THE JACKSON ONE
I can say that I really enjoyed the Jackson brothers when they first appeared on the Ed Sullivan program and continued to enjoy watching and listening to the family known as The Jackson Five perform. They were a very talented bunch of young kids and if history is accurate a very demanding father was managing them.
The boys’ rapid rise to fame could also be credited to the CEO of Motown Records, one very talented Berry Gordy.
In more recent times one heard occasionally about LaToya Jackson or Janet Jackson, sisters to the brothers, but rarely about any of the brothers other than the youngest, Michael.
With Michael’s death at the age of fifty recently, I find myself wondering what happened between the time I first saw the Jackson Five and the other day when I watched them loading Michael’s lifeless body into an ambulance.
These children of Joe Jackson were all talented. Michael Jackson was a star before he was a teenager. We loved him just the way he was.
Somehow, Michael did not get that message.
He kept changing himself, primarily through cosmetic surgery. It is not my intention to go into how many cosmetic procedures Michael underwent to look different, but they were many.
I don’t know if he did not like being black, or if he wished he were white, but I do know he took serious steps to lessen the dark tones of his skin. We can assume he did not like his nose because there are numerous recorded operations to change that feature on his face. Did he not appreciate how tremendously popular he was before any of these cosmetic efforts?
In fact, I do not know a single person who thought Michael Jackson improved his appearance through surgery.
What we liked about Michael was his singing and dancing. He was an incredible talent. He made the transition from little boy to grown boy without losing one iota of that talent.
He didn’t need any operations to improve. He also didn’t need any operations to stay atop the pop charts.
So we are left to believe that he just did not like himself very much, or at least not the package in which he arrived.
This is a tremendous sadness and one that undoubtedly applies to other young boys and girls. We as a society must be relentless in assuring our children that it is what they know and what they can do with their talents that determines their real worth.
In the end, in order to perform for us, Michael Jackson reportedly required a daily dose of Demerol, Xanax, Prilosec, Vicodin, Paxil, Soma, Dialaudid and Zoloft.
Can you imagine needing all those drugs to get through your day?
Don’t you think at some point you, or your physician, would decide it just wasn’t worth it and look for another line of work?
I am going out on a limb here, but I just don’t think Michael Jackson was ever allowed to be normal. From the time he was a very little boy he was not only in show business but very successful. That success brought the pressure to continue to perform and to continue to seek the praise of his audience.
Through puberty when most boys are dating, playing sports and dreaming of far away adventures, Michael Jackson was performing and hoping changes in his voice and physical attributes would not ruin his career.
Paul McCartney referred to Michael Jackson as a Man-boy. As I watched Michael grow I never saw a “man” but always a boy.
Michael was always seeking. He was seeking adulation, love, and respect. The ways in which he sought those sometimes brought him into very serious trouble. He was seeking a different face and a different body.
Like Peter Pan, Michael wanted to live in Neverland and to never grow up. He wanted to surround himself with playmates. He wanted to have fun, perhaps the fun he was never permitted as a child. Was he seeking his lost youth?
Writers with degrees in psychology and psychiatry will study the Michael Jackson phenomenon for years to come.
For me, I just wish he had the normal childhood most little boys enjoy and that somehow he could have accepted that people liked him just the way he was, originally.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
IRAN REDUX
Notes of Concern….
Jackson Blair
Iran Redux
The Iranian people are mysterious and interesting. If you study these people when they were known as Persians you will note their patience can run quite thin.
They have shown historically that they will put up with a lot but that there is a line that cannot be crossed.
In the late 1970’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi crossed that line and it brought about the Islamic Revolution that ushered into power the current mullahs and their governments.
Now in 2009 it appears that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his thugs have crossed it.
This situation is still playing out in the streets and squares of Tehran as I write but the most interesting development is one that might not have been expected.
The Supreme Ruler, the religious leader, publically proclaimed Ahmadinejad properly and overwhelmingly re-elected and ordered the people to accept the results of the questionable election and stop demonstrating.
In an Islamic Republic that would have seemed enough to put this matter to rest. If you were watching CNN or FOX or probably any other news channel last weekend you know it did not.
The government has filled the streets with riot police wielding clubs, guns and fire hoses. The people demonstrate anyway.
The religious leaders, the revered mullahs, add their considerable clout to that of the sitting government, but the people demonstrate anyway.
The odds are heavily in favor of Ahmadinejad and his government, but the people demonstrate anyway.
