Maya Angelou eulogizes Michael Jackson! Ru-u-u-n!

Oh, the humanity.

Rod Dreher keepin' it classy as usual.

Sorry, what is hathotic?

I am in full misanthrope mode today,definitely time for a thinning of the herd. The movie Idiocracy is becoming prophecy. I am sorry, but I have nothing but contempt for lowing herd of cattle that so many Americans have become. This event and the media converage is gross and you just really come to loath the collection of mouth-breathers, and humanities sloppy seconds being paraded for our amusement.

As for Maya Angelou and poetic stylings, I'd rather get a vasectomy done with barber scissors,with no anesestics ,than listen to her over-rated,p.c., droning.

No, I won;t go below the jump and read the poem. No matter how brief it is, life's too short.

Good choice - I wish I hadn't...

"Hathos" is the perverse feeling of hating something so much you get extraordinary pleasure from the feeling. The image above, from Liza Minnelli's wedding, is so hathotic that it might well split the space-time continuum.

You know, I usually take Crunchy Con's rants with a grain of salt, but this posting is too hateful to ignore.

I've been watching the memorial service, and so far it has been absolutely beautiful. As an African-American, I can say that for a lot of us in our community, Michael and the entire Jackson Family are as close AS family. Losing Michael is close to that of losing one of our own blood relatives.

Have your opinions, but PLEASE--- have some respect for a beloved man who has passed on and those he left behind that love him-- INCLUDING THE GREAT DR. MAYA ANGELOU!

I have WAY more respect for Michael Jackson than for Maya Angelou.

Ralph Wiggums, not everything is about race. Foolishness knows no color barrier, as much of America and you yourself are currently proving. Thanks for playing, and make sure to stop for your lovely parting gifts.

I just have to ask why you take it so seriously, Rod? Recalling Liza's wedding (which you picture above) I recall the pathos of many of her guests (Liz Taylor, Marlon Brando) like her, celebrity basket-cases. I feel sorry for them. Yes, this public outpouring of schmaltz is unseemly, of course it is. But why not just laugh at the absurdity of human nature, rather than becoming "hathotic" or whatever?

I remember enjoying Maya Angelou at one time, and I don't read her now because I don't think I would enjoy her anymore. Instead, I think of her as someone who wrote several good "young adult" books in her day. Why take her work more seriously than that? Haven't you ever outgrown something that you once loved?

From Spain, thank you all for your rich vocabulary, always learn new words in this blog, like hathotic or schadenfreude (100% german).

In exchange, I have to tell Ralph that we say "tener cojones", not "cajones" (drawer).

Off-topic, learn spanish gestures for "tener cojones" here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/gallery/2009/jul/06/learn-spanish-gestures?picture=349740605

The photo is as scary as MJ ghost here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj9DgeLmzac

B_D Rucker, BillH, your comments really do put the tragedy of Michael Jackson's life into perspective. Beneath all the weirdness and idiotic celebrity crap -- much of which Jackson encouraged and brought onto himself -- was someone who was a human being who was twisted by his fame and money and, ultimately, his family.

If Michael Jackson had been born into a family that loved him for what he was, not what he could be made to do on stage, he'd probably be alive today ... and almost certainly would have had a more normal, happier life.

"Maya Angelou, the Thomas Kinkade of American popular poetry".

No. She's a contemporary poet/writer in a modern mass media and multimedia age. Your favourite poets and writers from a century ago would have been mass published and marketed if today's mass media were around at the time.

"In the instant we learn that Michael is gone we know nothing"

Well it was a bit of a shock, but hearing about MJ's death didn't cause me to have amnesia.

Crispity, Crunchety, Butterfinger!

I have never read a word of that poetaster's ametrical doggerel, including the posted bit - only Rod's quote of "piercingly alone". But that is an evocative image - that of a tattooist doing a self portrait. Has the Pierian spring been polluted with toxic waste, or are these primitives merely pre-literate?

Donne wrote "Every man's death diminishes me". Were he still alive, I'm sure he'd print a retraction.

Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo.

Yes, we are witnessing an unseemly and vulgar spectacle in the public swooning and mourning over Michael Jackson. But isn't overreaction to the vulgar spectacle just a touch prissy? Old womanish? (Meaning no disrespect to old women.) Just asking.

One more thing, and then I must leave to start making the rounds of Cortland County night courts. (Thank you, Mr. Dreher, for allowing me the privilege of sending these posts today.)

According to the Drudge Report, the deceased's casket was actually on stage in the middle of things while the "festivities" were going on.

One wonders, naturally enough, if someone was going to start carving up pieces of the body and telling people to "take and eat, for this is his body, which he gave up for you." Honest so help me, I was seriously wondering about that, given all the fuss and ado about this menial's tawdry demise. I wonder if any of the participants in this little psycho-drama realized that what they were doing was an act of idolatry that bordered on outright worship of this wretched creature---a caricature of Christianity, if you want to call it that.

