printCivilians are dying in Iraq; soldiers in Afghanistan, Putin, his little helper (Dmitry Medvedev), and the patriotic Russian people, are getting the better of Barack; China’s Uyghur minority is going ape on its Han majority, Zelaya is seeking solace from Clinton—Bill, that is; key Irani clerics have dismissed the results of the vote (that’s good news; sensible non-interventionist wanted any findings to issue from Iran)—all the while, America’s cable news channels have been glued for hours-on-end to the formless shape of Rev. Al Sharpton, and other other black entertainers, swaying to the sounds of a pop singer passed. The same specter has occupied the front-pages of major newspapers.
To paraphrase Pat Buchanan, a silly people living in serious times.
Perhaps our Alaskan lass gets it. Having, we hope, seceded from “politics as usual,” Sarah went fishing with her hunk and her adorable kids. I hope she’s winking in the direction of Russia, and having a laugh at the expense of the self-important Obamas.
Update I: Marc Lamont Hill, Ph.D, Bill O’Reilly’s token black intellectual (read: a man who is clearly a product of America’s system of racial promotion, and doesn’t make O’Reilly’s lack-luster intellect too obvious), said: “Michael Jackson is the greatest child prodigy since Mozart.” Good grief. This man teaches at an elite university and he cannot distinguish between a Mozart and a songster, who was able to write a simple, three-chord jingle and dance to it; and who couldn’t even play an instrument proficiently, much less compose a symphony or an opera?
For this music lover—Bach, anytime anywhere—that was the most obscene comment to come out of the “wall-to-wall Michael Jackson coverage.” Writes Debbie Schlussel, with equal disgust: “the only people I feel for at this funeral circus are those kids. Sad to see his daughter, Paris Michael Jackson, cry. It’s probably the only sincere moment in the entire thing. The rest are just phonies glomming [sic] onto a successful circus act.”
[SNIP]
Bubbling up from this sewer of coverage, so emblematic of American society, was the repeated refrain that MJ managed to transcend race and gender. How stupid. The man was tortured by his race and his looks. The latest reports detail the shocking lily-white color of his frail, emaciated body, and the fresh track marks along his snow white bony arms. This was a man wracked by hate for his original looks. It takes self-loathing to voluntarily transform yourself—through dangerous, disfiguring, bone-crushing surgery—from a black young man into a no-nosed elf whose facial structure—the bones—had been chipped away to render a concave, collapsing mess, both sexless and raceless.
As for MJ’s alleged genderless “achievement”: the claim that Jackson was gay is certainly silly. He was clearly childlike and quite innocent. He didn’t have a history of affairs, male or female, and there was no evidence of child-molestation, although there was ample evidence that MJ assembled around him grafters who did not hesitate to use their kids to blackmail a childish man with means.
Update II: Jackson’s adopted daughter is a lovely little girl, who doesn’t sound remotely like the Valley Girls infesting that state. I dread to think how she’ll fare if one of the sisters takes her in. MJ seems to have imparted some manners to his kids.
“Ever since I was born, daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine.”—PARIS KATHERINE JACKSON, Michael Jackson’s 11-year-old daughter, at the pop icon’s memorial service Tuesday.
I don’t think there’s any correlation between Palin and the events in re: adulation of the “King of Pop,” other than time coincidence—which I believe it is. I think she went fishing with her family because she’d already made her resignation announcement, and not for any other reason. [‘Twas a satirical comment; in line with the rest of the post.]
It’s important to note that Alaska is an off-Broadway venue, not the Great White Way and not the West End. You don’t get to be a superstar by continued, though critically acclaimed, performances in local theater. You need to travel the country, make national speeches, meet and greet international leaders. If her goal is a run for the Presidency, she’s done the best possible thing she can do toward it by resigning as Alaska’s Governor and leaving her schedule free for touring. I’m not sure that this is her goal; but again, I see no correlation between her current holiday and American pre-occupation with celebrity death. Her resignation announcement came at a good time.
Steve Sailer had some interesting things to say about Michael Jackson and his identity crisis.
The sickening thing, though to be expected, is the whole spectacle that thugs Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and the pack of second rate black musicians and actors are making out of Jacko’s passing. It is as if Michael Jackson were the second coming of Martin Luther King Jr. They are presenting him as a noble embodiment of African-American culture and a heroic individual who was oppressed by whitey.
I have no problem with people thinking that Jackson was a great entertainer, but to hold him up as a great man shows just how much our culture has rotted.
I find it vastly entertaining to see this post-racial society place so much emphasis on some people’s ‘blackness’, as long as they achieve any level of fame. People like MJ or Beyonce, who work so hard not to look ‘black’, or people who are only partly black, like Obama, are deemed exemplars of the ‘Race’, their success being unquestionably linked to their ethnicity. Obviously those ‘Black first’ apostles don’t watch ‘First 48 hours’ on A&E. How I wish it would be possible for me to attribute my good looks and cleverness to my being white !
Shame on you, Ilana. Mozart (who’s he) greater than Michael Jackson! Don’t you KNOW that current-day America is the all-time center of our narcissistic universe! Next thing, you’ll be claiming that Isaac Newton is more important than Sally Ride, Adam Smith more important than Bernie Madoff, and Moses more important than Abe Foxman. You might even think the deaths of 5 million in the Congo (yawn) more significant than the Brezhnev-style state funeral of Jacko. Well, in any case, there is one plus side of the tragedy when someone dies “young” – we have all been spared the spectacle of watching a 300-lb, toupee-wearing, arthritic 75-year Elvis crooning “Jailhouse Rock” off key. As for Professor Marc Lamont Hill, “professor of hip-hop pedagogy” (lots of demand for that at Naval Research Lab) at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College, the title reminds me of “Professor Harold Hill” of the Music Man. Can’t wait for Baby Trig to be President – what a country (to quote Jacob Smirnoff).
“Mozart (who’s he) greater than Michael Jackson!”
I am just shy of 20, and let me tell you, my own generation could not collectively distinguish Mozart from the sound of cats courting. Our so-called “taste” in all things, from music to books to clothing, is not so much one of a consciously elected journey toward something better and more genuine but rather a sort of zombified, collective osmosis of the dimmest notions of mediocrity which find themselves to be presently ubiquitous. Such is a liberated technocracy.
[I would never have pegged you as so young. It’s remarkable—they way you write and think.]
Maybe Andrew is 20 going on 40? Just kidding.
Mrs. Mercer, thank you for the kind words about that little girl whose bizarre background is certainly not her own fault. As far as Michael Jackson is concerned, thank you for a lonely voice of reason in the bloodthirsty howl of American conservatives.
I never believed that the so-called children of Michael Jackson were his own biological children. How could Michael Jackson legally claim to be their father on their birth certificates, if he is not their biological father? There seems to be opportunity for fraud in the Government’s birth certificate process, fraud that enables illegal aliens to obtain fraudulent identities. How can the news media obtain the children’s birth certificates, but cannot obtain Obama’s birth certificate? But the black Jackson family claim the white children as their own flesh and blood, when it seems there was no legal adoption by Michael, and no biological connection either.
[As far as I’m concerned; he’s their dad. You heard the little girl.She should know who loved her and cared for her.]