Quick!  Get everyone who may still be famous in 25 years to the front!

First of all, the song is awful… or should I say, “bloody awful”.  It’s so dated and synth-heavy that it’s been rendered almost unlistenable by time, the lyrics are borderline terrifying, and with the exception of Simon LeBon, Bob Geldof, Boy George and Bono, I have no idea who any of those people are.  Oh, wait, Phil Collins is in there.  That’s one more.  And three black people who shouldn’t be too hard to identify, as there are only 2 dozen or so black people in Britain, and surely no more than five had a record deal at the time.

But here’s the thing that I find most comical, looking at it through 2011 eyeballs.  What the hell are these people wearing?  Obviously, the purpose of the video is to show how they’re all just being casual, caring about the needy… I get it.  I’m sure the invitation read something like “Wear clothes that you’d be wearing around the house on a normal day, we don’t need somebody Freddie Mercurying up the joint while we’re trying to remind people that they should listen to the wealthiest people in the world lecture them about poverty through their half-functioning AM radio.”

But with that in mind, take a look at what some of these people wore to the video shoot.  Bananarama (maybe that’s who those girls are, they look like they could be Bananarama) seem to be fairly appropriately dressed, in what looks like what Bananarama wears while they’re doing laundry.  Phil Collins is wearing an argyle sweater, which makes sense when you consider the likelihood that Phil Collins lives, sleeps and bathes in argyle sweaters.  But this brings us to a few other folks.  Bono is wearing a damned top hat.  So, to be clear, when you ask Bono to show up looking casual, he wears a top hat.  There’s some dandy Brit-pop guy in FULL MAKEUP.  I have no idea who he is, but apparently his idea of toning it down still meant he had to shoot himself in the face with an eyeliner cannon before singing in the choir of the worst Christmas song ever recorded.

At least he didn’t wear this one.

Also, note while watching the video that Phil Collins drums for absolutely no reason whatsoever, other than to give Phil Collins something to do.  I’d imagine that meeting went something like, “Do you think the Yanks will recognize Phil?  They’d recognize Gabriel, but we couldn’t get him to take that bloody sunflower costume off, so we had to settle for Phil.”  ”Ah, just give ‘em a drum set.  If nothing else, they’ll figure out that the geezer is a drummer and just leave it at that.”  Really, though, there isn’t one non-synthetic drum sound in that whole song until Phil does his utterly pointless “boom-ba-dum-dum” and then walks away from the drum kit.  He even has a look on his face while he’s doing it that just screams “Why the hell am I doing this, again?”

Also, what’s the deal with the blonde woman (another unidentifiable part of the posse who was no doubt mildly recognizable in the mid 1980′s) injecting some wildly inappropriate product placement for Squirt?  I vaguely remember Squirt, and I can’t really figure out what she’s trying to do there.  I’m not sure, now that I think of it, that I’ve seen anything more tacky in my life than Squirt plugging its brand of citrus soda during a song about a continent in which “… the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears”.  Maybe that’s the point.  Maybe these Africans just need a can of Squirt.

Finally, is it REALLY appropriate for the three guys with guitars to be rocking out like they’re doing a version of “Run, Run Rudolph” set in Addis Ababa?  I mean, here you have Bob Geldof, Bono and Sting coming together to raise money to buy giant crackers for these hungry kids, and you can’t keep Union Jack Johnny from doing the damn Chuck Berry Duckwalk around the timpani drum.  It’s like having Pete Townshend windmilling up a storm during a moment of silence for Holocaust victims.

Man, that song (and particularly that video) is awful.  And why is Boy George by himself the whole time?  Nobody wants to stand next to Boy George?  Actually, I think I get that part.

*Click the link if you feel like punishing yourself this holiday season.

Perhaps in no area (other than possibly the political process) has the blogosphere affected more change than in the world of popular music.  For years the “cool kids” sought out the “cool music” of their day, thumbing their collective noses at the “industry” that was undoubtedly holding back the next great artist, focusing only on cruel profit margins and dismissing artistic integrity.  While that has certainly been the case from time to time, this conspiracy did leave one gaping logical hole – the invisible hand of capitalism.  Trust me, David Geffen wasn’t worried about artistic integrity when he brought his checkbook to Seattle and signed every long-hair in the city with a guitar and a flannel shirt.  We were quick to dismiss the quality control afforded us by record labels, heralding the next earth-shaking artist as a mere fluke and wondering “how they slipped by the suits at the label,” never realizing that behind the revolutionary sound we heard were two dozen like-minded bands, who happened to be pretty awful.

So, with the emergence of the internet, music once again belonged to the people.  I will freely admit that from around 1994-2005 I was a bonafide hipster.  I may have not always looked the part, but my cultural tastes oozed elitism in a way that encouraged those around me to toss off the shackles of the mainstream and embrace the latest act that was sure to change the world (that I would forget about two months later).  Unbeknownst to me, I wasn’t an original snowflake.  I was one of millions of people just like me, fueled by short attention spans and a desire to catch on to the next big thing long before any of the squares could ruin it.  Unfortunately, we all rallied around the internet like a great music nerd convention, and like all great nerd conventions, this one devolved into a shouting match over the auditory version of Capt Kirk vs Picard.

In my youth, before the internet was available in every home, coffee shop and rest stop in the country, the underground tastemakers were your friends and peers.  When someone whose interests you respected offered you a mix tape/cd, or suggested a band, you took their suggestion seriously.  You’d built a history of trust with some, knew who had similar interests, and above all knew that if someone had put forth the effort to bring you a copy of a record, it was only polite to give it a spin.  Many times, that politeness translated into an obsession with a new artist, one who may define your listening habits for months or years to come.  Music was a communal experience.  We learned of new bands while riding in cars, dancing at parties or sitting around someone’s living room and sharing in the experience of something new.  The evolution of this practice, one now done digitally, forces us into isolation – hearing new artists for the first time in our pajamas, through computer speakers or earbuds.

In the past, sharing new artists took patience and dedication.  I can remember needing a feeling of certainty about a band before sharing it with my peers, sharing only what seemed to be a “can’t miss” album, not wanting to be labelled “the guy with bad taste” of the group.  The difficulty of gathering people together to listen to something has been replaced by the ease of sending a digital file to a friend.  What was once a breathless rush to share an amazing piece of art with someone, often waiting days or weeks to meet the person face-to-face, is now as easy as hitting “share” on Spotify or Facebook, throwing any flavor of the month to the masses as casually as you can click a button.  Unfortunately, that lackadaisical approach to sharing information has transformed the art of music criticism and promotion into a catch-all for any fifteen year old with a laptop and a broadband connection.

