The Evil That Men Do...

Pay attention kids, because this is a very important thing happening right now. I know that learning lessons can be quite boring but you really don’t want to miss this one. The lesson is this: It’s okay to molest little children if you are one of the greatest musicians of all time. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Michael Jackson faced a little adversity based on his “alleged” kiddie diddling while he was alive, but that’s all in the past now that he’s dead.

Across the world, friends, Roman’s and countrymen alike are wondering why the evil that men do doesn’t live on after them and Catholic priests are crying out to God asking Him why they couldn’t have invented the moonwalk. Michael Jackson is dead and everywhere you look, everything you read, everything you see on television shows St. Michael of Moonwalk in the light of angels. The settlements made with children who attended Jackson’s “sleepovers,” are forgotten.

In dying, Jackson succeeded in once again becoming universally loved. His sins are forgiven. His transgressions have been cast aside. It is the evil that will remain interred with his bones. I don’t begrudge the man respect for his musical talents. I don’t begrudge him his place with the icons of music history. Like anyone else, when Billy Jean comes on my radio, I feel like dancing.

But we didn’t lose the music, we lost the man who made it. He hasn’t had a hit in years. New Michael Jackson hits weren’t forthcoming. His death didn’t mean an end to his music—his pedophilia took care of that. His music will always live on and we won’t have to miss it one bit.

The man is gone though. Usually when pedophiles die, people say good riddance. They proffer that he should have done the world a favor and died sooner. When priests do the same things Jackson did to young boys they are ostracized, they receive death threats. When civilians do those things they register as sex offenders and get bricks thrown through their windows and threats warning them to leave the neighborhood. No one but their family members mourn them when they die. Society chuckles and hopes they burn in hell.

There’s no explanation for the phenomenon going on now. A few weeks ago you couldn’t utter Michael Jackson’s name without some righteous indignation boiling up in you. Now we celebrate his life and work and accomplishments and we forget his sins. Every channel has a tribute program in the works or already playing.

So learn the lesson and learn it well: The lines have now been clearly drawn. Celebrities are all saints once they die. All sins are forgiven. We only remember the good, we discard the bad and we celebrate their life as if it were some guide to how we all should live.

Somewhere, in his prison cell, O.J. Simpson is fashioning a rope out of his bed sheets. Fame and heroism along with a clean slate are only a sharp crack of the neck away.