Lest we forget his dark ways

Original opinion

Why this opinion piece is a joke:

1. ALMOST 40,000 people turned out. They shivered through speeches instead of snoozing in bed. They were drawn for reasons that defy simple explanations. -OK this link on the main page had a picture of Michael Jackson and the title clearly refers to him. But what is this? There were not 40,000 people watching the funeral service in a public place in Australia.
   
2. They didn’t cry, either. Well, if they did, they didn’t turn it on for the cameras. -Wait yes they did the cameras clearly showed us this. What is going on here?
   
3. This is how the Shrine of Remembrance service went this Anzac Day. The numbers swell and thin from year to year, but they remain in the tens of thousands. -OH SNAP. See what he did there?
4. Contrast this with the turnout for Michael Jackson’s memorial service on Wednesday morning. Screened at Federation Square, about 300 people, according to one estimate, turned out to watch Jackson’s tribute on a big screen. -Well: a). it is winter, b). it was 1 AM before it even started, c). not many people are out on a Wednesday night (contrast this if it was a Friday/Saturday night), d). mostly everyone has a TV/internet connection at home. Lets then count how many ended up watching it worldwide. Does one billion ring any bells?
5. The crude comparison of numbers hints at a bigger point. Even those who query Anzac Day’s booming recognition accept its almost church-like pull. -Well a true number comparison (total viewers and not just total attending) actually discard this point.
6. Jackson’s funeral, although a bigger media event, commanded none of the enduring solemnity. -Do we need a priest from the Vatican or something for it to have enduring solemnity?
   
7. Instead, it oozed glamour. Only an Obama inauguration could equally dazzle. -Little Paris crying was quite dazzling wasn’t it?
   
8. Jackson’s daughter Paris even provided a historical postcard to match John Kennedy Jr’s salute, as a three-year-old, at his father’s funeral in 1963. -Except no child would want to receive the postcard that says “wish you were here.”  
   
9. Everyone loves a show, which may explain why television networks devoted news programs to the service’s reporting. -You give the people what they want.
   
10. Jackson will be terribly missed, the speakers appeared to suggest, perhaps as much as Princess Di was mourned after her 1997 accident. -Princess who? I miss her as much as I miss the individuals that got their heads chopped of at the French revolution.
11. Except that Jackson won’t be missed, not like that, anyway. -I respect your opinion. But I do not take it as a fact.
12. Allegations of pedophilia were not mentioned at his service. -Kind of like the best man giving a wedding speech and talking about how the groom had a threesome on his first week of collage with him and the bride. Inappropriate. Secondly those are simply allegations that were acquitted at a court of law.  
    

    Remember when we tapped that?

13. Nor were the unanswered queries surrounding Jackson’s weirdness, such as why he slept in the same bed as little boys, or his treatment of women as incubators, or the lies he perpetuated through his selective television interviews. -In many third world countries, it is quite common for a large family to sleep all in the one bed (understandably, those that have a bed to begin with). FREAKS right? Further, men can’t store babies so I guess all women can be given that title unless they remove their genitals. Finally everyone knows that the more things you say on TV/news/etc. then the easier these can be turned and twisted to seem contradictory.
    
14. The answers, and the public’s thirst for them, mark where Jackson and posterity are doomed to collide.Jackson’s funeral service was a send-off. But it was also a starting point. -In a philosophical sense, achieving immortality.
15. His death, like his life, cannot be stage-managed any more.The media fascination, driven as it’s been by ratings numbers and circulation spikes, will hardly shrink in coming weeks. Yet the tone of the coverage will probably swing.The King is dead, well, at least until he is spotted in a Dandenong 7-Eleven. And so his less agreeable quirks are free to be spotlighted.
16. His choices will be squeezed, sawed, dissected, investigated and pureed – hundreds of times over – to be presented as the “real” story. -As most things of note in this world are.
17. Those children Jackson shared unusual relations with? Now, some are adults. Now, they might make lots of money for their versions of the truth. -Like they didn’t milk the cash cow that was the poor naive Michael Jackson enough when he was alive.
18. Comparisons jar when memorials – one for Diggers, another for a kooky pop star — are held up side by side. -Kind of like comparing the 2009 swine flu to the Spanish flu. Tell me which one is in the news more now?
    
19. Anzac Day will live on. The other will not. And the mourning period will only shield Jackson’s fans for so long. -Just as long as the  ”100 year war remembrance day” lives on.
20. “He was someone who helped us be proud of who we are,” a mourner said at Federation Square the other morning.Yet when the world is finished gawking, and remembers to take a breath, Jackson may stand as an indictment, alongside war, of what unchecked humanity can be allowed to become. -An individual that lets his guard down (initially and then subsequently forced into wearing the masks/disguises). An individual that cares for terminally ill children. An entertainer that captivated millions with his singing and dancing. An individual that donated millions to charity. An individual that narrowed the gap between black and white. Yes… that is what happens when humans are not kept in line. Furthermore I am sure Michael Jackson didn’t choose to have an abusive father or chose to have a skin condition and then become who he is. 

Balance: 

1. I mean no disrespect to the many soldiers who have (and currently are) serving their country in providing many other individuals the right to freedom and a safe prosperous existence. Also much respect is given to the many families out there supporting their loved ones that are currently in service.
   
2. ANZAC day, remembrance day etc. etc. are good things. Lest we forget right? But as I alluded to in point 19, will they be truly forever remembered in the way we expect them to? Or will they just be another chapter in humanities never ending war against each other to be later read by students in their “ANCIENT HISTORY101″ class. But I guess each subsequent century will have a “fresh war” to remember all over again. Or am I just being pessimistic?

    -VeryCritical.Comments welcome and any form of requests accepted (send me a link and I will give it a go).