Make no mistake, we need hipsters.  Hipsters brought rock and roll out of the segregated clubs and into the malt shops.  Hipsters turned Be-Bop-A-Lua into Let it Be, and turned Pet Sounds into Punk Rock.  When glam and synthesizers threatened to crush the rebellious spirit of rock and roll, those same hipsters revived Punk Rock, roaring into the 1990′s with an edge that left a sea of battered, bloodied Loverboy fans in their wake.  Hipsters have inspired the emergence of everything from the electric guitar to the Ok Computer, and for that we owe them a debt of gratitude.  However, the hipsters of the past had an edge over the hipsters of today:  They were professional hipsters.  Believe it or not, there was a time when people were paid actual money to listen to music, to evaluate talent and to determine that maybe we should pay more attention to The Sex Pistols than The Marshall Tucker Band.  These days, with everyone having a voice, we’re actually forced to debate that issue… and the debate is killing us.

Landmark albums have always been a major part of popular music.  Every decade or so, an album appears seemingly out of nowhere, one that shatters convention and drastically changes the course of what we consider to be “good music”.  In the 60′s, The Beatles, Beach Boys and Velvet Underground shaped what music could become.  The 7o’s exploded into psychedelic adventure with artists like Pink Floyd and David Bowie, while bands like Sly & The Family Stone and Marvin Gaye advocated social change – before Led Zeppelin eventually kicked our doors down with a sonic wall of noise unlike anything white people had ever heard.  Punk Rock charged us into the new era of music with The Sex Pistols and Ramones stomping out the disco movement from both sides of the Atlantic, bringing a ferocity that was only tamed by acts like The Cure and The Smiths, later in the decade.  When the indulgence of the “Me Decade” had run fully rampant, Nirvana and N.W.A. arrived… all revolutionary acts, all stood to inspire countless acts to follow, and all signed to major label distribution deals.

Aside from being pushed by “the man,” each of the above musical revolutions had one thing in common:  Each was also heralded as a savior upon arrival by the “mainstream” press.  Yes, the hipsters may have argued semantics, like whether or not Mudhoney or Screaming Trees were better than Nirvana in their day, but none of it actually mattered.  Those conversations were reserved for bars and coffee shops, never influencing the masses.  While the waifish, t-shirted throngs argued the superiority of Mark Lanegan’s growl or the raw, edginess of Sub Pop era “Grunge” bands who lacked the widespread accolades being foisted upon Kurt Cobain, countless teenagers picked up guitars and began learning to play “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.  Young people, in whom the spirit of rock and roll truly exists, were oblivious to the petty bickering and cynical snubs of their older, “wiser” music aficionados.  From there, a generation of bands rose from the garages and basements of America to take back the guitar.

Today, our petty bickering isn’t just being aired for the world to see, it is somehow managing to define the musical tastes of an entire generation.  While our society is due for another musical explosion, the kind of record that unites the world and fuels the future, it is being met with message board snark and hissing reviews on YouTube.    The cyclical nature of popular music tends to suggest that we are not only due for that evolutionary explosion, but we are actually quite overdue.  The last, great cultural landmark album to make its stamp both critically and in the popular culture may have been Radiohead’s masterpiece, “OK Computer”… thirteen years ago.  Meaning that an entire generation of kids are now reaching the prime age to pick up an instrument and change the world, having never lived to experience such a musical event.

Such albums have bubbled up, seemingly ready to tackle the conventional and spare us all from the hum-drum world of stale, lifeless radio.  Yet time and time again, just as those records began to truly show their ability to influence, they were met with scorn from “fans” who lived only to prove their worth by disparaging the artists work in the interest of staying ahead of the mainstream.   If ever an album seemed to be poised to explode, taking the world in a direction we’d never seen and ensuring its place among the legendary releases of days past, it seemed to be Arcade Fire’s brilliant major debut, “Funeral”.  It hit on every note:  technical wizardry, powerful lyrics, pop sensibilities, and nearly any other piece of the puzzle required to become a generation-defining, seminal record.  Tragically for Arcade Fire, while the album certainly made its mark, the impact was drowned out by pointless debates over its worth, beating it about the head and chest and turning a beautiful work of art into nothing more than a piece of an argument.  It became impossible to simply embrace the charms of “Funeral” without arming yourself to the teeth and battling back fans of Animal Collective, Dungen or Fiery Furnaces – all vying to lay stake to the claim of “Best Album of the Year”.

While before us we saw what could have been a major shift in the state of modern music, our valiant hipsters brought their closed-door shouting matches into the mainstream, killing the momentum and turning a movement into an afterthought.  The argument became more important than the music.  The nerds crawled back into the basement, arguing over which of the cheerleaders was hotter over a game of Dungeons and Dragons, forgetting the fact that they were still being beaten up by the football team on a daily basis.  And while we argued over the petty, debating the relevance of one album in the grand scheme of things, the public at large continued to make Nickelback into the biggest rock band on the planet.

But then again, maybe that is the legacy of Arcade Fire.  While the world waited for the next genre-busting experiment from a previously unknown group of rock gods, maybe the explosion came with a whimper… and maybe that whimper was the explosion.  As more and more music becomes available, and as more opinions cloud what could be (turning it into what never was), we may find ourselves staring at a new dawn in the world of rock and roll.  The mega-album may be a thing of the past, and the great fracturing of rock and roll may be an unavoidable reality.  It seems almost unthinkable to ponder a world in which the generation-defining album has become a thing of the past, but the evidence is mounting and the jury seems poised and ready to deliver a verdict.  While I’ll always long for the days of the communal, “let’s all hop on board the bandwagon” album, the cynical hipster still living in me fears that those days are gone.  If that’s the case, then I guess I’ll just have to adapt along with the rest of the world.  But there is one thing I’ll say for certain:  If I hear the word “dubstep” one more time, I may kill myself.

However, it seems that throughout history, one specific type of music has drawn more scorn on a national stage than others.  That music has been and continues to be hip hop.  As a music, and as a culture, hip hop has never faced acceptance from those who wish to seek out any possible reason to complain.  In the 80’s it was destroying our youth… well… I’ve never really been sure why it was destroying our youth in the 80’s.  I realize that Run DMC and The Beastie Boys weren’t exactly Peter, Paul & Mary, but that entire wave of controversy escapes me to this day.  In the 90’s it was violent gangster rap promoting the criminal lifestyle.  In the 2000’s it has become the misogynistic nature of lyrics (although, to be fair that one has been around for a while).

