Sunday, October 09, 2011

No, but thanks for asking

Some days, the inane hectoring of America's Columnists is more annoying than others:

In the case of the death of Michael Joseph Jackson (Aug. 29, 1958-June 25, 2009), we are all accessories after the fact.

The fans who fueled his need to keep performing when he wasn't well, who pushed him to be bigger when he was already the greatest, should remember that most of us looked the other way.


To borrow from the Late Dolphin: What are you heaving your poor broken heart at us for? Some of us weren't looking in the first place.

... So when the singer, dancer, songwriter, musician and king of pop was rushed out of his rented Los Angeles mansion, filled with the mixture of drugs he used to make us happy, we looked the other way -- for someone to blame.

He could have kept my share. But in a broader sense -- no. I have an alibi for Elvis (work), the Challenger (sleep) and JFK (second grade), and I'm not taking the fall for this one either. Whether columnists should presume that the entire world shares their taste in music is beside the point; what they really need to avoid is presuming that the entire world shares their inability to compartmentalize.

Opinion writers are paid to have opinions, and it's above the copy editor's pay grade to point out that some opinions ought to be quietly set aside and smothered. But at least we could avoid amplifying them in the hed, you think?

Labels: ,

2 Comments:

Anonymous Q. Pheevr said...

Even if "we" did exactly what the columnist says (and I didn't, either, for the record), I still don't see how that would make us accessories after the fact.

6:52 PM, October 09, 2011  
Blogger fev said...

Sure, but was it over when the Funk Brothers bombed Pearl Harbor?

10:10 PM, October 10, 2011  

Post a Comment

<< Home