What kind of a society have we allowed to emerge when we throw a real and actual God over in order to worship an ersatz, cheap and tawdry version whose only claim to such status was the warbling of some pretty words and the public performance of some blatantly strange behavior ?

One wonders how long such wannabe-worshipers will have to wander around in a desert once they realize the magnitude of their folly.

Your servant,

Lord Karth

So, what's wrong with the poem?

When I was 18, a new college freshman at Stanford, John Kennedy was assassinated. My husband and I went down to the campus over the weekend to ride bikes around in the sunshine, and we passed the big tree in front of the bell tower. I remembered sitting, kid that I was, under that tree, listening to the bell toll. One deep, deep note - the biggest bell they have. Then a heartbreakingly long pause, until the echo had almost, but not quite died. Then, another stroke. They kept it up for hours. I experienced a great and oppressive sorrow.

But I never met John Kennedy. I wasn't even particularly a supporter. My sorrow was for the republic. His assassination seemed to all of us to be a blow to the heart of the state, to the nation, and that's all of us.

When a singer and dancer dies, however gifted he was, it cannot be the same thing. Michael Jackson does not symbolize or embody any larger value, like civil order, the democracy, the kinds of things one thinks of when one thinks of the assassination of the President. To talk as though the mob is experiencing some profound grief is to give the mob way too much credit.

In the instant we learn that Michael is gone we know nothing

No clocks can tell our time and no oceans can rush our tides

With the abrupt absence of our treasure

Though we our many, each of us is achingly alone

Piercingly alone

Not really. His family and close friends almost certainly feel something like this, but to talk as though the whole world, or even that portion of it which was pleased to present itself in Los Angeles this morning, is stricken with grief....well, it's grotesque.

Who is it you are trying to impress with your absolute statements? As though you have a corner on civility, creativity and charm, not! You are crass, at the very least.

Any guesses as to how long it takes before the first Wacko Jacko impersonator convention hits the Vegas strip? Somewhere, a dresser drawer is missing its glove.

The king is dead, long live the merchandizing

And I don't care to have little boys over for sleepovers in my bed.
Get a freaking grip, people. The deceased was a very talented, drug-addled, grievously damaged soul. Lord, have mercy, and be mindful of the grief of his family. Don't all the rest of us have something better to do now?

I thought it was only "liberals" who were supposed to despise "the common people" and "vulgar spectacles"? I don't see any racism on Rod's part, only a kind of snobbery.

I totally agree that the paroxysms of public mourning and breast-beating are excessive and over-the-top. But the overreaction of those who sneer at the spectacle seem equally over-the-top.

"Just saw his daughter say a couple of lines. That was really, genuinely moving."

I just saw that on YouTube. I nearly choked up.

I agree that the funeral was over the top, but aren't funerals usually over the top, even when they're not for celebrities? Aren't eulogies always full of ridiculous superlatives? It's pretty disgusting and tasteless to make fun of a grieving family, to call an elderly woman poet a "colostomy bag," to fuss about a memorial service going on with a casket in the room--a casket that wasn't even open, for goodness sake, even though tradition would have allowed it. We only feel comfortable ridiculing these people because we don't them--the fault is ours. One of Rod's other posts was about the loss of dignity in American public life; some of us here could use a little.

I meant to say "because we don't know them"

Christians mocking the dead. How typical. And how expected.

Exactly. I'm not making fun of Michael Jackson. I'm making fun of the berserk public bathos and mass sentimentality over the death of a pop singer. When I was in England last month, I listened in as several English people discussed with embarrassment the way their whole country freaked out and went American over the passing of Princess Diana. They weren't making fun or disrespecting Diana; they were rolling their eyes at the way we mourn celebrities in the age of mass media.

By the way, ABC News just devoted a solid third of their evening newscast to the Jackson memorial, and closed their newscast by promising tonight two more hours of Jackson coverage, including an interview with Debbie "Rent-a-Womb" Rowe. This, on a day in which the US president is in Russia trying to get this critical relationship back on track. Again and again: Vomit.

Jackson in his later years struck me as so pathetic he was pitiable. I really felt sorry for his troubled soul.

But is it "hateful" to say that his music was bombastic, his image was glitzy, and his lyrics were banal and bathetic? I think it's pathetic in another sense that he's being celebrated as a great artist.

"I hope that you realize that Michael was symbol for what we all strive to be."

Hey, I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't strive to be Diana Ross.

And by dissing Maya Angelou and Michael Jackson in the same fell swoop, how is it you honoring God? Or even adding in any moral way to the public dialogue? Honestly, is this designed to reflect your devotion to God, life, your fellow and sister human beings? Do you understand how you defile all that is holy by your careless disregard and utter lovelessness?

The people who actually loved Michael Jackson - I don't mean "fans," I mean the people who really knew the man - should be outraged at the gross feedings by the vultures of the media, the fainting crowds weeping for a stranger, the weirdos brandishing tickets to the funeral like it was a rock concert, even this disgusting poem which suggests a depth of feeling appropriate only to family and friends, not to the public in general. And if they are not outraged, there's something the matter with them too. Debbie Rowe at least showed enough class to refuse to attend this nauseating event.

