Michael Jackson's death...

[crystalr0w3]

I was saddened by hearing the news that Michael Jackson is gone. I like MJ. I'm one of his fans. He is multi-talented and a great performer. He is good both in dancing and singing. I'm still shocked until now for he just died without any clue because there's no reports about him having a disease that might be the cause of his death. It's just plain cardiac arrest. It made me realize that death will just strike you unaware. His death gave me a sudden warning to have the time of your life and be happy as well as show your love to those close to your heart for you might know, they are gone already.

[John Rutledge]

deleted....

Edited October 28, 2009 by John Rutledge

[malign]

He also seemed like a desperately unhappy person, whether he did what he was accused of, or not. You have to wonder how that unhappiness might have had an influence on the manner of his death. It may turn out that the people who abused him as a child did eventually kill him, after all. In a way.

And the sad thing would be that with all of his resources, he still couldn't escape it.

[Guest ASchwartz]

On Michael Jackson,

At age 66, I feel like MJ has been a major presence for most of my life. Frankly, I always found him very entertaining and could not stop myself from tapping my feet every time I heard him.

While we do not as yet know the cause of his death, he was evidently sicker than any of us knew and that sickness was psychological in nature. He is reported to have been in a wheel chair, and extremely thin, even anorexic. There are also reports that he was heavily into pain killers and those may have stopped his heart.

I often think that these multi talented people who are in the "public eye," pay a huge price for their fame and fortune.

Their lives may look glamorous on the surface, but so very many of them die young that it seems their lives were a lot less than glamorous, to say the least.

There is something else:

Every time this type of thing happens (the death of a famous person), it brings all of us face to face with the reality that all of us will someday die. None of us like to be reminded of that.

Allan

Edited June 26, 2009 by ASchwartz

[kaudio]

I thought MJ was very entertaining. To be confronted with the loss of a loved one so suddenly must be a terrible shock to the family.

[crystalr0w3]

I agree to that John, yes, we don't know what will happen to us tomorrow. This applies to all. Even how bad a person is, but when he dies, all his good side will be remembered by others. It's like people are moved by death of someone even they don't know the person. We automatically have sympathy on death.

You are right malign. Despite from his success and fame, MJ is unhappy and that is because on the way he was brought up. He has not experienced on how to be a child so maybe that's the reason of his fondness on children because he feels like he is still a child like them. As we can see, he started to work at an early age that made him skipped his childhood to which

created some manifestations in his behavior.

ASchwartz, me too like MJ's music a lot for it energize me. MJ has some abnormalities that was caused by his early experiences and yes, it's all psychological. I also have read an article about painkillers that was discussed by Amy Twain in her blog in www.innerzine.com that painkillers have bad effects on kidney. I think this also contributed on MJ's death.

And fame or fortune cannot make us live longer. We cannot avoid death for all has an expiration...even us.

Yes kaudio. Of course, everybody will be shocked by a sudden death.

[David O]

It is deeply, deeply saddening regarding MJ's death and the circumstances surrounding it...especially for those left behind who did truly love him (a number confined to those who personally knew him). However, I'm not as charitable as most who've written in. MJ was extremely talented, and yes he was disturbed, but more disturbing is how celebrity status now trumps earned merit, as suggested in the Wall Street Opinion piece below:

It’s a safe bet that 100 years from now most half-way educated people will know about Neil Armstrong. It’s also a safe bet that in a century the name Michael Jackson will be familiar only to five or six cultural anthropologists and, possibly, a medical historian. So what does it say about the United States in 2009 that the late moon-walker is a household name but the living one is not?

That this should seem at all peculiar tells us something about the age. Codes of personal conduct were once what Americans—great ones, at least—were all about. In his superb book “American Heroes,” Yale historian Edmund S. Morgan writes about Benjamin Franklin and George Washington that “both men cared enormously about their reputations, about their honor. Their deliberate refusals to do things, employed to great advantage in serving their country, originated in a personal ambition to gain honor and reputation of a higher order than most people aspired to.”

This is not the way we live now. Modern culture has severed many of the remaining links between merit and celebrity. We make a fetish of uninteresting, detestable, loud or unaccomplished people: Paris Hilton, Princess Di, Keith Olbermann, Michael Jackson. Disgrace can be a ticket for even greater celebrity, particularly when mixed with confession.

My intent is not to offend anyone, but mostly to introduce a different angle to the discussion. I recall the separate but close times of death for Princess Di and then Mother Teresa and wondered then about us as a society when Di's funeral looked so massively different than Mother Teresa's. It was fascinating and yet disturbing when Di's affair and divorce garnered more attention and awe than Mother Teresa's >50 years of work with the poor, or when a visit from Princess Di obtained more media coverage than Mother Teresa's winning of the Nobel Prize in peace.

In the end, I'm more saddened about us as a society... who we've become, where we're going and what we are touched by. Our heroes, those who change our lives and impact us, those we mourn for and the ones we look forward to reading about in TMZ or People Magazine, those who seem to be setting the tone for some segments of society, seem to come more from the tabloids than from the rolls of the truly great men and women of our time. There are many of these we should likely be celebrating.

Edited July 27, 2009 by David O

[mscat]

I liked MJ's music in the 80's , as a teen, he was so famous and cool. However, through the years , My opinion changed of him. I was still sad when he died. Trying to make a comeback then died suddenly , and tragically, and so much mystery surrounding his death still prevails . WHat a shame.

Although I still love Elvis , and admire his talent much more so , and he was no saint either, he died tragicially as well, as Princess Di. ALl of her troubles coming into light after her death. Anther horrible tragedy . WHy society admires "them" and makes a greater fuss over them , more then , Mother Teresa, who quietly went on on serving and serving more for those who were in need.