I agree with Derb as well. They must not have thought much of the merits of their argument since they spent so much time arguing that Terry would start walking around at any moment.

Unrhetorical question

Why is the MJ trial important? WHat on earth does MJ represent other than good music? If the CEO of Bertlesmen AG was caught in the same kind of trouble no one would care.

(What is Bertlesmen? See, my point exactly. They are a German company that owns most of the English language printed in books )

Why is the MJ trial important? WHat on earth does MJ represent other than good music?

I would disagree with the "good music" part - most pop music, including his, is boring fluff.

What MJ represents is the segment of American society that is too easily drawn into personality cults. Admiring someone is one thing, unquestioning fanaticism is another. I was aghast at the number of talk show callers who are absolutely certain that MJ is not a pedophile. EVEN THE JURORS thought he was a pedophile, but did not believe that the prosecution had sufficient evidence in this case.

MJ has a significant fan base that will note his sleeping with dozens or hundreds of children and disregard any possibility that just maybe he is engaging in any sexual misconduct. Would anybody believe a middle-aged guy who says that his sleeping with dozens of 10-year-old girls is innocent?

I don't believe the segment of Americans drawn into MJ's fan club is terribly huge. More likely, television 'news' personalities were drawn into the story because of cheap, easy news. Most people were forced to watch the saga by default. When the verdict was read, only PBS and niche channels (Cartoon Network, Golf Channel, etc.) kept to their original programming schedule.

The Michael Jackson trial got a lot of coverage because everyone between the ages of 25 and 50 grew up listening to (or at least exposed to) his music. So while virtually nobody has a substantial degree of interest in Michael Jackson, virtually everybody has *some* degree of interest in him.

The latest Star Wars film got a lot of press coverage for a similar reason -- the number of harcore Star Wars fans is reasonably small, but the number of people who watched the films as kids is probably in excess of a hundred million.

Yeah, plus Natalie Portman was in it.

I've chilled on Portman personally, i swear her terrible acting has turned me off, which i understand is strange especially considering such thespian demigods as Tara Reid and Shannon Elizabeth still do it for me. Also, Katie Holmes looks terrible in the new Batman. Something about her face is not right, she's scarier their than the Scarecrow. She looks like she's melting or something.

Still, I'd e-meter her.

Am I the only one who just doesn't get the fascination with Wonkette? Her blog is basically unreadable. Yet somehow she's always getting tapped for all sorts of conferences and she's the go-to person for the media whenever they need a representative of the blog world.

Is it because she's a young woman and sort of cute? Is it the anal sex jokes? Or does Nick Denton just have that much stroke with the media?

I'm just baffled.

Mark Buehner: I've chilled on Portman personally

Ooh, less competition. Yay!

virtually everybody has *some* degree of interest in [MJ]