But an honest question worth asking to those who find these lyrics so objectionable is:  Exactly what do you find so objectionable?

The common complaints are that women are treated like objects in songs, that the filthy language and lack of romance in the top 40 somehow demeans women.  Not only do I find this to be a rather large leap of logic, but I find the statement inherently sexist.  I have listened to countless hours of these “demeaning” songs, and I want to make perfectly clear of one thing:  the women described in these auditory, bawdy adventures are not being raped.  While the airwaves may be populated with massively successful songs about sexual intercourse, the sexual intercourse described in these songs is always consensual and more often than not, celebrated.

With the exception of artists like Too $hort (the most extreme example), these songs don’t focus on a series of sexual conquests, but rather on a specific object of desire.  While country music, rock, pop and of course hip hop have always featured songs about nameless women drawing the eye of a man, there is a frequent, giant leap associated with hip hop that assumes each of these songs has to be about a different woman.  When audiences listen to song after song about the art of seduction in other genres, it’s (I can only assume) implied that these men and women are merely commenting on the feelings they share for their long-term, monogamous relationship partner.  Otherwise, where lies the outrage?

From 1973-1983, Conway Twitty had arguably the most successful run of singles in any decade in country music history.  These songs, considered classics, played frequently on the radio and never once challenged these days, feature some of the most sexually charged (and by the above standard misogynistic) lyrics you’re likely to read in any genre of music.  “You’ve Never Been This Far Before,” “Linda On My Mind,” “The Games that Daddies Play,” “I’ve Already Loved You In My Mind,” “I’d Love to Lay You Down” and “Tight Fittin’ Jeans” represent just a small sample of the songs deemed perfectly appropriate for children by modern audiences, and also happen to house some of the most sexually charged lyrics ever broadcast on public airwaves.  While Conway is meeting women in bars, cheating on his partner, seducing other men’s wives and taking the virtue of nearly every woman within a 500 mile radius, simply commenting on a girl in “apple bottom jeans” has somehow become the scorn of media watchdogs and parents groups worldwide.

Realistically, there are only two logical explanations for how one genre is filled with whimsy and good times, while the other is a danger to society:  culture and language.  While most consumer advocates preach against the sexualization of our youth through popular music, they seem to overlook the fact that the acts portrayed in these songs are the exact same acts portrayed in all artforms since the dawn of time.  The issue isn’t subject matter, the issue is language… and based on the common argument, that issue doesn’t hold water.

Words do hold power, more power than anything else we have.  However, a singular word with a singular meaning holds no power whatsoever, outside of describing the act or subject in question.  If our great cultural fear is that our sons and daughters will begin having sex, inspired by hearing how wonderful it is from modern music, then we must ask ourselves why that wasn’t our fear when countless other genres of music addressed the same topic.  Suggesting that a word can be obscene is, in itself, an obscene suggestion.  While tastes may dictate the usage of certain language in certain circles, there is no mistaking the intent of the word.

For example, the massive success of the Boyz II Men song “I’ll Make Love to You” in the 1990’s, a song played at nearly every high school and junior high dance and played into the ground by every radio station on earth.  Now, change the phrase “Make Love” to “Fuck,” “Screw” or any other word you deem substantially offensive.  Has the nature of the song changed?  Has the theme of the song changed?  Has anything whatsoever about this sweet, innocent song changed in any way as far as the content is concerned?  Of course not.  Thus, the argument that our children are being bombarded with sexuality appears to have something more to do with how it’s phrased than what it actually represents.

Of course, there is another explanation.

More often than not, groups who protest the language in music tend to fall into a certain stereotype:  white, middle-aged, religious females with children.  Now there is certainly nothing wrong with that group of people, I happen to have one as a mother.  But when you examine the nature of these groups, and examine those leading the protests so aggressively, you see a distinct lack of diversity.  Could it be that these crusaders for decency have, even on a subconscious level, a wholly different objection to this type of music?  Why would listening to pop and country stations be more acceptable than listening to urban stations when the subject matter is practically identical?

It’s actually very simple.  On some level, whether subconscious or fully realized, there is racially motivated fear.  In the minds of many voices of protest, there is an incredible difference between being “made love to” by Tim McGraw and “fucking” Waka Flocka Flame.  Of course, in the actual physics involved, absolutely nothing is different.  There is nothing different in the act, nor in the consequences.  However, the language used and the subject involved seem to trigger an often angry reaction.  I can call my car a curling iron if I so choose, but once I’m behind the wheel, I’m doing the exact same thing.

None of this is new, and none of it will go away in the near future.  Years from now the group allegedly having its mind shredded by the culture of the day will grow up to rail against the culture of their children, never bothering to realize that it’s the exact same thing.  Perhaps we can eventually address our real issues in society, knock off this irritating desire to explain it away as something it isn’t and genuinely made strides toward understanding each other.  If your issue is the idea of your daughter bringing home Waka Flocka, then just say it… his past, present or future in-laws probably agree wholeheartedly.

I have never lived a day of my life without Senator Robert Byrd representing the people of the state of West Virginia, a state I love dearly.  His tireless efforts, stretching further into his life than anyone could have imagined, have contributed to the lives of generations of those of us who call the state home, for the good and the bad.  But Senator Byrd’s politics aside, on this day it is important to remember the power of change, not just in our government but in ourselves.

As many of you may know, as a young man Senator Byrd joined the most despicable and wretched terrorist organization that our nation has known – The Ku Klux Klan.  His actions at the time horrendous, this learned behavior of white supremacy led him to take up arms against the Civil Rights Act, delivering one of the most shocking and appalling speeches in modern political history by way of a filibuster.  He stomped and spewed vile hatred with every breath, eventually stepping aside as the forces of progress became too strong to fight.

Then, something happened.

As time marched on, and the world became a better place, Senator Byrd came to a profound realization.  He took stock of his past, realized the error of his ways and began to change the man inside.  His public opinions and votes moved from those of the most deeply-rooted racist, to those of a man eager to understand what he misjudged and desperate to atone for his sins.  The fiery hate in his heart cooled, and his mind opened to the world around him.  While Senator Byrd remained imperfect, his steps toward changing his worldview helped shape the future of our nation and perhaps helped cool the spirit of hatred in many of his countrymen.

