Posted on 06/26/2009 9:46:41 AM PDT by mojito
For a while, the weirdness exercised a global fascination. The prestigious Oxford Union invited him to address their members, and Michael Jackson flew in to Britain wearing his trademark surgical mask, a wise move considering the country was then in the grip of Mad Cow Disease. On an official tour of Blenheim Palace, which must have been a bit of a comedown after Neverland, they rolled out the red carpet, but he insisted it be heavily disinfected, and it squelched under his crutch. Crutch, not crotch. Due to some domestic mishap, he was grabbing the former rather than the latter. At Oxford, he called on the world to adopt his Children’s Bill of Rights, including “the right to be thought adorable” and “the right to be listened to without having to be interesting”. The right to a $30 million out-of-court settlement, won by a 13-year old former playmate of his, was not mentioned.
Michael also revealed the pain of his own lost childhood, as tears rolled down his cheek - or whoever’s cheek it was originally. It was a constant motif in his work. “Have you seen my childhood?” he sang in “Childhood”, the theme song from Free Willy. (Free Willy, by the way, is a motion picture and not another demand from his Bill of Rights.)
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Wow... I think you misunderstood Steyn’s tongue-in-cheek humor!
Jackson was a famous hypochondriac, and Steyn is mocking his strange behavior in the UK.
If you read further you will realize that the article is about Michael Jackson, not about Steyn’s theories on prion-diseases :0)
Judge not that ye be not judged. By whatever standard you judge will be used to judge you. .
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Matthew 7:1-12 (King James Version)
Matthew 7
“1.Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2.For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3.And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4.Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5.Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
6.Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.
7.Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
8.For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
9.Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
10.Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
11.If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
12.Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
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Think on these things.
May he rest in peace. Amen.
Michael Jackson was a vegetarian who traveled with his own chef. He probably wore the mask to keep his nose from falling off.
I think MJ had a way of making people believe in his Peter Pan ways. That he was just this gentle man-boy, ruined from childhood, and not wanting to grow up. I think it was a good web to weave for the kind of catch he was looking for. Sure, some of that’s true but he was fifty years old and apparently self-aware of his trouble childhood as Steyn points out. There was something adult and scheming underneath the mask.
Okay...
The art of biting sarcasm over some germaphobe/shyness etc... trait is a lost art form it seems.
I love Steyn’s writing and observations. One of the best!
Check this out! Plenty of opportunities to be offended here.
I agreed at first thought. I too felt that Steyn should not mock the recently departed, but his article is really not about Michael Jackson the freak, but about our society that worships MJ the freak. It is about our pathetic obsession with celebrity. And now, when the hype is greatest about what a “great loss” the world has suffered is indeed an appropriate time to point it out.
True that.
But the point I was making is he became a powerful mogul in a greedy world just singing and dancing.
Says a lot about our world.
It's my opinion that MJ was a castrato. He couldn't father anything.
The fact that mad cow is not transmitted by air is the essence of the joke. Steyn is very much aware of this fact. That’s what makes it funny.
It was obvious Michael Jackson was ill and his career goal to be thought of as a modern day P.T. Barnum, back-fired wildly, but of the thousands of children who passed thru the gates at Neverland only a couple claimed anything inappropriate happened and the one who caused his trial had a history of attempted celebrity shake-downs, with a lunatic Mother whose cross examination showed the jury what was really going on.
No one will report that Jackson was in the Guiness Book of World Records for supporting more charities that any celebrity in history. I defy anyone to watch the reruns of his Super Bowl half-time show and say he didn't honestly love (not lust after) children.
“because we all know a T-bone can become aerosolized and breathed in if you don't wear a mask.”
“because we all know a T-bone can become aerosolized and breathed in if you don't wear a mask.”
It was more sarcasm than a joke - didn’t need a punchline.
Just because you didn't "get it" doesn't mean it wasn't funny.
Back when MJ’s bizarre interview with Martin Bashir was aired, I heard it said (maybe by Martin himself?) that in real life Michael spoke in a normal, deep adult male voice, not in the breathy, childlike voice he used in public.
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