In the last few days, the news outlets keep listing as “BREAKING NEWS” that Michael Jackon’s death is ruled a homicide. I keep hitting the refresh button, thinking that my computer is stuck in a time warp. Reminds me of the “Weekend Update” skits on Saturday Night Live with the original Not Ready For Primetime Players, when Chevy Chase would announce as a news item “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.”
Much to my relief, the news reports do not paint a saintly portrait of Ted Kennedy.
Sen. Kennedy was an effective legislator and a champion of causes important to those not born into wealth. He was a complicated man from a complicated family. He lost three brothers violently. First, Joe in the carnage of WWII, followed by John and Bobby by assassination. He drank. He left a woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, to die in the water when he drove his car off a bridge. His personal life seemed out of control, until the 1990s.
People are complicated. When they die, they don’t shed the complexity. Their deaths force us to contemplate the messy wholes that don’t fit well into eulogies.
Elie Wiesel once said that only a victim can forgive his tormentor. He is right. We can laud Sen. Kennedy for all he did to make our nation a more perfect union, but only the Kopechnes can tell us whether on balance his good deeds outweighed his failings.
For me, I hope he rests in peace.
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Associated Press Monday, August 24, 2009
The two- or three-year-old feud apparently prompted a fight earlier in the day at a high school, after a window was shot out of a home Sunday night. Then, “all hell broke loose” later in the day, said Sgt. Carlton Hogue of the Perry County Sheriff’s Department.
“It was a full-scale riot is what it was,” said Tony Long, mayor of the town of 3,300 about 85 miles west of Montgomery.
Ok, I am a little behind on the latest Reality (which is, as Lily Tomlin said, for people who can’t deal with drugs). I thought the Kardashians were an alien species on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Since there was a Star Trek craze this summer (spring?), it seemed on-the-edge of reasonable.
So, now I know they have nothing to do with Star Trek, although the little I have read about them suggests that they are IN FACT an alien species.
I don’t need to watch someone else’s reality. Mine is hard enough to follow.
The only reason to feel sorry for this Charles Manson follower and would-be assassinator of our then President Ford, is that she is 60 years old and STILL she is called Squeaky. Is Lynette such a bad name?
Do you think she is different now? It is hard to imagine a 60 year-old Manson follower. It is like imagining your grandparents’ having sex. But not as gross. Eeewww. Eeeeewwww. I need to stop now.
Michael Jackson is still dead and his children are in his mother’s custody. Congress is in recess. So far, no more GOP family values scandals. The beer summit concluded. What is there to report about?
Hmmmmmmm.
Nah, not those. Too heavy. Berlusconi’s love and sex scandal!! Ahaa. G-d bless Italy.
Of all the pictures of MJ that could be on the Campbell Brown/AC 360 background wall, why do they choose one in which Michael Jackson looks like Diana Ross? They don’t use that picture when they want an up-close picture — usually they use the ones in which he has the progressively scarier noses.
Obama is back on the hot seat now that Jacko is dead, Sarah Palin is the Political Undead and Gov. Sanford got a “get out of jail free” card. Now the pundits are focused on the economy and why Obama hasn’t produced miracles yet.
If I were Obama, I would hope that another pop icon or political enigma hogs the airwaves for at least 6 months.
Gov. Sanford is really lucky.
Just when it looked like he could never recover, Michael Jackson died and Sarah Palin resigned.
And Michael Jackson is still dead (as is Generalissimo Francisco Franco) and will presumably stop making news some time soon.
But Sarah Palin will forever make headlines and late night joke lines and blogoshpere fodder. She is the Political Undead.
Sanford owes her big.
I never thought I would write, let alone think, that I feel sorry for Sarah Palin. But her progressively steeper downward spiral is as ooky as watching photo montage of Michael Jackson as he morphed from a person to plastic surgery super-weirdo. By contrast, Kerry’s various explanations of being for the Iraq War before he was against it are models of clarity. Based on what I read about her second press conference to clarify her first press conference, I imagine that, by the time this political sideshow ends, there will be an anthology of clarifying statements for future generations to ponder.
I think she will be responsible for a new words in the English lexicon: palinate: (verb) means to implode or self-immolate. palination: (noun) implosion or self-immolation.
I feel bad for her kids.