Once among the most vicious racists to ever set foot in the Senate Chamber, Robert Byrd died with a 100% rating from the NAACP, never backing away from his past and always taking any opportunity to apologize, and to help heal the wounds that he admittedly helped create.  As he evolved, so did the nation.  The state of West Virginia, once a hotbed of racist extremism, offered up 42% of the vote to Barack Obama in 2008… a statistic that would have been deemed utterly impossible on the day Byrd first took office in the U.S. Senate.

Attitudes change, and have changed in our region.  I once heard a dear friend remark, “When Martin Luther King was killed, I laughed and drank a beer.  I can’t imagine why I did that, and I’ll never forgive myself.  I was just young and stupid.”  It is that genuine change of heart, earnestly expressed, that prevailed through Byrd’s final years.  He witnessed the changes in his party, his state, his country and the world, and into his 90’s still championed civil rights and justice for all people.  In a society where almost all apologies for misdeeds begin with “I apologize if I may have offended anyone…” Byrd delivered unvarnished apologies, genuinely sickened by his mistakes.

As we mark today in history, a day when a giant has truly passed away, it is important to remark on what will truly be his legacy.  A legacy of change and a legacy of redemption.  There will be time to study his policies, time to argue over votes on a certain bill or the acquisition of a certain project.  There will be time to argue and debate childishly over issues that we don’t fully understand.  But today, just for today, it is important to remember one thing, the one thing that I believe Senator Byrd would want to be his legacy:  within all of us, no matter how sordid our past, lies the ability to change.  There is no soul without redemption, and that change may not stop at our own doorstep, but may in fact change the entire world.

Good night, Senator Byrd.  You will never be forgotten.

But while those of us fortunate to still draw air into our lungs go on with our lives, the heartbreak in Montcoal, WV will live on in very real ways, for a very long time.  It is in times like these that we all must ask ourselves the important questions.  Even during our time to mourn, even during our time to heal, we must strengthen our resolve and work together to make this important industry, an industry that supplies the lifeblood for entire regions of our nation, a safer and more accountable practice.

Massey Energy C.E.O. Don Blankenship is a monster.  I have no qualms making this statement, as it is one that I have echoed for years.  While dedicated employees risk their lives to create a better world for us all, Blankenship historically and without question flaunts the very regulations and requirements that keep these men and women safe.  In six of the past ten years, in just the specific mine in question, Massey recorded an injury rate higher than the national average.  In 2009 alone, the Upper Big Branch mine was assessed with $897,325 in fines stemming from 458 specific safety violations, 57 of which came in the last month alone.  Many of these violations specifically related to issues within the mine’s ventilation system, the same ventilation system believed to be responsible for the disaster we witness today.

The curious nature of Blankenship’s relationship with enforcement officials can be traced back to the oldest form of politics in history.  Cash and carry government.  As the nation’s 4th largest energy provider, Massey took in an impressive $24 million in the fourth quarter of 2009, heaping huge salaries on their C.E.O.  Embracing the “what’s good for business is good for me” attitude, the wealthy (albeit somewhat eccentric) Blankenship has historically taken a large role in local government.  Throughout his dabbles in the political realm, Blankenship has contributed thousands of dollars to pro-deregulation candidates in the state, most visibly sinking millions into a smear campaign against a West Virginia State Supreme Court Justice in 2004.  The well funded and well organized attack worked, allowing Blankenship’s candidate a seat on the court, a seat he refused to recuse himself from as a $70 million lawsuit against Massey sat before him.

The long arm of Massey reaches far into the state, even bringing the propaganda machine into the back yards of West Virginians.  In 2009, Massey sponsored the “Friends of America Rally,” complete with entertainment from Conservative icons Sean Hannity, Ted Nugent and Hank Williams Jr.  The event, free to the public, provided a much needed escape for the local community, all with a very specific political idea behind the curtain. “Our responsibility to the people of Southern West Virginia is to protect jobs not only here in West Virginia but America as well, being the son and grandson of West Virginia coal miners, we must keep these jobs from being regulated out of existence by policies that would harm working families,” read the Massey press release.  With a grin and a lawn chair, people listened to “Family Tradition” as the traditions of their own families, the safety regulations that their grandfathers bled for, were slowly chipped away by the highest bidder.

In the case of Massey energy, and those who work each day to skirt the law, individuals are employed to search for loopholes and in many instances flatly refuse to pay fines or bring their workplaces up to code.  The time for fines and strongly worded letters has come to an end.  How many more courageous, hard working miners must lose their lives before criminal charges are brought against those who would routinely and without conscience endanger their lives to extend the bottom line?  How many more rallies must be held to promote deregulation and the loosening of safety standards before we stand up to this injustice?

In the coming days another news cycle will erupt around another issue.  There will be a scandal in Washington, there will be a controversy somewhere in the heartland and another politician will say something profoundly absurd.  When that happens, we will turn away from the victims of this disaster, compartmentalizing the sadness and empathy we feel for the families in order to move on to the next water cooler topic.  For those in Southern West Virginia, the time to mourn is only beginning, and no amount of Washington posturing is going to erase the incredible sadness that permeates the air.  I ask you only for one small consideration before we all move back to worrying about Lindsey Lohan, the upcoming baseball season or the next battle between Rachel Maddow and Glenn Beck:  I ask you to remember the sacrifice so many make for our convenience.  Because in many ways, the coal industry has changed in the past 100 years, but in many others it remains exactly the same.

1.  The older you get, the more conservative you’ll become.

2.  A conservative is just a liberal who has been mugged.

While those time-honored clichés still exist (and will likely continue to do so until the end of time), the aging process has, in my case, proven them to be both correct and incorrect.  The common theory is that age causes us to lose the doe-eyed liberalism of our youth, eventually succumbing to the harsh reality of the world around us and shifting a belief system to reflect that changing perspective.  We’re led to believe that as the world begins to show its true colors (whether it be through taxation, crime or general cynicism) the perception of our surroundings begins to change, thus altering our political allegiances.

Having recently turned thirty, my ever-vigilant analysis of what I believe and don’t believe has indeed changed.  Gone is the Green Party Socialist of 2000, replaced by a more moderate voice and a willingness to examine issues for what they are and not for what they “should be” in a perfect world.  Thirty years of living has convinced me that these changes in perspective should be directly attributed to my growing distrust of the government, my desire to keep more money in my wallet and my eventual plans to support a family in a safe, comfortable world.  However, genuine exploration of what has caused these internal changes doesn’t support this theory in the least.  In fact, as I’ve grown older I’ve found myself becoming more compassionate and even more optimistic about the world as a whole.

