These are old archived entries from my journal, Ornamental Illness. I have eliminated all graphics (except those in context of an entry) to save on my bandwidth usage.


Please visit my other sites below. I promise they're more visually interesting.

Ornamental Illness main entry page

Ann-S-Thesia Web Graphics

Ann's Gemstone Jewelry

The Dingbatcave

Art Objects

Eyebalm Fine Art

Windowsill Cactus

..::Previous entry: "Some fictional food"::.. ..::Main Index::.. ..::Next entry: "DREAMs: Shirts and Shoeracks"::..

12:20:2003 Entry: "Ann : Soapbox: Never Again Land"

Soapbox: Never Again Land

We live in a child-centric culture. The biggest holiday of the year has been remodelled around indulging and spoiling our children--our physical children and our inner child. Since the concept of "teenager" was invented in the 50s, our adolescents have been spending longer and longer times in a suspended state of arrested development. Teens today appear and dress like overgrown toddlers...dumb hair, frumpy clothes. When I was a teen in the 70s, we were refining ourselves, growing up. Looking good and sophisticated was important. Look at pictures of people in their teen years from your grandparents generation; they looked like smaller, thinner adults. Stan and I have remarked that people we know who are a decade younger than us seem less mature or settled in life than we were at the same age just ten years earlier--and we thought we were behind because at that time we were still struggling to get through graduate school!

Of course some of this can be blamed on the economic climate. In the early to middle of the last century, one could go directly from high school into a factory job and shortly afterward be able to modestly support a young family. That is impossible now of course. Sometimes young people are forced to delay their maturity just because of the job climate. Moving back in with their parents after college certainly isn't a choice, but a necessity. I feel fortunate that Stan and I were able to buy a house before we were 30...on extremely meager incomes. This is not possible nowadays with equivalent incomes and equivalent housing prices. No amount of preaching the merits of frugality by older generations could make this happen; it's just an economic impossibility.

The irony is that the creation of the "teenager" was actually borne of favorable economic conditions in the middle of the century. There was more disposable inome to be spent on music and clothes and games, and they marketed heavily to that demographic. The concept of teenager was more of a capitalist's invention rather than a sociologist's. And now with a downturned economy, we haven't gone back to kids growing up quickly to face the real world...they stay kids even longer!

Although I had been noticing the dumbing down of the generations for quite a while now (who hasn't?), I thought this was an appropriate time to bring up this issue. Like the rest of those of us in the USA right now, if I choose to watch cable network news, I will be experiencing what appears to be the 24-hour M*chael J*ckson channel, non-stop. Bombings in Istanbul? What's that? No, the only news now is all M*chael, all the time. I found out from a *Canadian* radio show that American channels interrupted their mid-day broadcasts to show footage of MJ being escorted to the police station. Granted, there's not a lot of important stuff on TV to interrupt in the middle of the day, but still. Was it necessary? They must think we're...a bunch of children.

I am incredulous that people are incredulous that MJ could've done the acts he is accused of. Hello? Where have these people been the last decade...or the last three decades to see the bizarre transformation of a young boy into this mentally ill person? What's so hard to believe that a man who thinks of himself as Peter Pan, invites scores of young kids to his ranch called "N*verland", gets facial mutilation to make himself look like some sort of Disney character/Anime character/elfin hybrid, (all in the hopes of appealing to kids, no doubt), completely obliterates his race, and then *publically admits* that he likes sleeping with little boys and "giving them hot milk" is not capable of child molestation?!

Can we say denial?

The fact that parents let their kids stay with him for the ten years after he settled his civil case just goes to show that they didn't have the maturity to be able to see through this wolf in sheep's clothing, or at the very least be cautious and keep their kids at a distance. They are as naive as their kids are. Maybe they don't even see him as human...I know it is actually hard to, but maybe they see him as some benign Disney character in costume...like a life-size Mickey. His face does seem mask-like. Maybe because these kids' parents grew up with his music, he's an idol to them too. See, maybe that's it. I never liked the music in the first place so I couldn't be blinded by it. Maybe if they had better taste in music...oh, there I go again, playing musical snob. But I digress.

What really galls me is when I hear the crying of Americans saying those like myself are too quick to judge, practically proclaiming his innocence. I've even heard this line of reasoning from conservative commentator P*t B*channan, of all people! As this story was breaking earlier this week, Mr. B*channan was saying that M*chael J*ckson seemed like such a nice, gentle man and that he didn't seem like he was capable of intentionally hurting a child. Yes, these are the same people who want to deny two *adult* homosexuals in a committed relationship the right to marry. These are probably the same people who see my choice to *not* have kids (and to use birth control) as bad and amoral. The hypocrisy makes me ill.

"He's just eccentric, it doesn't make him guilty" is a line that I've heard too much in the past few days. Eccentric is painting your house 9 shades of purple and dying your hair shocking pink. Eccentric is having a gigantic footwear collection that takes up all 7 rooms in your house. Eccentric is owning 25 cats. Getting your nose whacked off and upturned in a little point to disguise your sex, wearing white makeup to disguise your race, and inviting thousand of kids to sleep in bed with you, thinking that you *are* Peter Pan, and the countless other odd things he has done is not eccentric. It is a sign of a deeply disturbed mentally ill man who should not be around children. Can't anybody see this?

People need to stop making excuses for him. While these people are so quick to judge others who are not like themselves--the true harmless eccentrics of society--they think MJ is beyond reproach. Quite the double standard. They need to pull their heads out and open their eyes and stop living in Disney-NeverNever-Land. Stop being a child. Grow up and face the music. Maybe you will finally hear how Bad that music is.

4 Comments

Wow I am glad I am not the only who see's it this way. I have had people raving and screaming at the fact I think he is as guilty as they come.

Posted by Rick @ 11:21:2003:09:42 PM CST

So the past few nights on the news they intervied his personal magician. While other panelists were asking "just what is a personal magician...I've never heard of someone having a personal magician" I would've loved to have asked "If you're a Magician, will you make the charges disappear?"

Maybe MJ has him on his payroll so that he can frequently pull a young boy out of a hat.

Posted by Ann @ 11:23:2003:08:47 AM CST

If he's worth his magic, he should make MJ's nose reappear.

Posted by Stan @ 11:25:2003:08:00 PM CST

LOL! And his natural skin color.

Posted by Ann @ 11:25:2003:08:07 PM CST

By Ann @ 20:51 AM CST:12:20:03 ..::Link::..