) is that it’s hard (and not really fair) to second-guess juries. Most of the time they are right, even if maybe not for the right reasons. It’s a hard job to be a juror. Very hard. I don’t ever want to have the “pleasure.” As a court reporter, I get to know a lot more than they get to know sometimes, and sometimes they are making decisions in a bit of a vacuum…but even without that, they seem to suss out the truth pretty much. And that whole white dove thing — I bet you a million bucks that he paid for that and had it set up ahead of time – guilty or not guilty by the jury, those doves would have been released one by one.
A commentator on CNN said something to the effect that Jackson may have been lucky enough to find a victim whose family is so screwed up he’d never be believed, or perhaps he planned it that way. And my first thought was exactly what your commentator said – perpetrators always find the weak to victimize. That’s the hard part on some of my cases – sometimes the kids are so messed up they do tell stories and make stuff up. But they also are the perfect victims. So it’s so hard to know.
Personally, I strongly suspect MJ to be exactly the sort of predator he was accused of being. But I also
believe the same thing about R. Kelly, Roman Polanski and Woody Allen — none of whom are nearly so publicly reviled, though all of them have arguably committed similar crimes…
My first question–if that woman let a dove fly free for each “Not guilty” verdict . . . dare I ask what she would have done to the doves with “guilty” verdicts? Strangled them?? And secondly–I’m not surprised, either, and I think the kid’s family was after whatever they could get, but that I wouldn’t be surprised if MJ had done something inappropriate (but where on the spectrum from inappropriate to just plain sick, I don’t know). The whole thing was just a circus.
Who’s Michael Jackson? (If only…)
While some hanky-panky MAY have gone on, I think MJ’s problem is basically that he’s a loony. Of course, if MJ has any other kids over and is alone with them for any length of time, he’s REALLY nuts. The same goes for any mother who’d let a child visit MJ now without chaperoning them every minute. Equally culpable, if you ask me.
You crack me up! The sad thing is that he probably molested that kid and because of that kid’s messed up mother, MJ got off (pun intended). Now this child will think what happened to him is ok. The circle of abuse will continue 🙁