This led me to question the logic of these long-held assumptions about exactly what moves a young, rebellious liberal from the camp of Ralph Nader and into the camp of a more reasoned, moderate political voice.  It couldn’t be age, as I still feel roughly 25 (and often 15).  It couldn’t be victimization, as I’ve only once been the victim of crime (and a fairly tame one at that).  It couldn’t be the cold, creeping cynicism of an unlovable world, as I have a better (albeit still quite flawed) understanding of the world and cultures around me than ever before.  After much thought I came to understand that the shirking of partisanship on my part comes not from any outside influence, but rather from simple maturation… not just as a person, but as a follower of the global political process.

For many, many years I operated in much the same way as the talking heads on television, the radical eco-protestors and the rabid tea party activists that devour our political process like locusts each day.  The formula is remarkably simple:  pick an issue, choose the side most closely affiliated with your “party,” find “facts” to support your side and go to battle.  Any information that may contradict your opinion is to be labeled as “biased,” “false” or in some cases “a vast conspiracy by the (insert party) to destroy the (insert movement/cause/thing).”  Actual research is to be discarded and evaluating both sides of an argument is very nearly blasphemy.  Impartial, well-researched sources of information are discarded if they happen to disagree with what we see on DailyKos or FreeRepublic.  Internet rumors become truth, message boards become sources and the hope for rational debate dies more each day as we surround ourselves with like minded-strangers, fueling anger and spreading misinformation.

Hello, my name is Cory, and I’m a partisan douchebag-aholic.

Or at least I used to be.

The reverse-understanding of an issue (choosing a side then researching only talking points) is not only a dangerous practice, but it leads to a kind of stunning ignorance.  While it may seem relatively harmless for the lone nut in Vermont or Texas to hold an outrageous political belief, that harmless lone nut now has a voice… thanks to the gears of the internet, and often loud voice.  These viewpoints aren’t particularly dangerous (unless held by a potential terrorist threat of any stripe), but the exponential growth of these viewpoints, taken as fact and developed into a voting bloc, should be cause for alarm for any sane human being.  In the last decade we have seen these theories take root, creating alarmingly large groups of organized individuals who believe that George W. Bush was a co-conspirator in the 9/11 attacks and that Barack Obama is a Kenyan-born Muslim sleeper-agent.  The incoherent ramblings of the crazy man on the corner have become “legitimate” blogs, linked to propoganda sites on both political extremes.  People working backwards, making up stories and quoting other fabricated stories as fact to further an unstoppable spin-machine of misinformation.

With political maturation comes the understanding that no “side” in our great debate gets it right 100% of the time (or honestly, even 75% of the time).  From Presidents Washington to Obama, there were scandals, disasters, mistakes and cases of bad judgment.  However, it is our willingness to deceive ourselves and those around us, hiding those mistakes in order to prop up a specific agenda, that threaten the future of our nation.  Ronald Reagan’s tax policies were disastrous to lower and middle-income families, but in the name of Saint Reagan, those facts must be obscured.  Bill Clinton rollicked along with a hefty deficit until the Gingrich Revolution curbed spending and left us with a budget surplus, but far be it from Democrats to acknowledge this.  In the world of political immaturity, every person holding political office (from city council to president) must be defined as “good” or “bad,” thus causing their policies to fall into the previously associated category.  While anyone with the ability to actually see the forest would note the absurdity of this line of thought, those of us in the trees seem to find it perfectly reasonable.

Too many voices in our community create emotional attachments to political issues which are by nature defined by facts.  Opinions matter, they shape debate and direct policy as it benefits and/or repairs damaged parts of our government.  Opinion, however, should never be driven by emotion or what we want to be true.  With very few exceptions, no issue facing the world today is cut and dry or black and white… no matter how much we may want them to be.  We have allowed ourselves to be defined by strangers on screens, building our viewpoints not on what actually has or is likely to happen, but on what Glenn Beck or Ed Schultz have decided will happen.  Instead of creating an atmosphere of differing viewpoints, we label some experts as liberal and some as conservative, dismissing any ideas the other side may have.  Perhaps most alarmingly, we have created demographics of ignorance within our society that must be placated by politicians seeking re-election.  When alarmists of any kind vote in numbers, they tend to elect like-minded alarmists.  As gerrymandering becomes a common practice in Washington, our nation is being carved up into ideological districts, feeding the paranoia machine and creating an unbreakable gridlock in our nation’s capital.

Why?  Because for the most part, we’re a nation of spoiled children.

We want the economy fixed now, despite the fact that you can’t fix an economy overnight.  We want the earth cleaned up now, despite the total impossibility.  We want services from our government to be run efficiently and without delay, but we won’t pay for it.  We want criminals off of the streets, but won’t fund the jails to house the offenders.  We want to close the borders, but we won’t pay another fifty cents for a head of lettuce.  In short, while many have reached (or in my case are striving for) maturity in our view of the government, many simply have not.  The endless cable news cycle has watered-down our definition of an “expert” to the level at which any person able to form a coherent statement (and some who can’t) is given the title.  By those standards, we’ve convinced ourselves that we’re all experts… even when our best answer to a problem is “we need something done, just not that.”

I’m certain that I’ll still resort to partisan flame-throwing and temper tantrums again in the future.  Coming of age politically in the late 90′s and 2000′s seems to make that tragic fact an almost guarantee.  However, I write this short manifesto as the first New Year’s Resolution that I intend to keep.  I promise to make a genuine effort to better understand issues, to examine all sides and to avoid inflammatory rhetoric when making a decision on any given topic.  I pledge to accept the best solution and most reasonable response, even if said solution falls outside of my comfort zone.  I also plan to remove myself (as best I can) from arguments driven by emotion, choosing only to share ideas and work toward a common understanding with those around my life.

Or, if you’re into the whole brevity thing, I plan to grow the hell up.

While it’s certainly refreshing to hear rehashed and largely unfounded accusations thrown about on what is allegedly the “World Wide Leader in Sports,” it is even more exciting to hear how a man is lacking in character from anchors who have, in their past, done everything from choke young players, fabricate scandals for personal gain, blame innocent fans for a potential World Series loss and engage in both unchecked jingoism and gay-baiting.  Truly, these are the names that should sit atop the Mount Rushmore of “character” and serve as the beacon of light in these murky times.

However, what if by some chance these great and proud sports luminaries were… well… lying?  What if these individuals were deliberately ignoring facts surrounding a situation and allowing their opinions to be governed only by emotions, personal opinions or allegiances to other programs?  Surely a network large enough to be the sports leader of the entire world could provide them with crack teams of researchers to guarantee that those opinions they share with us each day are based in fact… right?