The government has revoked all the foreign press credentials so that no one can report on what is really happening, but the people demonstrate anyway and the reporters are using their cell phone cameras to get the story to the world.
This mini-revolution may well be put down, as was the case in a similar situation in Tianamen Square in Beijing years ago. But the cry of the people has been heard around the world and the legitimacy of the Ahmadinejad government is seriously called into question.
In the earlier revolution The United States government supported the Shah and paid a price for that support for many years to come.
In the current situation President Obama has brought exactly the right policy of non-intervention balanced with criticism of human rights violations and applause for democracy at work.
It took the Iranians some time to bring down the Shah. But down they brought him. It may take them a while with Ahmadinejad but I would not bet against the people of Iran.
Today they are angry and they are taking names!
Jackson Blair
Iran Redux
The Iranian people are mysterious and interesting. If you study these people when they were known as Persians you will note their patience can run quite thin.
They have shown historically that they will put up with a lot but that there is a line that cannot be crossed.
In the late 1970’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi crossed that line and it brought about the Islamic Revolution that ushered into power the current mullahs and their governments.
Now in 2009 it appears that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his thugs have crossed it.
This situation is still playing out in the streets and squares of Tehran as I write but the most interesting development is one that might not have been expected.
The Supreme Ruler, the religious leader, publically proclaimed Ahmadinejad properly and overwhelmingly re-elected and ordered the people to accept the results of the questionable election and stop demonstrating.
In an Islamic Republic that would have seemed enough to put this matter to rest. If you were watching CNN or FOX or probably any other news channel last weekend you know it did not.
The government has filled the streets with riot police wielding clubs, guns and fire hoses. The people demonstrate anyway.
The religious leaders, the revered mullahs, add their considerable clout to that of the sitting government, but the people demonstrate anyway.
The odds are heavily in favor of Ahmadinejad and his government, but the people demonstrate anyway.
The government has revoked all the foreign press credentials so that no one can report on what is really happening, but the people demonstrate anyway and the reporters are using their cell phone cameras to get the story to the world.
This mini-revolution may well be put down, as was the case in a similar situation in Tianamen Square in Beijing years ago. But the cry of the people has been heard around the world and the legitimacy of the Ahmadinejad government is seriously called into question.
In the earlier revolution The United States government supported the Shah and paid a price for that support for many years to come.
In the current situation President Obama has brought exactly the right policy of non-intervention balanced with criticism of human rights violations and applause for democracy at work.
It took the Iranians some time to bring down the Shah. But down they brought him. It may take them a while with Ahmadinejad but I would not bet against the people of Iran.
Today they are angry and they are taking names!
Sunday, June 7, 2009
SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN
Notes of Concern…..
Jackson Blair
“SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN”
On a typical day, June 5th, parents dropped off their small children at a Mexican government subsidized day care center in Hermosillo, Mexico, just as they had done every day, day after day.
This was undoubtedly part of their daily schedule.
Drop off the babies and go to work.
Return after work, pick up the babies and go home.
Again, a pattern repeated, without incident, day after day.
But this day, June 5th, would be different.
The families awoke in the morning and went through their usual ritual: get dressed, dress the baby, have some breakfast, drive to the day care center, and then on to work.
However, a few hours before the babies were to be picked up by their parents, a fire broke out in a building adjacent to the day care center.
The lethal smoke and the flames spread rapidly.
As of the time of my writing, 42 children between the ages of six months and five years of age died and 26 others are still in hospital.
This story is heart wrenching. It is every parent’s worst nightmare.
We all know accidents happen. We also know that some accidents could have been prevented.
Buried way down in the story I read about this is in an international news report stating that this day care center, called the ABC Day Care Center, took responsibility for the care of 170 babies and young toddlers.
In order to provide this care the ABC Day Care Center is reported to have employed six adults.
SIX ADULTS TO CARE FOR 170 CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 6 YEARS!
For the sake of argument, lets assume that each of these six adults could actually carry four children out of the building as the smoke and fire consumed the center. They then could have saved 24 of the 170 children.
If the fire permitted them to return for a second load of kids, they could have saved 48!
One could argue that it was a miracle that well over 100 children were saved. One could also argue that this story suggests an enormous level of incompetence, irresponsibility and criminal negligence.
The fact that this day care was in some way “government sponsored” only angers me all the more.
