R.I.P. Michael Jackson (and Farrah)

I'm going to start this post with a plain statement: I don't believe that Michael Jackson was a pedophile at all. I don't believe that he ever had any type of inappropriate sexual relations with any child whatsoever. And I hope that the man, who I do believe was a tortured soul thanks to a traumatic upbringing, is finally at peace now in God's glorious heaven.

Michael Jackson, the 'King of Pop' and a true American cultural icon, died yesterday at the age of 50 of what is believed to have been cardiac arrest. Those who saw him in recent months have reported that he looked skeletal, emaciated, and unhealthy. A fan who got to watch him on Monday in training for a hoped-for comeback tour said that she thought "he could die."

Michael lived a life mixed with blessings and curses. He was blessed with phenomenal gifts in his natural talents for singing and dancing. Unfortunately, these very gifts led to the curse of his father's abuse. The elder Jackson unmercifully whipped and beat him as a young boy in a misguided effort to push him to stardom. His father's abuse, emotional and verbal as well as physical, would reverberate through the entirety of his life.

I remember as a young boy watching television cartoons of Michael and his brothers, their singing and dancing, and hearing their songs performed as the 'Jackson Five'. Hits that he recorded both with the group and in his solo efforts in those 1970's days included "ABC", "I Want You Back", "Rockin' Robin", "Ben", "Dancin' Machine", and the gorgeous "Got to be There" as AM radio staples of my youth.

In the 1980's, Jackson's solo career truly took off into another stratosphere. His emergence as a young adult solo artist, combined with his talents for dancing, made him a natural leader in the emerging video music industry being pioneered by the folks at MTV. His albums "Off the Wall", "Thriller", and "Bad" made him the biggest act on earth. "Thriller" remains the biggest-selling record in history to this date.

Jackson was involved in charitable efforts far too numerous to completely mention, but one of the highlights was his leadership along with Lionel Richie in the "We Are the World" song and video to raise money for battling hunger in Africa.

He moved into the 90's still on top of the world with a Super Bowl performance, and recognition from President George H.W. Bush as the "Entertainer of the Decade" for the 80's. But he also began to come under increased scrutiny from tabloid newspapers who reported on the bizarre (buying the bones of the 'Elephant Man') to the sublime (he slept in a hyperbolic chamber) to the ridiculous (a marriage to Priscilla Presley) to the criminal (child molestation charges.)

The scandalous child sex charges were either settled out of or dismissed in court, with the father of one 13-year old boy being caught on tape saying "If I go through with this, I win big-time. There's no way I lose. I will get everything I want and they will be destroyed forever...Michael's career will be over." At every court proceeding he ever attended, Michael's friends and family members were there fully supporting him, and he was never convicted on any of these charges in any incident. But as with most anyone who ever faces these types of charges publicly, he was never able to overcome their stigma.

Michael's life began to deteriorate as he battled physical ailments with vitilio and lupus, the eating disorder anorexia, and body dismporphic disorder. Through all this, he was able to become the father of three children: Michael Joseph 'Prince' Jackson, Jr (son) and Paris Michael Katherine Jackson (daughter) with Debbie Rowe, and Prince Michael 'Blanket' Jackson II who he said was conceived through a surrogate via artificial insemination.

Michael Jackson was absolutely a lightening rod for controversy, some of it of his own doing, as when he hung 'Blanket' by one arm from a hotel balcony, and some of it imagined or exaggerated by the media. He was also a victim of child abuse, and of a lifetime of physical ailments that not only contributed to, but directly caused his personal deterioration.

Michael Jackson was also one of the greatest entertainment talents in human history. His dance movements such as the "Moonwalk" are legendary, the stuff that has been admired and copied by professionals and amateurs for decades now. His alternating strong and sensitive voice has recorded dozens and dozens of hit songs, including peak-of-career hits like "Billie Jean", "Black and White", "Man in the Mirror", "Smooth Criminal", "I Wanna Rock With You", "You Are Not Alone", "Beat It", "Rock With You", and many others.