“We’ve gotten into this situation where integrity is really lacking and that’s why I’m glad I’m not coaching,” Knight said.  “You see we’ve got a coach at Kentucky who put two schools on probation and he’s still coaching.  I really don’t understand that.”

Throughout his career, Bobby Knight has been regarded as the “great teacher of basketball,” shaping often average talent into great players and even greater men.  Surely this man, regarded for his intellect, is capable of using Google (or at least using the vast resources surrounding him) to determine whether his statement is based in fact or simply pulled out of thin air.  You would hope for this kind of accuracy from such a highly regarded “teacher,” but perhaps Knight’s memory is fading in his older years.  While UMass did have a tournament run (and thus a Final Four appearance) vacated, there were no additional sanctions placed on the university.  Furthermore, in a letter obtained by the New York Daily News, Calipari was completely exonerated of any wrong-doing by the NCAA, saying “The committee fully recognizes you had nothing to with the violations of Marcus Camby during the 1995-96 season. In a sense, you were an innocent victim.”  It is also worth noting that the University of Memphis is currently appealing any NCAA sanctions, thus rendering Knight’s statement a complete fabrication at this point, and at best only partially true at some point down the road.  In short, Bobby Knight can have his choice between being ignorant of the facts, a liar or simply just a mean old bastard with borderline sociopathic tendencies.

In the article, Mariotti stated, “Calipari fled as the investigations were ongoing — first to the NBA‘s New Jersey Nets, then to underachieving Kentucky, where the giddy natives were thrilled to have him and apparently don’t care if a marquee-name coach has ax-murdered 20 people.”

ESPN columnist and “First Take” talking face, Jemele Hill, suggested that Kentucky fans would be satisfied with Charles Manson as their head coach as long as the team is winning.

In these two comments we are once again enlightened by our ESPN overlords as to how we as a fanbase see the world.  What I find tough to understand about these particular comments is exactly where our murderous wrath has originated.  To the best of my knowledge, no Kentucky coaches have ever actually murdered anyone.  Granted, the National Right to Life movement may see ONE Kentucky coach as a murderer, but I’m fairly sure that he’s no longer wearing blue these days (and is incidentally off-limits for scorn at the “World Wide Leader”).  In fact, when one looks at the coaching lineage at the University of Kentucky in the past 40 years, it’s rather difficult to see much tolerance for the murderous type.  If we’re to be considered a scandalous program over the past four decades, that reputation could only come from Eddie Sutton (who was run thoroughly out of the state for his transgressions), or in some small way from Billy Gillespie (I’d point out that any publicly accepted Gillespie scandals took place before and after his tenure at UK).  Surely these incidents wouldn’t give an entire program such a reputation, as they were all dealt with immediately.  Say what you will about the program, but I will not stand by and allow Joe B Hall and Tubby Smith to be accused of murder!

Of course, this ridiculous and shockingly ignorant assumption comes on the back of the hiring of Coach Calipari, who somehow has managed to gain the reputation of the homicidal maniac of the NCAA.  So. let’s call a spade a spade.  If Calipari is history’s greatest monster for having not one, but TWO Final Four appearances vacated, then let’s take a look at some of the other demons lurking throughout NCAA history.

Jim Calhoun – UConn’s 1996 NCAA tournament appearance has been vacated by the league, and the team is currently under investigation for recruiting violations between 2006-08 as player Nate Miles allegedly received lodging, meals and representation from an agent.

Lute Olsen – While the great talking-head factory gears up to discuss the possibility of Sean Miller’s Arizona team being the first Wildcat squad not to make the NCAA tournament in 25 appearances (the nation’s longest streak) they will, as they did last season, breathlessly overlook the fact that Arizona has a vacated appearance in 1999, after Jason Terry decided to take money from an agent.

Jim Valvano – An inspirational figure and sacred cow in the ESPN family, Valvano (like Calipari) has tournament appearances vacated from both Iona and NC State.  While the violations were certainly occurring without Valvano’s knowledge, the same method used to clear his name has not been applied to John Calipari.

… and perhaps the granddaddy of them all…

John Wooden – No name causes more slobbering and fondling of genitals in the ESPN studios than that of John Wooden.  However, often forgotten are the 15 years Wooden spent at UCLA with ne’ery a title to show for his efforts.  Interestingly enough, after the arrival of new booster and generally shadowy figure Sam Gilbert, the team began to take off in a different direction.  In the 12 years after Gilbert arrived (and opened his checkbook to figures such as Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton), the Bruins put together their now legendary dynasty.

The list goes on and on, from Rick Pitino’s behavior as an assistant at Hawaii to Gene Keady’s misdeeds near the end of his run with Purdue.  In fact, since Calipari’s vacated Final Four in 1996 both Minnesota (1997) and Ohio State (1999) have vacated Final Four appearances.  For all of the pounding on the pulpit we’ve heard in the past few days about “ethics” in college sports, these facts seem strangely absent from the discussion.

To put it bluntly, many of the ladies and gentlemen placed in front of a camera to give us “insight” into the world of sports know absolutely no more than the rest of us.  While we, as lowly fans, may choose to actually look into an issue to find the truth at the heart of the matter, their egos prohibit them from accepting even the slight possibility that they may be wrong on any given issue and thus create a national discussion awash in misinformation and factually ignorant opinion.  Their biases shine through, overlooking what may have been done by someone they admire (or in some cases by someone their employers simply refuse to allow to be taken to the carpet) in the interest of playing up to what market research says will draw in a crowd.  It isn’t popular to bash John Calipari in Kentucky, but it is popular to do so in the rest of the lower 47 states. Facts be damned and the truth serving only as a hinderance to higher ratings, this kind of schlock is to be expected from “analysts” who see themselves more as media personalities and less as journalists every day.

As far as Bobby Knight goes, anyone willing to look at the situation honestly has to address the fact that Knight is an old man watching the game pass him by.  In Knight’s era, a coach could recruit in his backyard with the hopes of developing talent over a four-year span.  In 2009, the presence of AAU basketball, And 1 Mix Tapes and higher-profile athletes has managed to render that style of coaching obsolete.  No coach in the game of basketball has adapted to the modern player in the way Calipari has, and no coach seemed more bewildered by the modern-era than Knight toward the end of his career.  Unfortunately, Bobby Knight decided to direct his ire at one man, never stopping to wonder if just maybe he was angry at the game itself.  Of course, he does happen to work in front of the camera now… and for a man with an ego the size of his, I fear for the interns.

