Okay, so I turned on the Michael Jackson memorial and watched the last 20 minutes or so.  Here I was thinking that it wasn’t QUITE the spectacle I thought it would be.  It turned out to be in better taste than I feared it would be.  And then they had Michael’s daughter Paris speak about her late father.  To a world-wide audience.  This is a child that I didn’t even know what she looked like 2 weeks ago and now she’s talking and crying about her very real and painful grief for her daddy for all the world to see.  That moment will DEFINITELY make the nightly news.  It will be the soundbite they use over and over and over.

…It was a sickening display.

And though the family quickly hustled her away when she broke down in tears, seconds before that, they were telling her to “speak up, honey” and thrusting the mike at her.  What the hell is WRONG with these people?  Can they just not help themselves?  Why would they exploit that child like that?  If she really wanted to speak, then it should have happened at the private funeral this morning.  No, this was a calculated move to show the world that Michael was a good and normal dad who’s children loved him and would miss him.

What they are forgetting, in their barely concealed desperation to cling to the fading spotlight and dead moneytrain, is that Michael Jackson spent his life shielding his kids from the spotlight.  He went TOO far in fact, well into freakdom, to make sure they weren’t in the very public eye that his family just opened up for the entire world to peer into.  When Michael Jackson makes better decisions about something than you do, then you know you REALLY need to rethink your worldview.

I spent the morning watching Michael Jackson’s videos and I must admit, he was a damn talented entertainer.  But he is gone now, and I, for one, will be glad when the media can focus on something else for a change!