Jackson will be remembered for generations to come as one of the greatest entertainers of all-time, but amazingly he was not the only big celebrity to pass away yesterday. Farrah Fawcett, the beautiful blond bombshell who burst onto the scene in the mid-1970's with the original television series "Charlie's Angels", passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer. She was just 62 years of age, joining the 50-year old Jackson as stars taken long before their time. May they both rest in peace.

Will April's Showers Bring May Flowers?

April was a pretty rough month in any way that you want to size it up. Record spending, debt, unemployment. A major shift towards socialism by our government. Increased attacks on the sacrament of marriage by homosexuals and liberal thinkers. And then finally ending with an attack by a Swine Flu pandemic. It's all a bit much for a normally happy soul such as mine to take in for one big reason. There is no end in sight. President Obama was only recently elected, and just took office three months ago. He still has more than three years at a minimum in office, and if the magnitude, scope, and pace of his 'Change' continues as it has thus far it will be an agonizing three years. One thing that I have come to appreciate over the course of these past three months is the utter joy and euphoria that Obama elicits in his followers. It makes me jealous, because frankly I have never, ever had that feeling for a President of the United States. Forget Kennedy and Johnson, I was just a baby. As a young child, Nixon and Ford certainly were not high on my priority list. I liked Jimmy Carter at first. He spoke to my youthful desire for progressivism. He was a minister and brought a certain amount of credibility and morality to the office, which was important to the country after the dishonesty of Nixon's Watergate. And he was intelligent too, a genius, at least that's the rep that the media was passing around. It was Jimmy Carter that began to ruin things for my early liberalism. By the end of his term he was proving to be a major letdown, and I'm still trying to figure out that whole 'genius' thing. His and liberalism's weaknesses were on full display in the face of the emergence of radical Islam, Soviet aggression, and America's energy problems. But still, politics and these major issues at this point were still only news stories to me, fleeting images on the TV set, and I would quickly change the channel to a ballgame or a comedy and go back to my own inner liberal feelings. During the 1980's, Ronald Reagan was king, but I didn't support the kingdom. I didn't vote for 'The Gipper' either time. Here was the first time in my lifetime where it was obvious to me that a large portion of America was feeling something for a President that I just wasn't getting. It was disconcerting to me, because I was beginning in my 20's to actually pay more attention to national and world affairs. I was a liberal Democrat and became a joiner, with paid memberships in 'Greenpeace' and 'Amnesty International', and with subscriptions to 'Rolling Stone' and 'U.S. News & World Report', and enjoying anti-establishment music videos on the new media outlet of MTV such as Genesis' "Land of Confusion". But something began to change. The optimism of the 'Morning in America' days that Reagan led, the return of outward signs of American patriotism, the general feelings of positivism were creeping into my psyche a little at a time. His demand that the Soviets "Tear down this wall!" followed by that event actually happening was a watershed moment, the moment when I began to think to myself "Why are there so many millions of people seeing what I am not?" and I began to realize that these folks couldn't possibly all be evil or idiots, and I actually began to open my mind to thoughts and ideas outside of my previously grounded liberal thinking. But it still wasn't a transition. I still voted for Dukakis in 1988, because I simply was not ready to vote for George H.W. Bush for President. He was as establishment as you could possibly get, and a former head of the C.I.A. to boot, and I simply did not trust a former head of a spy agency to be my leader. When he eventually led us into the Gulf War, all his faults were on display in my mind. I didn't understand the whole Iraq issue. My naive liberalism still had me being sold by