Ah! What a great feeling to sleep in your own bed! It’s been over a week since I had that experience, so I was grateful to be back at home. It’s funny how when you go back to your parent’s house it feels more like "home" than any place you’re currently living in at this point – yet you still don’t feel as comfortable there as you do at your own place. That’s how I’ve felt. I get to sleep in my own bed, mess up my own bathroom, watch my own TV – the whole works.
But I only get this freedom for four days, and then I’m back in Loveland for the next 10 days, sleeping in my sister’s old room, living out of my suitcase, trying to find ways not to keep the dog from getting out of the gate. What makes this time more fun is that I’m going to be driving my sister’s Mazda, which is my debut on the stick shift! Yeah buddy! I don’t think it’ll be as bad as I’m making it sound, but we’ll see
So after being out of my apartment lask week my Tivo was here to greet me with a whole week’s worth of shows that I’ve missed. Normally I love my Tivo, it’s one of the coolest inventions of the last years (and I’ll eventually post a little rant about how cool Tivo is), but in this case it kinda sucks. I’ve now come home to over 20 hours of TV shows that I "love" and need to watch. It’s funny because I can’t bring myself to delete the hours of Law & Order, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Family Guy that exist on my Tivo, or the episodes of shows I am trying to get into (Lost, Medium, Numb3rs). At the same time, I don’t want to sit in front of the TV and watch all of those shows, as I’d end up killing something like 10 hours in front of the TV! How crappy is that! So the moral of the story here: Tivo is normally awesome – but if you leave it alone for too long it’ll eventually come back to bite you in the butt!
And of course, yesterday was the verdict of Wacko Jacko, who moonwalked himself right out of the court-room getting off on all ten charges! I can’t help but say that I was disappointed. I think in the end, the jury probably did the right thing – they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did it. The witnesses were too sketchy, and it’s hard to send someone to the hole for 8 years based on the testimony of grifters. At the same time, couldn’t the DA and investigators put Jackson away for SOMETHING!?! The guy is 44 years old and admits sleeping in the same bed as young boys. He has "parent alarms" in his house to alert him in his bed room. The guy has an amusement park in his backyard that attracts young kids like flypaper. You’re telling me you couldn’t find ANYTHING suspicious to deal with that guy?
In all seriousness I do think that Jackson is a serial pedophile and I believe that he is likely to do this again. I was actually predicting that he would be convicted. This wasn’t due for my disdain for Jackson, but rather that in a court-case where you have the victim testifying that abuse occured, and you have another victim to corroberate the abuse story (the child of a housekeeper that is now 20-something), and then when you have the accused refusing to take the stand to deny the allegations of the abuse- chances are that the accused would be convicted.
I get frustrated because the message that gets sent out is "If you’re rich, famous (and especially both), you can do pretty much whatever you want". I don’t think there’s a remedy for this in our justice system – the rich and famous will always be able to drive better cars, eat better food, get the better health care, and have access to better resources when it comes to the legal system. I think that’s a necessary consequence of our capitalist society. I still have faith in justice and believe those who perpetrate justice temporarily will ultimately not be able to escape the consequences of their actions. Wacko Jacko will be back in the courthouse before we know it, I’m just disappointed that more kids may be have been harmed in the process.
One other thing – how about those losers that were camped outside the courthouse? Now I can understand the family cheering and crying – but why the heck do you have an emotional investment in this case, especially enough of an emotional investment to take any of your time and go stand outside the courthouse? What kind of relationship do you have with this guy? You liked his music at one time, so now you have some kind of deep connection with him where you can justify crying about a verdict that in no way impacts you. At what point in your thought process do you go "Man, MJ – they did that guy wrong. You know what, we liked his music at one point, and now he needs us! Honey, pack up the kids and let’s go to Santa Maria to support Jacko!"