I’ll buy this. Why? Because I’ve got it- though I’m of Austrian/Russian descent, so it doesn’t show. Plus, I’m a big Todd Browning fan and I take consolation that once, if I got a nice tan like I did when I was a kid (it only showed right before puberty) I could have joined a sideshow as a piebald girl. Maybe even a leopard girl
Yes, yes it is. My proud father once slipped down a set of stairs after showing me off and rolled so he’d take the concrete instead of my little infant head. He never dangled me off a balcony.
AL
Let me tell you, reprise, no insurance client of mine pays a settlement of $30m without being pretty damn sure they are going to lose in court, anyway.
That said, I take your point on the bad publicity angle.
It’s not my battle, but I’m trying to figure out what remark you’re referring to. He wrote “Be a stable man with healthy kids,” not “Be a straight man with healthy kids.”
So shall take all kids whose parents have ever left a pot on the stove, failed to buckle a child in a seatbelt, left the child unattended momentarily in a wading pool, and a whole host of other things which might but will not necessarily lead to a child being harmed away?
I think almost every parent on this planet has at some stage been in a situation where they have been hurt themselves in order to avoid their child being hurt. I also think that almost every parent on the planet has at some time or another made an error of judgement which has compromised their child’s safety. More by good luck than good management, most of the time children are not harmed by such errors of judgement on the part of their parents/care-givers.
No-one is suggesting that what MJ did was smart (and having seen the tape several times now, I think “dangling the child off a balcony” is a somewhat hyperbolic description), but before we start suggesting that his children should be removed from his care, lets remove every one of those children currently in hospital as the result of an accident which could have been prevented by “adequate parental supervision” from their parents’ care.
Perhaps the child welfare system in the US is different to that here, but you’d certainly have a difficult time here getting a court to sanction the removal of a child from their parent in the absence of either extreme, immediate danger to that child or ongoing neglect or endangerment.
Tragic as the consequences of parental errors of judgement can sometimes be, parents - even the best of them - do sometimes exercise bad judgement. And I’ll bet that every one of our parents has a “near miss” story to tell about when something could have gone horribly wrong but did not.
Unlike our parents, or indeed ourselves, Michael Jackson now has the world media pointing out his error of judgement - somehow, I think he might get the point.
I wasn’t indicating that one needed two parents to successfully raise a child, reprise. I was talking about the issue of Michael pushing his virility and the idea that he is so very masculine and such. Gender never entered my post referring to his target audience.
That’s what I love about life here at the Straight Dope… you can always find at least one person willing to try to defend the indefensible with a straw man the size of Nebraska. Well done reprise! :rolleyes:
Good parents make mistakes, too, yeah… but dangling one’s baby over 50 feet of open air isn’t “inadequate parental supervision,” it’s just damn stupid and careless. If that’s what he does in front of the cameras, I’d hate to know what he does when they’re off.
reprise, you misattributed a quote! You’re in big trouble!
I still don’t see what’s bothering you. He didn’t mean “where are the women?”, he meant “where are the girls?” In other words, why does he only like male children, if he has no sexual interest in children?
I beleive “Where are the girls” referred to small girls, children. If he loves kids so much, why do you only see him with little boys instead of little boys and girls.*
*I haven’t myself bothered to make that observation; I’m just translating.
Just imagine, next time he does it…he has a doll instead and does drop it…boy that would really fuck y’all up. he-he
Yeah, he’s a sick pup allright…so why’s so many friggin people as crazy as he is. The guy’s not exactly unpopular. I saw his last act that was aired…IT SUCKED All he did was walk around, rolling his hat and grabbing whatever is between his legs and whispering in the mike. The audience went apeshit, you know what?
Remember the Emperor’s new clothes? Well, King Mike is showing his ass.
I’ve always given MJ the benefit of the doubt here (although it’s been extremely difficult at times), and assumed that he likes boys because they remind him of the childhood he never had. Or maybe he really is a pedophile. But I don’t see that as the only conclusion to be reached from the evidence I’ve seen.
But won’t he have to change the names of his children to:
The artist formerly known as Prince Michael Jackson I
The artist formerly known as Prince Michael Jackson II
and Bob, or Paris or whatever the other one is called.
Before anyone takes out their pitchforks, what Michael did was stupid. NOONE is disputing that fact.
However, it does not mean he should have his children taken away from him. Does every parent who has given their child a whirly deserve to have their kids taken away from them? I mean, spinning a child around to generate centrefugal force could be extremely dangerous if your grip slips.
Who is this Noone person, and why is he disputing that fact?
I’d say that this is just the most recent of many additive reasons to protect those children by removing them. That, and I’ve already broken out the pitchfork, and I do so hate to put it away before the mob rules.
