Gotta Be Starting Something

Without the permission of my friend Conchita, I am reposting an interesting exchange we had in facebook about the public memorial for Michael Jackson.

My status update: "What, no hysterical public memorials for Robert McNamara?"

Conchita:
Always so wry. Still, don't think it's hysterical to show this emotion. Whether it is Diana, Celia, Kennedy, MLK, or someone who did touch a lot of people. Personally, I believe most are honest in their expression of true admiration and sorrow. I'm just sayin'...
Me:
I respect emotion: I hate sentimentality.
Conchita:
sooooo subjective anyway. i thought most were pretty restrained, actually.
Me:
What I find most appalling, Conchi, apart from Brooke Shields' intervention, is the lopsidedness of the priorities. I like some of MJ's music as much as the next guy, but from there to making him into some kind of world savior seems to me at the very least to be in bad taste. He was a great entertainer. And a seriously disturbed individual. He was no Martin Luther King. Period.
If we could get that same kind of public enthusiasm to bring the soldiers home from Iraq, I wouldn't be so wry about it.
The one moment where I felt the deepest sense of loss, was when they showed him as a child singing "Who's loving you". Smokey said it: he had to have "know" to sing that song like that at that age. And that is truly sad.
In short, am not a monster. ;-)

(But do not get me started on Lady Diana).