Where to start in thinking about the Michael Jackson case? I guess I’d rather not think about it at all. It seems to me we have two reasonable doubts: on the one hand, the characters behind the charges are so sleazy and their stories so easy to pick apart that Jackson should be acquitted; on the other, no grown man in his 40s regularly sleeping with teens can be entirely altruistic. I didn’t sit through the trial and I don’t know which doubt will prevail. And, to be perfectly honest, I just don’t know what I think Jackson might have done to the boys and teens in his care. It’s perfectly possible, of course, that both doubts are correct: that Jackson’s accusers are low-lifes and they are telling the truth. The case leaves me finally with a sense of intense sadness: about how this wreck of a human being, weaned on the poison of fame and money, came to believe that reality was as plastic as his own porcelain skin. And now reality hardens into a verdict.
CONGRATS TO KRISTOF: I’m looking forward to the dinner tonight for the Mike Kelly award given to Nick Kristof for his consistent attempt to bring to light the horror of Darfur and the West’s refusal to do much about it. Kristof’s writing can be a little earnest for my taste at times, but his essential decency and integrity as a writer and human being shine through everything he puts on paper. I’ve known him from a distance ever since we were together at Magdalen, Oxford, at the same time two decades ago; and my admiration has only grown since. Its only shadow is the recognition that this blog hasn’t done as much as it should have to highlight Darfur. I guess I didn’t have much to add to what Nick and others have been saying and urging. But I can still admire. In some small way, I hope the award serves the broader cause; and I’m absolutely sure Mike Kelly would have been a fellow advocate.
PERRY AGAIN: I missed some context about Texas governor Rick Perry’s comment that gay Texan couples who want to form stable relationships should go to another state. He was actually responding to a question about gay war veterans. Insult to injury. What do you call a gay man who risks his life to serve his country? A faggot.
QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another and to God.” – Abraham Lincoln, Gen. Orders No. 100, art. 15 (1863).
EMAIL OF THE DAY: “Speaking to “love’s ragged edge,” our synagogue-run pre-school just elected a gay dad to be president of the parents assistance league (PAL). He’s a former cruise director and has the most amazing money-making ideas. Plus, he gets along with just about everybody. And Thank God for Jeffrey. He has a lot more commitment to helping out at the school than pretty much any other mom, here. Plus, he has a sense of humor–you can roll your eyes at the guy when someone makes a particularly stupid remark, and he gets it. My twins and his older daughter graduated together today (seriously, they have graduation ceremonies for five-year-olds), and it was so sweet to see his mum here from Manchester, an elderly woman who was clearly proud to watch this momentous (to first-time parents) occasion. And you know what I thought? Thank God I live in a world where this woman gets to have grandchildren. Why should she be deprived of the basic human experience just because some on the loony right don’t know when to mind their own business. My parents are delighted by/obsessed with my kids, and this woman, who obviously raised an incredibly decent and charming son, deserves all the naches (yiddish for happiness) she can get. I’m sorry, but the people who would deny others the pleasures/bounty life has to offer are just hateful. They can’t deal with a rapidly changing world (I’m talking technology, science, globalization) and so they’re taking it out on the easiest targets. Imagine if they tried this crap with any other minority group? This is why I could never vote Republican. For the sake of a few votes, the party has not only been coopted by, but is helping bolster a very frightened bunch of losers. Why do you think people in the South didn’t want to give blacks equal rights? Because they were threatened. Well, I think gays just represent everything about the modern world that threatens the socially conservative right.”
The Dish 