Last thoughts on Michael Jackson...

I'm beginning to fear that this blog is starting to sound like the incoherent ramblings of a girl experiencing her first period. I should probably correct that by putting an end to the posts about how I feel about my life and where its going and speak more clearly about what I see in the world around me. Michael Jackson died today. An event that not only shut down sources of information that were previously dedicated to more important things, but also brought out a legion of people championing the accomplishments of a man that was, if not fully, at least partially, widely demonized up to the moments before his death. The question isn't, "Was this man a good man?", the question is, "How do we allow ourselves to be so distracted by his passing that the problems we were so concerned about yesterday are suddenly forgotten?". As a wholehearted believer in the importance of the "Fourth Estate", I have to wonder what sort of ideology allows outlets of news who claim to provide the public with the pressing information that they need, to preempt all other potential stories with uninterrupted coverage of the death of one man. A man almost no one was thinking about yesterday. A man who yesterday was merely a misguided pedophile to so many, but somehow today is a hero to any who have the humanity to listen to his story. The reality is he was just a man. A man like any other. No more important than any of the casualties in the Iranian election controversy. No more important than any one of the 9 people that died in a suicide bombing in Baghdad this morning. So why do we care so much more? And, more importantly, why will the outlets we trust to provide us with the "most pressing" news lead with Michael Jackson tomorrow? Perhaps it is a result of an inability to comprehend the value of human life across the borders of nation and class. Perhaps it is because we deify celebrities to a point that obscures all rationality by the admirer and the admired. Whatever the case may be it is paramount to the achievement of empathy and equality that we begin to understand that pain and loss does not know nation or class.