This morning when Bernie Madoff was sentenced (June 29), he was given a term of 150 years. He is now 71 years of age and I doubt that he will live to see the end of his term. There are no two ways about it. Bernie Madoff was a disaster for many American investors and savers.
But his sentencing had one happy aspect to it. For the rest of the day after the sentence was announced, it tended to knock the unending story about the death of Michael Jackson into second place. For this past weekend, there have been tributes to Michael Jackson without end. I wonder, as a normal person who lays off from drugs, why we are celebrating a person who must have consumed enormous amounts of drugs, legal and otherwise. There are those who say that Michael Jackson had some talent, but in my estimation whatever talent he possessed was lost on me. He was simply a pop singer, and I am at a loss to describe what that term means. He lived a fabulous life style but on most occasions he was deeply in debt. Is it outrageous to suggest that the world might be better off without the likes of Michael Jackson?
But in any case, Bernie Madoff has done us one last favor with his sentencing. He has knocked Michael Jackson’s story not out of the box but into second place. Fortunately I had no money invested with Madoff, so I am essentially neutral on this subject. But when a man can knock the Jackson story into second place, he earns my eternal gratitude.
E. E. CARR
June 29, 2009
Essay 393
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Kevin’s commentary:
Oh ho ho. Pop has written some controversial stuff before. He’s written about politics and religion and sex and racism and gay marriage and finance and all sorts of hot button issues where he takes the general stance of “people are doing dumb or cruel things which they probably should not do” but this, this is too far.
Yes, MJ may have been a bizarre, sick, plastic, generally crazy puppet person. Sure he may have had a propensity to sleep with or at least very near small children. Clearly the story of his death was overblown and took up way too much media time.
But dammit this is the guy who sang “Thriller” you can’t just go around saying things like the world is better off without him. Cmon now. None of that.