June 25- Michael Jackson

Look, I know it's a bit late, but I have just a couple of quick thoughts on the passing of Michael Jackson. So here goes:

1) I do not believe that the events of the last 15 years should be completely written off now that he's gone.

2) That said, I don't know that he should be written off as a pedophile, since charges were dropped against him. Here's my thought: If someone is relentlessly pursuing claims that you did something and this goes on and on and on and on with no sign of stopping and it is damaging your reputation and general peace, wouldn't you want to reach an amiable resolution? I'm not saying guilty or not; what I AM saying is that there's at least a chance that he did what he had to do to get the people who made these claims to drop them.

3) THAT said, I would be very hesitant to leave any child I've met with him.

4) The jokes that have come out since his passing have been pretty tasteless. I've long been a proponent of the idea that instant gratification is fast-tracking the world to hell. We are at a point where we no longer honor the dead. Instead, we salivate for pictures of their last moments alive, their procession into a body bag. We demand a blow-by-blow account of their last hours, minutes, seconds, and have this sense of entitlement about it because they're "in the public eye". When someone dies or suffers, we have the power to turn our eyes and give people privacy. We choose not to, which only perpetuates these problems more and more. Shame on us.

Now, as for Jackson's musical legacy, he earned the title of "king of pop" during the 1980s. I rank him near or at the top (with Michael Jordan) of my list of iconic figures from the youth of people aged under 30 years. This means that for anyone born in 1979 or later, Michael Jackson was maybe THE most recognizeable and generally famous figure (not including world leaders, as that identification process varies from nation to nation) in the world for his accomplishments and, sadly, his notoriety.

It just makes me sad to think that despite being such a legendary performer and vocal talent, there is an entire generation of kids who know Jackson only through terrible kiddie-touching jokes, Eminem songs, and a South Park episode. THAT'S the sad part about this.