Mourning the King of Pop

Life is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel.
- Horace Walpole, son of Britain's first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole.

How many days and weeks more will the media mourn the passing of Michael Jackson? There is an unwritten rule that funerals - even state funerals - take place within a week of the individual's passing. Churchill lay in state for three days, I believe, which is about the maximum that any emminent person (not that Michael Jackson is anything close to an emminent person) would or should be granted. Even Princess Diana's ceremonial funeral - which surely must have followed the most prolonged show of public mourning in modern history - was over in six days.

Michael Jackson's public outporing is now going on pretty near twice that, and the mainstream media continues to dedicate hours and hours, days and days without end. This is clearly ridiculous and undignified and is a clear symptom of how sickly comedic we have become as a civilisation. Yes, comedic, the night show host Jon Stewart should be all over this, but he won't because he would lose his ratings and even his entertainment business if he so much as pointed out the faux tragedy of all this. I freely admit that I may have emulated the moonwalk with my high school chums back in 1982 (I was not always the traditionalist I purport to be, that began to seep in a bit later), but the moonwalkers out there need to dethrill themselves and move on.

That's what happens when you deny society their role models and proper idols. When men are forbidden to honour a king, they honour false kings. Deny them food and they will gobble poison.