Arkansas Blog

Neither do I have a dog in the hunt but I loved his music. Guess the people over at the D-G went to sleep early or just don't give a damn!

Of course they want emphasize that Mark Sanford, the strongly religious wayfaring social conservative, was more interested in knowing a woman in the biblical sense than he was in dealing with the affairs of his state either!

Unfortunately the claws are already coming out like the following from Capitol Hill Blue.

Death of a freak
A freak died in Los Angeles Friday and the media covered it like the death of someone who really mattered.

The death of Michael Jackson, a talented entertainer who squandered his gift, will be the focus of too much media attention over the next few days, a fitting sideshow I suppose to a has-been entertainer whose life became a tabloid circus.

It's just as well, I guess. I was getting ready to call him and cancel his appearance at McNab.

For all any of us know, Jackson died years ago.

The batteries just finally ran out on the child molesting monster that had been stitched together from bleached flesh and plastic components.

el clicko for a look at many more of America's front pages this morning.

This poem expresses my feelings. It was written by A. Lawrance Vaincourt and ends like this:

If we cannot do him honor while he's here to hear the praise,

Then at least let's give him homage at the ending of his days.

Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say,

Our Country is in mourning, for a soldier died today.

....Read the poem "Just a Common Soldier" or "A Soldier Died Today" here:

http://fortsmithbeat.com/fs9b_009.htm

Any death should be mourned. But perspective is needed here. He was an entertainer. Nothing more. Often in recent years more spectacle than entertainment.

Photo of Mark Sanford's Argentine firecracker. Do the clicky.

Isn't it obvious? Mark Sanford offed Michael Jackson to get the media attention off himself!!!

The DemGaz spent five years plastering its front page with articles about the intricacies of Iraq's government. I mean, we all care about the deaths of American troops, but we don't care who's the Deputy Commerce Minister of Iraq. They have so much invested in proving the Bush doctrine to be correct that they're still hyping Middle Eastern politics as the story of the decade.

Damn you Cato!!! Where do I send the bill for a new keyboard?

Let me be the first. Michael Jackson is not dead. This is obviously another hoax. On the way to work I saw a skinny dude with one glove wearing a zipper jacket standing in front of the dollar store. There was another guy with sideburns and sunglasses standing around.

I don't know; actually, the media should have quit covering Michael Jackson once it became evident he was insane.

All the hoopla reminds me of that surrounding Elvis Presley's death. I even remember where I was when I heard the news.
For days after that, there were folks hawking copies, or maybe reprints, of the papers that carried the news on their front pages. I know the Commercial Appeal was one such paper. Maybe the Gazette was another.
Of course I was much younger then and probably would have been among the mourners at Graceland had I not has other responsibilities. (Still haven't made it over there.)
Oh, the reprints? I kept them -- for a few years.
So from my lofty perspective, I'd say the NY Times went all gaga.
(Think we might get reports of Michael appearances over the next few years? Hmmm, his name just doesn't have the same cachet as Elvis, does it?)
Sorry to be irreverent, but to put this in perspective -- maybe -- I think that the coverage leading up to Farrah Fawcett's death was much overdone as well. I always wanted to say, "Leave the poor woman alone." Of course, so very much of that was due to those around her who just couldn't keep their mouths shut.

Oh good lord...I'm constantly amazed by our obsession with celebrity and our twisted priorities. As a whole we worship people whom we wouldn't want as our neighbors, much less married to someone we love. We judge the living with a veracity that we toss out the minute they die. We want to emulate celebrities whose lives contain nothing worth emulating...other than the talent they were born with. We allow wealth/celebrity to excuse things that are inexcusable in everyone else.

I didn't like/dislike Jackson any more or less than I would any other sick person who thinks celebrity gives them lead way to treat sleeping with young boys as normal. He bought his children and tried his darnedest to turn them into miniature versions of himself...rather than change his life to give them a stable healthy home. And being a gifted artist doesn't excuse any of it...just like death doesn't change the perverse Truths of his life.

Sure, there's no reason to beat folks up once they're dead. But there is also no good reason to glamorize lives that were anything but. Not saying anything bad about the dead is a fine ideal as long as it's accompanied by not creating in death what wasn't there in life. (By the time Reagan was planted he was a god, Iran-Contra didn't exist and he was personally responsible for every good thing in the world.)

It's celebrity crap like this that makes 24-hour news shows unwatchable. I swear I thought the CNN gang was going to cry...me too.

Dammit, Bug, you beat me to it. Oh, well, now I don't feel one bit irreverent.

I think the D-G should at least have run a small photo of Jackson on page one pointing to a full story inside. But moreso I'm unhappy that Farrah got shoved to page 2B below the Other Day feature. An for that matter she got short shrift everywhere once Jacko passed on.

Flash,

Farrah was expected MJ was not.