Readers are surely aware that I’m a sports fan, primarily a football fan.  During the fall months I tend to become slightly obsessed with the sport. Whether it’s the trading deadline, fantasy football rosters or injury reports, watch and reading about the game of football consumes a tremendous amount of my free time… free time that has now been invaded by debates over whether or not Rush Limbaugh should become an NFL owner.  Let me say, on the record, that I have no personal objection to Rush Limbaugh owning a piece of the St. Louis Rams.  He has the money, thus he has a right to make an offer to own his chunk of the team (although, the fact that said team is the RAMS does make me wonder if Rush is back on his meds).  However, buying a professional football team isn’t like strolling into the bank and taking out a loan to build a Starbucks.  The NFL is one of the most popular and profitable organizations in the entire world, one which very carefully crafts an image to maintain this level of profitability and one with eyes clearly set on expanding the game world wide through possible team placement in Toronto and rumored Super Bowls in London.

To put it simply, NFL ownership is an extremely elite club.  One does not simply walk into NFL ownership.

In the last 24 hours, news has come forth that Limbaugh has been dropped from the group vying for Rams ownership.  Naturally, this news has served as a rallying cry for Limbaugh’s fans for various boycotts of the league, protest letters, etc.  A quick journey through the blogosphere made apparent a few common claims as to why Rush won’t be saddling up in the owner’s box in the near future, and in the interest of shedding a bit of sanity on this issue I’d like to take a moment to explain exactly why these claims are ridiculous.

1.  The NFL is racist, promoting African-American interests over those of white folk.

Why is this crazy?  In a league whose player demographic reaches roughly 70% black, the National Football League features exactly one black owner and six head coaches.  While the mark of six African-American head coaches is more closely representative of the NFL as a whole than it has been in the past, the idea that somehow the league is guilty of “reverse-racism” is laughable.  For Limbaugh fans to argue that somehow any form of anti-Caucasian sentiment played a part in his opposition, these individuals would have to willfully ignore the most glaring and obvious facts available.  The NFL is a league dominated on the field by minorities and dominated in the front office by old, white men.  Since Limbaugh (to the best of my knowledge) wasn’t trying out for quarterback of the Rams, that simply won’t wash.  Although, he might have had far more success in that venture.

2.  The NFL is an organization of liberals, shutting Rush out because of his conservative views.

Why is this crazy?  The NFL is anything but an organization of liberals.  The Center for Responsive Politics closely analyzed the patterns of political contribution from NFL owners and employees from 1989-2009, in an attempt to gauge the politics of the league.  To the shock of what should be almost no one, the National Football League leans conservative… very conservative.  In that 20 year span, the political contributions of those active in the league totaled $6.9 million, with 78% of those donations going to Republican candidates.  The idea that a vast left-wing conspiracy exists in a league overwhelmingly dominated by Republican donors seems a little hard to swallow to those willing to spend sixty seconds on a Google search.

3.  The NFL will give “second chances” to dog fighters, violent criminals and drug abusers, but not to Rush Limbaugh.  Clearly this is due to their anti-conservative bias.

Why is this crazy?  Rush Limbaugh’s problems with NFL ownership don’t come from mistakes he’s made in the past, they come from statements he makes each and every day.  If the league protested his ownership bid based on his past issues with drugs, then this argument would be completely valid.  However, the issue surrounding Limbaugh is not his past errors in judgment, but rather his inflammatory radio program, airing 15 hours weekly in every major market in the United States.  There is no “second chance” for someone who has no intent on ceasing to do the very things that caused the issue in the first place.  Whether you agree with Limbaugh’s statements or do not, it’s impossible to argue that they aren’t controversial in nature.  Unless Rush planned on abandoning his program or turning down the rhetoric, he would continue to cause controversy each day of his life, only now reflecting that controversy on a league ever-concerned with its public image.

So please, Limbaugh fans, stop with the conspiracy theories and the boycott threats.  Remember that the NFL did NOT block your hero from owning the team, his ownership group dropped him like a hot potato once they realized that his presence may complicate matters.  The league, the commissioner and the owners are not involved in a conspiracy to silence conservatives and race played absolutely no role in this (other than Limbaugh’s own controversial and often inflammatory remarks about the issue).  The NFL will “protect the shield” at all costs, especially when those costs could involve an owner turning an entire group of people against a team.

In a league with 1,696 players, 32 head coaches, dozens of assistant coaches and Al Davis all under public scrutiny 24 hours a day, controversy is going to come on a daily basis.  From the top-down, the league works to minimize these incidents, putting out fires all around the country each week in order to keep the appearance of the league as squeaky clean as possible.  There was simply no way that a public figure, one as polarizing and controversial as Rush Limbaugh, was going to be invited into the club.  No one would expect Rush to tone down his show, thus leading to an ongoing situation in which Commissioner Goodell would be forced to react to every single inflammatory comment made by one of his owners.  Aside from an incredible waste of the league’s time, this is the worst nightmare of a league already dealing with DUIs, domestic abuse allegations, PETA protests and, again, Al Davis.

Again, I personally have no problem with Rush buying in to the Rams.  The Rams are terrible, Rush isn’t my favorite person on the planet and any realized player boycott of the team would just make the entire situation into even more of a circus.  Hell, I’d love it!   But realistically, does anyone honestly think that this had anything to do with the man’s politics?  Rush is a controversial figure, trying to gain access to an exclusive club of the most vanilla human beings on earth.  The NFL kiddie table is a small one, currently populated by Al Davis, Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder… I’m sorry Rush, but even with the weight loss you’re just not going to fit.

As a child, I was (like nearly every other child of my generation) infatuated with Michael Jackson. Frankly, it was impossible not to be charmed by a performer electric enough to captivate the world in the way that he did on such a constant basis. I clearly recall hearing Thriller for the first time, injuring myself on two separate occasions imitating dance moves (the roller skate-collar-lift in Bad and of course the lean in Smooth Criminal), and at one point so thoroughly exhausting my cassette of Bad that I began listening to the Weird Al version just to get some semblance of a fix. However, while all of those events still remain fresh in my mind, none of them seemed significant enough to have such an effect on me today, as a rather cynical 29 year-old.

