Thoughts on the Passing of an Icon

You would have to be in the darkest reaches of the Amazon jungle not to know about the death of Michael Jackson. Today the worst fears of a nurse who knew him, were realized when it was announced that an anaesthetic drug had been found in the drugs taken from his home, and that his body had been covered in hypodermic needle marks. I had already had thoughts about the comparison with the death of Elvis Presley and the more recent death of Anna Nicole Smith. It would seem that if you have the money, there is no shortage of "not so ethical" doctors who are willing to pander to the every demand of an unstable, insecure person. It has been reported that Jackson was adamantly against street drugs, but that he was comfortable in that all of his drugs were prescribed and therefore "OK". Sadly, he did not account for unethical doctors willing to be "Yes" people for his every demand because he paid them so generously. This is doubly disgusting to me in a country where some truly sick people cannot afford health care.

Then the second strange phenomenon starts in this country - the compulsive obsession of the media with famous people. We are subjected hour after hour, day after day with endless programs about the person, their life, speculation about their death, and a sordid fascination with every ugly piece of half-truth that can be dug up and displayed. Finally, there are those particularly despicable paparazzi who haunt the rich and famous looking for the "sensational" photo that equally sordid tabloids will pay out a fortune to have the exclusive publishing rights. Who needed to see the picture of Jackson, obviously dead, in the ambulance with a trach. tube in his throat? No-one; but someone took it and sold it, so it could be displayed on the media.

On my Facebook page I quoted the following statistics:
Over 25,000 children die every day around the world. That is equivalent to: •1 child dying every 3.5 seconds •17-18 children dying every minute •A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every 1.5 weeks •An Iraq-scale death toll every 16–38 days •Over 9 million children dying every year •Some 70 million children dying between 2000 and 2007 The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases.
I made the plea that if only such information could get the same media attention.

What is our fascination with the sordid and the gruesome? Are we so insecure and fearful about the truth in our own lives that watching someone elses' life details being saturated by the media makes us feel "OK"? So we can say, "Look at that, at least I'm not THAT bad", and then we can continue with our own personal dysfunction. In the recovery programs there is a saying, "When you point a finger, there are three more fingers pointing back at you". If you are someone who has been discussing all of the sordid details of Jackson's life around the water cooler at work - go home and look in the mirror.