Either way any more than a small picture with a story inside is all that would be appropriate unless a newspaper was for an area where Farrah or MJ were born, grew up or were currently living.

The placement and size of the article should be determined by editors keeping in mind if they are either an "entertainment" or a "hard news" paper.

Variety - front page banner headline.
Wall Street Journal - small note pointing to short bio inside.

The death of Elvis's one time son in law gave me time to reflect and realize that Michael Jackson was the black Elvis. There's not really 2 cents difference between them. They were fairly uneducated kids with giant natural born talents who got too much too quick and it made them crazy. And I'm sure when the reports are all in, we'll find out that Elvis and Michael Jackson both died from too damn many prescription drugs.

Talk all you want about coke & crack & meth, but the abuse of prescription drugs dwarfs the abuse of everything else except maybe booze. You can give me a billion dollars now and I'll be OK. But if I had been 18 or 20 or 12, as in Michael Jackson's case....millions would have probably driven me crazy too. I'm just glad that it appears billions didn't go to the heads of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs....man, we'd be in trouble if it did because the simple rule is....the guy with the most money gets his way 24-7 no matter if they want women or little boys or a dump truck load of drugs. Who can tell them NO?

As a great lover of excess, I can sorta understand what happens when you can have it all....every day..every week, every year for 40 years. Elvis should have been the happiest guy in Memphis, instead he druged himself into a messy death on the toilet at what...42? If it's true that Michael Jackson had a thing for little boys, as hard as it is....we should feel sorry for him because no sane person makes the choice to get a woody over a child. That's an illness and I'm lucky I didn't have such a thing and you should be too.

In the comparison Elvis comes out looking worse. He appears to have had a normal white trash childhood, Michael Jackson didn't have a childhood at all. Elvis, with all his excesses only lived to 42. Michael Jackson with all his excesses managed to make it to 50. Elvis looked like less of a freak if we use 2009 eyes to compare him to Jackson, but you older people think back to fat Elvis in his funny sequined suits and his karate chop moves, his friendship with Nixon.......he was our first freak..well, if you don't count Little Richard whose still going strong at 76.

Michael Jackson's death, along with Farrah's doesn't mean much to me.....they didn't mean much to me, neither did Mrs. Olson or Madge who was always trying to get people to soak their nails in Palmolive....You're soaking in it! My dead friends and relatives...well....they did mean much to me and I'm sorry on a daily basis that they're gone. The death of these two stars just makes me know I better start locating my luggage and start thinking about packing because I just moved up 2 more places in line for that big trip off the earth. If Tom Hanks goes.....I'll really start worrying!

Unfortunately, reading the posts about the death of Michael Jackson, here and in other places, I'm finding just a hint of racism and that's sad, that will always be sad. True, some people never liked Michael Jackson's music, didn't like his morphing into either Dianna Ross or a big jungle cat, and certainly didn't like the rumors of child molesting...and I can get all up in that. But some people didn't like Michael Jackson because he started out as a black man...no matter whatever he was by the time he died. You can sniff the racism in their posts, even those that don't flat out use the N word.

I keep hoping the world will be a better place, but I reckon I'd make a better use of time just hoping they find a cure for cancer. I don't think we'll ever be any better than we are. And somewhere out there.....as I type...there is another little kid destined to be our next universal freak. I at least hope he or she is enjoying a childhood........

I'm actually impressed with ADG's decision.. if they considered placing MJ on the front page at all. Iran is news of the sort folks need to pay attention. But I do hope folks read almost anywhere but the ADG for news.

And seriously... you think the ADG will put a black man of the front page unless they just feel like there is no choice in the matter. Especially a half black - half plastic man who wore one glove and sang "Beat It" for a living?

JJFlash said "I think the D-G should at least have run a small photo of Jackson on page one pointing to a full story inside. "

They did--above their banner on the front page is a very small photo that points to the story on page 2.

Doesn't matter to me where the story appeared in the ADG. There is more than enough coverage of the events that I didn't watch last night and won't watch as the story transpires. Not an MJ fan though some of his music was good. Once he became a freak show, I was glad that, for the most part, the local radio stations didn't play his music as often as they had previously.

At least the paper mentioned the news about Michael Jackson. When Lux Interior died, they didn't print a word about it.

Just thought I'd add a description of the PB Commercial's front page. The top quarter of the front page, above the masthead, is a photo of a performing Michael Jackson with a scrunched up expression on his face that your mother would warn you was going to freeze that way. The headline to the side of the photo: Farewell to the King . . . See Story on 8A.
Anyway, if I do anything noteworthy before I die, please somebody dig up a halfway flattering photo.

doigotta, thanks to durango's excellent headlines link, here's a flattering photo of Michael Jackson

found on Indiana's Post-Tribune. click it.

The photo period was about the last time I paid any attention to him although I did have to endure watching our kids learn the Moonwalk to Jackson's sounds. Think we almost had to refinish the parquet floors.