Bashir's Michael Jackson circus......

Yes he did. I have the tape. Shall we go over it together?

"I climbed a mountain recently (the base of it, anyway). Why is one acceptable and the other not?"

Lots of adults regularly climb mountains therefore it's seen as acceptable behaviour for an adult. Relatively few adults regularly climb trees therefore (unless they happen to be tree surgeons) it tends to be seen as a bit weird.

I'm not saying it's right; I'm certainly not saying it's logical; I'm not even saying that the world mightn't be a better place (hey, isn't there a song in there somewhere?) if a few more adults learned to lighten up a bit and climb the ocasional tree; but nevertheless I do think you'll find it's the current "norm." in our society.

How generous can Mr Jackson be to his little friends and their parents, I wonder?

Maybe 4 months ago. Its kinda fun, mainly just to see if you are limber enough to still do it.

What is weird about MJ is that he actually makes a point of regularly climbing trees, which few adults do. And he clearly does't do it for the physical challenge like mountain climbers.

Also, how about comin' up with some new dance moves, eh?

Absolutely not - it's merely infinitely less likely to reach a prosecution

"Deteriorating before our eyes" I buy completely: the child molesting stuff I just don't. It basically boils down to "He climbs trees: burn the witch!"

I DO believe he is suffering from a number of personality disorders; not least of which is the fact that he's emotionally retarded and trying to live out a Peter Pan fantasy (complete with delusions of invulnerability and immortality).

This does mean that he is in any way *intellectually* retarded however - it seemed significant to me that, when he was playing in the fun fair with all his little friends, he actually looked every bit as awkward as most single 44 year old men would under those circumstances.

I believe that he's fully aware that much of his behaviour will be regarded as unacceptable; and I am absolutely convinced that all the stuff he came out with about the abuse he suffered as a child was planned and rehearsed in order to play on our sympathies and try to excuse his behaviour.

That doesn't mean I believe he didn't suffer abuse as a child, because I do; I just think he was using those revelations in a very calculated manner - in fact the way he came out with some of that was so bloody hammy that it almost led me to suspect that there was some sort of complex double-bluff going on.

Then why keep buying more of them?

D'OH!

s/be "This does NOT mean...." obv.!

I watched the programme with my partner who's a State Approved Social Worker who specialises in clients with learning disabilities and psychologigal problems; and she didn't seem to be in any doubt whatsoever that there was more than enough evidence to have MJ's children taken into protective custody under UK law.

She did, however, make it abundantly clear that she wouldn't like to be the poor little Social Worker who had to take responsibility for doing so, jnowing that she'd end up having to deal with Mr Jackson's lawyers - and I'm sure she wouldn't be alone in feeling like that!

Absolutely, although they should be subjected to exactly the same scrutinies as the rest of us before they're allowed to adopt / purchase one.

I don't believe any single man who had previously been accused of sexually assaulting a minor and who clearly raised a significant number of unanswered questions about his sexuality and mental stability wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of doing so in the UK at least.

Also, I believe you'll find most celebrities send their kids away to school in order to try and make their lives as normal as possible, rather than locking them away in some fairytale castle and only letting them go out waering masks!

part of the problem i guesds i have with a situation like this is that if media intrusion is a major factor in causing — or anyway exacerbating — someone's psychological disturbance, is trial-by-TV really the fairest way to gather evidence about their fitness to whatever

I agree absolutely Mark; and neither is the leap some other people (not yourself, I hasten to add) seem to be making, from NOT NECESSARILY / NOT PROVEN TO BE A CHILD MOLESTOR to PERFECTLY SUITABLE PERSON TO BE AROUND / LEFT ALONE WITH / BRING UP CHILDREN

mark s. summary=assumptive twit

You didn't answer the question, Mark.

And why isn't an out-of-court settlement an admission of guilt, again?

Because the concept of justice is often farcical in the American court system for public figures.

And, Alex... thou doth protest too much. Again, empathy for Jackson isn't apologizing for his eccentricities. Every one of your conclusions are mediated through the lens of the program's selective editing and Bashir's prefacings and postscripts. While I may share your view of Jackson as mindnumbingly weird, I don't believe that he is a criminal of any sort.

You didn't answer the question, Mark.

It's hardly the point. I wouldn't want Michael Jackson looking after my son, but then again I wouldn't want any of you lot doing it either. No offence, I don't think any of you are child molesters, but you only leave your kids with someone you know really well and can trust. Doesn't mean anyone else is necessarily dodgy.

Having said that, his attitude to kids still disturbs me. As much the commodification of them as anything. The surrogate mother situation and his comments about wanting to buy, sorry adopt, two kids from every continent seemed to me a little too close to the attitude he displayed while walking round the shop.

Record stores in Britain reported a surge in sales of Jackson's records. Virgin Megastores said sales of his 1982 Thriller album were up 473 percent from last week, while the greatest hits package HIStory was up 383 percent — sending both albums into the lower reaches of the chain's Top 100 chart.

Not bad, eh?

I wonder if Gary Glitter's records saw a similar spike in sales.

Because juries have recently been inflating damages out of all proportion. I recently sat on a federal jury in a sex harassment case. Eventually the plaintiff was awarded $750,000 in punitive damages. The "crimes" of which the defense were accused were, by universal agreement of the jury, not major, but despite this realization my fellow jurors felt the need to inflate the damages to a number that none of us had likely seen in our lives.

I can see how a defendent, would balk and simply offer a lower figure to save themselves months or years of trouble and the potential for spuriously high damages being awarded by a jury. This is something other than an admission of guilt, in my opinion.

This defeats your own argument - if he wasn't afraid of being found guilty, he wouldn't be worrying about the dollar amount a jury might award. But he feared he *would* be found guilty, on some level. Now think about that: one of the richest, most powerful entertainers in the world, who has watched people like OJ openly *buy* their freedom and innocence when they were obviously guilty, fearing that he would actually be convicted/have to pay a settlement/reveal things he'd rather not in a courtroom.

Shakey, lots of people and corporations and institutions and whatnot settle out of court to save them the time and legal fees involved in litigation, regardless or not of whether they'd win the suit. It's not always an admission of guilt (although it can be, sometimes). And a civil suit is much different from a criminal investigation and subsequent trial. F'instance, O.J. was found innocent in the criminal trial, but guilty in the civil trial. The latter just meant that he had to pay money to the victims of the crime, but didn't establish criminal guilt (i.e. he's still free to run over manatees with speedboats in Florida).