those talking heads and celebrities who lamented our 'going to war over nothing but oil' and other such talk. In 1992, with my own life going through major changes on many fronts, I remained a liberal thinker for the final election. When Bill Clinton was elected, it was the first time in my life to that point that my candidate had won, and I was excited. His youthful exuberance was infectious, and I genuinely believed that he would make things better. But I also by this time was already in the habit of looking at issues deeper than the surface, reading and researching major issues beyond just what I was being sold on what I increasingly was noticing was an obviously biased mass media in newspapers and on television. I hated the idea that these folks seemed more like cheerleaders whenever a Democrat was involved, and like antagonists when a Republican was involved. It was all so obvious, and it was turning me off. When I realized that all of the positive economic turns of the early Clinton years were going to happen no matter who was President, that they had actually begun in the final months of the Bush administration, and yet the Dems were trying to take credit, I began to experience my first bit of cynicism towards my party and its politicians. By the end of Clinton's first four years the transition was complete. My own personal scales had tilted towards conservatism over liberalism, and as Newt Gingrich led the 'Republican Revolution' of 1994, I was amazingly in tune with their message and supportive of this man who just a couple years earlier I would have viewed as a negative influence. I was still a Democrat, but I did not vote for Clinton in 1996. The second Clinton term was what fully shoved me over to the conservative side, and my final flip to an actual change of party to the Republican side. Still, even with the election of George W. Bush in 2000, I was not excited. Seeing Al Gore for the quack that he has turned out to be, I was simply unbelievably relieved with the narrow outcome in Bush's favor. Bush was not the conservative that I was becoming, but he was much more tilted in that direction than Gore and his followers would have been. The attacks of 9/11 and President Bush's outstanding leadership in the following months and years cemented my support for him, and helped cement my conservative beliefs. But he never elicited that outright joy as a follower or supporter. And obviously Obama will never elicit those feelings for me. And yet I look around at his followers and I realize something. His supporters are every bit as enthused and enthralled as Reagan's were back in the 1980's, and I was on the outside back then as well. I don't get it, but I am trying to learn more about Obama's programs and ideas beyond what the media on both sides is trying to feed the public. So far, the more that I learn the worse it looks to me, but I am going to try to keep learning and stay open. The showers of April turn to flowers in nature in May. We can only hope that the showers brought on our nation by the early Obama actions in April will bloom into flowers in May, but I don't hold out hope. May has not started well, with an announced SCOTUS opening and the specter of the likely appointment to the Supreme Court later in the year of what will almost definitely be its most liberal member ever. The Swine Flu is still advancing, with a possible retreat for the summer but a return in the fall. Chrysler joins the growing list of formerly private businesses in the auto, banking, insurance and other industries now controlled by the government. It is still raining. But I won't let it get to me. One thing that age and experience teach you is that if you wait, the sun will indeed come out tomorrow. There are signs of hope. We have rid ourselves of Senator Arlen Specter, a RINO (Republican In Name Only) who saw the writing on the wall that we were going to dump him in the upcoming primary and who then ran for the Democratic cover like a coward. And I still hold out hope that one day I will have that President come along who inspires me and elicits that passionate adulation of feeling to go along with a support for their policies and direction that Obama's supporters feel today. Someone like Newt Gingrich, Bobby Jindal, or Sarah Palin. You gotta keep that smile on your face and in your heart, and keep your own dreams alive.