Then came this afternoon, when things began to become more clear. Like over one billion other residents of this turbulent, warring world, I paused my life for two hours to pay tribute to a man who stood taller and larger than any entertainer before him. A man whose contribution to society was so much greater than himself that his passing was met with governments in silence, with mourning in every imaginable language and tears from the eyes of every race on earth. A man whose societal impact warranted sympathies from presidents and kings, from world leaders and common people, a great equalizer that left the same sense of sorrow and loss in the heart of Nelson Mandella that it did someone like myself. While I spent the morning questioning exactly why I felt so moved by this day, the afternoon and the ceremony that followed seemed to put things in perspective.

When I was in the sixth grade, Black or White was simulcast on four different networks (earning Fox its highest ratings share in network history). This move was clearly unprecedented in the history of music video, and as a result, Black or White was the talk of the entire nation on the following Monday morning. Like offices and construction yards worldwide, sixth grade classrooms were certainly not oblivious to discussion of the video, the event, and the surrounding controversy. The next day, during a break in Ms. Whisman’s class, a conversation began in my small corner of the room. I can’t recall the exact group in question, but I do know that one of the involved parties was a young man named Jeffrey, a good friend of mine and somewhat surprisingly (to anyone reading this outside of rural Eastern Kentucky) the only African-American friend I had ever encountered. Jeffrey and I were fast friends upon being thrown into the same classroom in middle school, but throughout my elementary school years I had never actually encountered anyone of a different race.

As the conversation swirled over the video, many of my fellow sixth-graders began to chime in with the standard sixth-grade responses. Michael Jackson was “a queer,” Michael Jackson was “weird,” but even at that age I could understand that there seemed to be something more being said. Finally, as I tried in vain to explain (in the best way that a sixth-grader can) that Michael Jackson was awesome, Jeffrey finally burst into conversation. All of these years later I can still see his face yelling, “You just don’t understand Michael Jackson! When Diana Ross found him he was eating out of a dumpster in Gary, Indiana! If you wonder why he might want to look more like her it’s because she saved his life! You just CAN’T understand Michael Jackson!” At that moment I realized that I clearly didn’t understand that part of Michael Jackson, and as my classmates dismissed the outburst I began to feel something that I couldn’t quite describe. While I was too young to understand it at the time, looking back on the occasion I now realize that I was experiencing my first incident of soft-racism and racial tension on display.

Years later I found myself in a rather tumultuous relationship with what would become my first “real” girlfriend. She was a few years younger than me, and I had gone on to high school and longed for a career as a DJ. My first (and only) actual party gig came in the form of a middle school dance, which I eagerly embraced not only as an actual “gig,” but as a chance to spend some time with a girl I was certain that I loved, but whose parents were rather determined to keep me at a distance. As the dance wound down, and slow dances became a necessity, I decided to play what was then a rather unknown hit from HIStory, the future single You Are Not Alone. As the evening closed, realizing  that she had grown tired of sitting next to me at a table (and not dancing), I threw a bit of caution to the wind and took her hand to dance (remember, this was my first and LAST gig as a DJ). As we danced one of the very few dances we would ever dance as a couple, a feeling of genuine happiness came across both of our faces… and for one moment in time we were perfectly happy. Not just happy, mind you, but that special kind of happy that can only come between the ages of 14-16, and only then if you’re truly lucky.

For years thereafter, Michael Jackson was a constant background player in my life, whether I realized it or whether I didn’t. Whether it was a song on the radio, a sample in a popular song or a cover by some obscure rock band, I was always delighted to hear Michael’s music. However, like most of the rest of my generation, I became jaded and dismissive of his talents, falling under the spell of the tabloid media. I allowed myself to lose focus on the man and the music which had so shaped my life, eagerly gobbling up the latest “news” story about strange behavior. I made every joke, spewed every crass remark and rabidly participated in the machine that worked so tirelessly to destroy the life of a man who had given so much of himself to the world around me.

Then something happened.

Somewhere around 2005, I began to lose a great deal of my cynicism. I had begun a relationship with a new woman, one who I was certain was to be the absolute love of my life. Whether real or imagined, that love caused me to part ways with much of what had defined my character for the better part of a decade, and through that process I began to rekindle my love of Michael Jackson. As I would make trips to and from Lexington, I would frequently listen to my personal collection of his “greatest hits,” a mix I had dubbed C’mon, You Know You Love Mike. As those days evolved into this day, Michael Jackson once again became part of my life… years later and countless sagas after he first entered my life as a zombie (and first as a werewolf, who scared the fuck out of me as a small child).

So, today I sat quietly and observed for the final time a man who has defined my life in ways that I never really understood. As I watched more than one billion people worldwide gather together to celebrate his life and share stories of their own, I felt an incredible sense of guilt. I felt guilt deep in the pit of my stomach. I realized that, without proof or provocation, I had joined the great salivating mob. I realized that I had been an ungrateful consumer of his genius, quick to mock his inner turmoil for the sake of a cheap laugh. I realized that for many years of my life I had repaid the man who provided so much growth for me personally and so much goodwill for the world at large with scorn and disapproval. As I sat watching his oldest daughter fall to pieces, describing her wonderful father, that guilt became an incredible shame.

And at that moment, with a heart filled with memories, guilt, love and shame, I began to cry.

I shed a few tears today, not for Michael Jackson, but for what we have all become. From his birth until his death, Michael Jackson represented a type of child-like innocence. His world was void of the cynicism and heartlessness of modern society, insulating himself from what the rest of the world had become in the only ways that he could. To the rest of the world this behavior seemed so astounding, that it could only be described as “weird,” or something to be mocked as openly and frequently as the ordering of a Coke at your local restaurant. As these thoughts came over me I realized that while I’d often thought of myself as somehow superior to this “freak,” I was actually the freak in the equation. Michael Jackson was, aside from the most astounding entertainer in the history of the world, perhaps the last good soul left among us. Unfortunately, we did the only thing we seem to do well in this society… we worked triple shifts in an unstoppable effort to destroy him.

So, tonight as I lay me down to sleep, I’m making myself a promise. While I will undoubtedly fail from time to time, I am going to make a conscious effort to cast off the needless shell that surrounds so many of us. I will approach people more openly, be more tolerant, be more accepting and above all else, reserve judgment at all costs. I can’t help but feel that if Michael Jackson could leave one legacy in this world, it would be that very idea.  As I say goodbye to Michael Jackson, I say goodbye not only to his legacy but to what was left of my childhood, and hopefully to what was left of my early 20′s.

Oh, and for the record, Barbara Walters just informed the audience of 20/20 of a “little known fact: Michael Jackson was actually discovered by Diana Ross while living in Gary, Indiana.” Thanks Jeffrey, wherever you are tonight, you helped me almost scoop Barbara Walters.