J's Cafe Nette

Archive for the ‘Give it a rest’ Category

Within the last week we have heard the news of the deaths of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and pitchman Billy Mays.

Each of these people was special to their families and friends, and the degree of their fame did not or should not have made any loved one feel less saddened or more saddened than the loved ones of the others. And that’s where I have the problem.

President John F. Kennedy died in Dallas, TX, on November 22, 1963 at approximately 1:30 CST from an assassin’s bullet(s). This was a Friday afternoon that I will not forget as long as I live. He was the leader of the Free World and had been wiped off the face of the earth in an instant.

I watched the coverage of his death and his funeral throughout the weekend. Back then television stations signed off at midnight with the playing of the National Anthem.

I watched the body come back, the swearing in ceremony of Lyndon Johnson, the arrival of the body, the body being taken to Bethesda Naval hospital for autopsy, the long driveway of the White House, the honor guard, impromptu parade at the day of his burial, the funeral mass and the burial of his body.

Kennedy died on a Friday afternoon and was buried on Monday after that. We stopped viewing constant coverage of his death at 11:00 pm on Monday night with a recap of the previous four days while we worried about his small children and our country. This was truly a death of great world significance.

Now we have 24 hour news channels and the internet, and I am so sick of turning on a television set or going to the internet to read about a man who apparently mistreated his body so much that he died while preparing for a singing and dancing show.

I’ve seen his family trying to make hay while the sun shines on the death of their loved one and have been shocked that the birth mother of two of his children is so cold as to not want to fight for her children who do not appear to biologically belong to Michael Jackson.

I had an unpleasant run-in with my German Shepherd/mix dog Saturday night whereby I stepped on her feet in the dark in a room I didn’t expect her to be and she bit my foot in a pretty serious way. I say this by way of explanation of why I had a television on so late last night and early this morning. I was unable to sleep. I put the TV from History channel to Fox News channel when the infomercials started on the History channel.

There sat Geraldo Rivera in his conspiratorial best describing which of his four death theories on Michael Jackson made the most sense. (Natural death and suicide were ruled out, but accidental overdose and murder were left open) I got physically sick to my stomach and turned off the TV.

Yes, the Jackson family are grieving their loved one’s sudden death, but no more than any of my family grieved the loss of their son or brother. He was better known than they but he is just as gone as they also.

It’s time to stop this circus surrounding this one death and concentrate on the cap and trade bill passed by the House last week and the upcoming health care fight we are going to have.

Iraq is soon to be without our soldiers in their cities, Iran is going through a massacre, we are engaged with a war with the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Honduras has had a military takeover of its government, N. Korea is threatening to hit us with a nuclear bomb, people all over the world are starving and infected with disease, and all our networks can talk about is Michael Jackson’s death.

It’s time to put things into perspective and force that family to recede into the background without the Revs. Jackson and Sharpton holding news conferences about something they know nothing.

It’s time to lay his body to rest and let us get on with living. I care about his family. I especially care about his children, but I’m sick of all this fawning coverage of the death of a man who was no more significant to his family than Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Billy Mays were to theirs.

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