Turkey Tails

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day here in America, and at some point in the morning my wife Debbie will awake and unpack our turkey for the traditional dinner. At some time tomorrow afternoon she is scheduled to slide the nice 17-pound Butterball out of our oven. I'll move into position with the electric carving knife, and peel off nice slices and pieces of white meat. Then I'll flip that bad boy over and go after the dark meat on the bottom. We will then put the turkey out on our table with some veggies and fixings that will most definitely include mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, spinach, rolls, and gravy. Then we will join my daughter Kelly and her boyfriend Jay in digging in to the annual feast. Ours will be a relatively small dinner, but there will be many around our town, region, and nation that will be much larger. Families will gather from far and near, taking days off from work, returning from school, going back home for the holiday. At the vast majority of these dinner tables, the turkey will be the featured attraction. But why? Where did this all start? Why turkey and not roast beef, or pork chops, or spaghetti (no, my South Philly Italian friends, your pasta course does not count.) Turkey is the main dish at Thanksgiving, what we all look forward to so much on this particular day that we don't have this dinner much, if at all, at other times during the year. The turkey was a wild bird original to North America, native to the eastern United States and northern Mexico. The bird was domesticated and brought to Europe in the 16th century, and it began to be raised much more extensively due to the high quality of their meat and eggs. The first Thanksgiving is traditionally recognized as having taken place among the Pilgrims and the native American Indians. Though there is no documentation that turkey was served at this feast, it almost certainly would have been a logical option. Some 22 years after that first celebration, William Bradford wrote his piece titled "History of Plymouth Plantation", and in the piece there is a quote stating that the governor had "sent four men out fowling, and they returned with turkeys, ducks, and geese." Bradford's work fell into the hands of the British during the Revolutionary War and did not surface in America again until 1854. On it's rediscovery and dispersal to the public, the turkey's roll at those early gatherings was recognized, and the bird began to turn into a symbol of Thanksgiving which simply grew and grew as the years and decades moved along. In the years after the Revolution, America was searching for many symbols to associate with the new country, and talk turned to a national bird. The favorite and ultimately the chosen symbol was the Bald Eagle, but no less than Benjamin Franklin himself supported the turkey, saying that it was "a much more respectable bird, and a true original of North America." The respect for the turkey has taken a humorous turn at the highest levels of our government as well. Each year since 1989, when President George H.W. Bush "pardoned" the turkey given to him as a gift from the Poultry and Egg National Board, a turkey has been ceremonially pardoned by the sitting President. This idea was originally begun by either Abraham Lincoln, who legend says pardoned his son's pet turkey, or by John Kennedy who supposedly was given the holiday bird gift and said "Let's just keep him." So the eagle soars through the skies as America's symbol to this day, but it is the turkey to which we turn to celebrate the thanks that we give for this land, for our families, and for our freedom.

R.I.P. Tony Snow

There is plenty of coverage across the Internet and on television news programs on the death of Tony Snow, but to just let it pass without an entry here would be wrong. Tony Snow was that rare modern-day newsman who was accepted and respected by the mainstream media even though he did not subscribe to their usual liberal school of thought. Born in 1955 in Kentucky, Snow was raised in Cincinnati by his father, a school principal, and his mother who died of colon cancer when Snow was just 17 years old. He graduated from Davidson College in 1977, and began work as a newspaper editor in North Carolina for The Greensboro Record in 1979. His editorial career eventually led him to take over the editorial page at the prestigious The Washington Times from 1987-1991. Throughout the 1990's he worked as a regular columnist at USA Today, made numerous television news appearances, and also was syndicated to over 200 newspapers throughout the country. He took a sabbatical from 1991-1993 to work in the administration of President George H.W. Bush as a speech writer and media assistant. In the mid-90's, Snow took over as the regular substitute host for The Rush Limbaugh Show on radio, and in 2003 began The Tony Snow Show on Fox News radio. Snow had become one of the leading conservative voices in America, making numerous Fox News appearances and often substituting on television for Bill O'Reilly, but his professionalism and fairness gained him the respect from both sides of the aisle in Washington and from his media colleagues across the ideological spectrum. In April of 2006, Tony Snow was named as the new White House Press Secretary, the main face and voice of the administration of President George W. Bush, a position that he held until being overwhelmed by the same colon cancer that had taken the life of his mother 35 years earlier, that would eventually take his life yesterday. Tony was an avid musician who played the flute, trombone, piccolo, accordion, saxophone, and guitar. He was a part of a cover band called Beats Workin' and got to play publicly with members of Jethro Tull, the Doobie Brothers, and Steely Dan. Tony Snow is survived by his wife of 21 years, Jill Ellen Walker, two daughters and a son. Not many come along like Tony Snow, who combine class, intelligence, humor, and a general overall good-natured demeanor that comes through no matter what your opinions of his political views. During a time of severe political partisanship in America, the loss of men like Snow and Tim Russert, who passed away a few weeks ago, is a serious blow to American journalism, and a loss for us all.