The real human being was an abused child who in turn became (perhaps) an abuser, a deeply unhappy person who might have semi-intentionally (or, out and out intentionally) destroyed himself, a gifted artist whose genius arose out of a profound personal pain, as genius so often does. A man who bleached his skin, changed his apparent race, disguised his voice and mutilated his face out of some obscure and unhealthy need. Surely such a human being deserves a more dignified and appropriate last memorial than this obscene circus. Everyone, anyone, does.

Oremus.

The little girl, Paris, seems to have been compelled to speak in justification of her father, which she should not have been. Child abuse and exploitation seems to be a constant theme in the life of the Jackson family, and so it continues.

Observer,

Please educate yourself. There are countless videos of Michael where his vitiligo is very much visible.

And lancelot, you shouldn't speak at all, really.

Beliefnet...guilty until proven innocent. Love it

Your Name,

I have vitiligo myself.

This has not impelled me to have my nose destroyed.

"Sandra, my dear, a word of advice. Don't dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back."

No, don't mock her. I think she's wrong about Rod's remark, but she's not wrong to be disappointed when Christians aren't Christlike.

But, Observer, she didn't call herself a Christian. And you've seen some Christians like the ones she described, haven't you? I sure have. So if she thinks she's run across another one, I don't think we should mock her or play the you're-not-so-perfect-either card.

I would suggest that if Ms. Stevens wants to find a poem appropriate for the day, she would be well advised to stop "looking for Maya's poem" and read, instead, a true poem by a true poet. Two good selections are TS Eliot's "The Hollow Men," and William Butler Yeats' "The Second Coming," both of which pack more into any random line than does Ms. Angelou in that entire bathetic emission of words.

Observer, I agree that Sandra misinterpreted what Rod said. And I think Angelou's "poem" is dreadful. Still, I feel for someone who thinks -- mistakenly -- that a poet who speaks to her is being made an object of spite.

I don't really have an ax to grind regarding Ms. Angelou. I've heard some of her stuff that is ok - even the Clinton poem was acceptible.

But I will say that poem is horrible. Really bad.

Well, Rod. This whole thread, for the most part, was mind-numbingly tasteless, ugly and lacking in Christian charity.

Was too much of the memorial service over the top? Yes. Was it all? No.

Did any of it deserve an orgasm of snark that crossed the line? No.

Are we done now?

"Maya Angelou, the Thomas Kinkade of American popular poetry" RD

TR: It's interesting conservatives are really trying to be snobs again. I wasn't sure you quite made it, the food snobbery notwithstanding, but this is such a classic snob thing to say you might be able to join the club. All you need to do is bash Steven Spielberg or Frank Capra and you'll definitely be there.

Note: I don't think this poem was good, but I do think Angelou has done good work. I think bashing her is just an obvious way for one to show their own eliteness.

"And by dissing Maya Angelou and Michael Jackson in the same fell swoop, how is it you honoring God? Or even adding in any moral way to the public dialogue? Honestly, is this designed to reflect your devotion to God, life, your fellow and sister human beings? Do you understand how you defile all that is holy by your careless disregard and utter lovelessness?"

This kind of starchy pietism needs to become acquainted with the Bible, where Paul says things like "foolish Galatians" and wishes that they would "castrate themselves." The Church is not being nice and sweet and light and never saying anything that might bite or be sarcastic.

aargh. I meant "that you do not believe it is true".

Maybe there will soon be a commemorative Thomas Kinkade portrait of Michael Jackson and Bubbles, available in a special TV offer for 4 easy payments of $39.99, plus shipping and handling. Oh wait, Jeffery Koons already covered that artistic niche. Speaking of the dead and famous, I caught a glimpse of a video showing Billy Mays' pallbearers all wearing his trademark khaki pants and plain blue button-up shirt. I thought that was a sincerely nice touch. Funerals should also celebrate the life of the deceased. So maybe Michael Jackson can have moonwalking pallbearers.

No, laughing at a woman who celebrated "Osagyefo" (Redeemer)"Doctor" (there's another non-medical PhD!)Kwame Nkrumah, the founder of the first of several African one party states is normal and healthy. The poetry is mediocre, the clothes silly, the politics have all the spontaneous unpredictability of a rusted metronome; when you're famous for being an "activist" (Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson)without doing much else, you're a walking target. They're all grownups and make a lot of money-they'll survive. So, unfortunately, will those who had Michael Jackson's family waste thousands of his children's dollars on a gold casket. Remember when Aliyah died? Is this the same idiotic faux "it's a Black thing, you don't understand, this is how we celebrate our heroes" event?

"Where is the need for rhetorical questions and vapid, simpering scolding?"
I am an atheist. I have no shame, certainly not after sermons and preachifyin'. Religion is as ridiculous as Michael Jackson was and Al Sharpton is.