If O.J. Simpson died tomorrow ...

Would he suddenly just be a Heisman Trophy winner, the first 2000-yard back, a goofy commercial spokesman we fondly remember hurdling through airports?
Because that's how the entertainment world and the network news divisions have treated Michael Jackson.
They all just forgot.
All of it.
How can that be?
Simpson was never convicted of the 1994 murders, just like Jackson wasn't convicted a few years back. Is that the only standard?

 

O.J. was also found responsible for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in a civil trial. The prosecuting attorney in that trial only had to prove a preponderance of the evidence and actually proved his case far more convincingly than the prosecuting attorneys did in the criminal trial.

That, and the fact O.J. wrote his unpublished book If I Did It ensure that he won't be given the Michael Jackson treatment upon death.

 

Are you kidding me? I've seen tons of coverage the last few days of the child molestation accusations and trial.

M.J. left a complicated legacy, and to be sure some networks have done a better job than others putting it in some sort of context and perspective. But to generalize that "they all just forgot" is just not true.

 

Yeah, what they said.

I've been avoiding the MJ media blitz as much as possible, but I've seen plenty of mention about the charges in what I have seen.

That and the comments from my FB friends shows those charges were never forgotten.

I think that OJ sitting in jail right now also keeps his memory in disgrace mode.

 

If O.J. died tomorrow, I think Satan would be out of a job.

 

And with OJ there was a ton of overwhelming physical evidence, DNA, blood, etc., that assured his conviction in the public's eye, if not the jury (I've read columns that say he'd be convicted today because now people "get" DNA evidence better because of the CSI shows). The Jackson evidence was mostly he said/he said, along with the fact he was pretty creepy.

Plus, as others have said, I too have read a ton about the charges in the last few days. Yeah, at the BET awards last night they weren't exactly breaking the case down, but why should at an awards show.

 

.......Nordberg would be very displeased.

 

A good cop, needlessly cut down by some cowardly hoodlums.

 

Keep in mind that the entertainment industry is pretty protective of its own. And weirdness is kind of par for the course. I'm sure that in private they lament M.J.'s eccentricities. But this is like the old adage about being about to talk about your own mama, but no one else had better.

On another note ...

I'm obviously not down with pedophilia. But surely it's a sickness, right? I'm not saying pat the perpetrators on the head and give them a candy bar and lots of love and understanding, but the level of sheer anger and vitriol surprises me when we've grown so much as a society when it comes to understanding mental illness.

 

Tell that to the children being abused and their families, Waylon.

 

some people are just evil.

 

The fact that there are victims doesn't change the fact that it's a sickness. It just changes the way we're forced to deal with it, right?

It just seems silly to me to hate someone for an uncontrollable compulsion that they would certainly get rid of if only they could figure out how. I certainly hate the act it spawns and the lives it ruins. But if someone is truly mentally ill, I find it difficult to hate the person who committed the act.