There surely is no day care advocate, author of day care philosophy, noted authority on children this age, or any other reasonable person who ever suggested that 170 children of any age could be properly watched over by six adults, let alone large numbers of children who could not yet even crawl or walk.
I do not know how poor the village of Hermosillo might be, or how difficult it was for the parents to find work, or how honorable the government’s intention was in supporting this day care center.
What I do know is that this was a formula for failure, a tragedy waiting to happen, and an enormously irresponsible plan at the outset.
Perhaps this tragedy will encourage the government of Mexico to adopt basic standards for day care centers. If so, that is wonderful.
Perhaps this tragedy will encourage parents not to simply accept the easy solution with reference to their children but to demand minimum standards be in place before they entrust care of their children to others.
It is also possible that these parents had no other options and that this tragedy will provide better options for other parents. If so, that is a good thing.
A police officer who participated in the rescue of children, passing them from person to person from a small hole in the wall of the day care center, is reported to have cried out: “Where is God?”
I cannot imagine how horrific the situation must have been to those who were there trying to save those little lives.
That said, there are serious questions in this tragedy, one of them must surely be:
“Where was Man?”
Jackson Blair
“SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN”
On a typical day, June 5th, parents dropped off their small children at a Mexican government subsidized day care center in Hermosillo, Mexico, just as they had done every day, day after day.
This was undoubtedly part of their daily schedule.
Drop off the babies and go to work.
Return after work, pick up the babies and go home.
Again, a pattern repeated, without incident, day after day.
But this day, June 5th, would be different.
The families awoke in the morning and went through their usual ritual: get dressed, dress the baby, have some breakfast, drive to the day care center, and then on to work.
However, a few hours before the babies were to be picked up by their parents, a fire broke out in a building adjacent to the day care center.
The lethal smoke and the flames spread rapidly.
As of the time of my writing, 42 children between the ages of six months and five years of age died and 26 others are still in hospital.
This story is heart wrenching. It is every parent’s worst nightmare.
We all know accidents happen. We also know that some accidents could have been prevented.
Buried way down in the story I read about this is in an international news report stating that this day care center, called the ABC Day Care Center, took responsibility for the care of 170 babies and young toddlers.
In order to provide this care the ABC Day Care Center is reported to have employed six adults.
SIX ADULTS TO CARE FOR 170 CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 6 YEARS!
For the sake of argument, lets assume that each of these six adults could actually carry four children out of the building as the smoke and fire consumed the center. They then could have saved 24 of the 170 children.
If the fire permitted them to return for a second load of kids, they could have saved 48!
One could argue that it was a miracle that well over 100 children were saved. One could also argue that this story suggests an enormous level of incompetence, irresponsibility and criminal negligence.
The fact that this day care was in some way “government sponsored” only angers me all the more.
There surely is no day care advocate, author of day care philosophy, noted authority on children this age, or any other reasonable person who ever suggested that 170 children of any age could be properly watched over by six adults, let alone large numbers of children who could not yet even crawl or walk.
I do not know how poor the village of Hermosillo might be, or how difficult it was for the parents to find work, or how honorable the government’s intention was in supporting this day care center.
What I do know is that this was a formula for failure, a tragedy waiting to happen, and an enormously irresponsible plan at the outset.
Perhaps this tragedy will encourage the government of Mexico to adopt basic standards for day care centers. If so, that is wonderful.
Perhaps this tragedy will encourage parents not to simply accept the easy solution with reference to their children but to demand minimum standards be in place before they entrust care of their children to others.
It is also possible that these parents had no other options and that this tragedy will provide better options for other parents. If so, that is a good thing.
A police officer who participated in the rescue of children, passing them from person to person from a small hole in the wall of the day care center, is reported to have cried out: “Where is God?”
I cannot imagine how horrific the situation must have been to those who were there trying to save those little lives.
That said, there are serious questions in this tragedy, one of them must surely be:
“Where was Man?”
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Saying Goodbye to the "Gray Lady"
Notes of Concern….
Jack Blair
Saying Goodbye to the "Gray Lady"
“The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, ‘The Gray Lady’—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record. The Times is owned by The New York Times Company, which publishes 18 other newspapers, including the International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe. The company's chairman is Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., whose family has controlled the paper since 1896.”
-Wikipedia
I have read The New York Times for as long as I can remember. It is by no means the only paper I read, but I consider it factual, reliable and trustworthy.
Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. is now at the head of the Times organization. A number of years ago Arthur and I were on a white river rafting trip on the Green River which runs from Vernal, Utah, to Dinosaur National Monument, and then through some of Utah's most rugged and remote landscape...before finally meeting up with the Colorado River.
You learn a lot about a fellow when you are working together to keep a small raft from flipping in the rapids. You also learn a lot about people when you are cooking all your meals by an open fire and sleeping in the woods.
Young Arthur is a very bright, well educated and articulate young man. He followed in the footsteps of his father. He has a natural love of the environment and open spaces, a keen interest in the less fortunate, and a strong need to return the family paper to the power and influence it once enjoyed. His family has been the moving force behind The Times forever. Arthur seemed to me then to be well prepared for eventual leadership of the family paper.
Arthur ascended the throne at the Times as a very young man. Following one’s father is always, at best, a difficult assignment. To follow him into the great recessionary period we have today plus the competition presented by the Internet, is a daunting task. When Arthur was named publisher I worried that he was still young for such responsibilities.
He has faced an incredibly difficult tenure. Major players in the stock of The Times have attempted, without success, to pry loose the family hold on the organization. Some of these investment banks have simply cashed out their holdings. Others decided to stay and continue trying to change the management structure.
When one family has such a huge stake in any organization, and many of the generations are living off their stock dividends, it becomes extremely difficult to explain the adverse change in their bank and investment accounts. Imagine the pressure Athur Sulzberger must be under.
Investors have questioned whether a non-Sulzberger executive might be in the best interests of the newspaper and the paper’s stockholders. So far, the family has remained tight and refused any such suggestion. A change in management is impossible the way the stock ownership plan is currently written. The family has the controlling shares.
We are dealing here with a difference in perception. The world has changed remarkably. Newspapers are not only in competition with one another, but with news services and the Internet. Readers can get their news more quickly by simply logging on to their computers, or even their cell phones.
Any newspaper that wishes to remain in business must be mindful of these changes and be willing and able, to accommodate change.
I refer you to the Wikipedia definition above. The old “Gray Lady” does not seem able to change. Like many people, and organizations, change is coming hard to the Times. Arthur may very well be the last member of the family to operate The New York Times.
Investors know that for The Times to survive, change is essential.
The old “Gray Lady” likes things the way they were.
So news organizations have chronicled the agonies at The Times: the dwindling ad revenue, the staff cuts and the ever-smaller circulation.
If The Times was to have any real chance of surviving they surely need to depend on other “gray heads” who actually prefer holding a newspaper. Readers like myself who are not ready to give up the real paper for news online.
We are an aging group and we won’t be able to sustain newspapers forever but we are a group whose support The New York Times should not wish to loose.
That said, a few weeks ago I was speaking to a good friend who is equally dedicated to holding a paper while reading it. We lamented the diminishing size of The New York Times. And we commented on how much less we were getting for our money.
On Sunday, May 24, 2009 the concern became personal.
Tucked into my very thin copy of the Sunday New York Times was a letter from Ms. Yasmin Namini. Ms. Namini is senior vice president for marketing and circulation at The Times and she was writing me a letter telling me that The Times was raising subscription rates.
On Monday, May 25, 2009, I politely responded to Ms. Namini telling her that she wasn’t raising my subscription rate because I would no longer be a subscriber. I have a hunch that Ms. Namini may be getting a lot of mail with a similar message.
Fortunately, we have local papers that meet my needs.
In the changing world of national information there are no large papers that can tell me about what is happening around my town. For that, I depend on, as did my own parents, the locally owned and operated newspapers.
If you want to know which new store is opening, who is celebrating a seminal birthday, what honors have come to our town, or what time a local theater might be showing a film you want to see; if you want to know what vegetable is on sale at the grocery this week and who is running a special on sweet corn, you want to pick up the local paper.
The local paper will celebrate with you when your child or grandchild does something special in school or grieve with you when a loved one passes.
You will find none of this information on your internet. Frankly, you will not find it in The New York Times either.
So I say a reluctant farewell to a hand held newspaper called The New York Times. I won’t stop reading the Times, but I will learn to live with receiving it FREE online.
I will feed my habit of a handheld newspaper by continuing to buy and read the local one. And I am not unmindful that even my local paper runs syndicated columns and provides me with a synopsis of national and international news, too.
The hard truth is that we need to know what is going on in our world but we also need to be engaged in events in our own hometown.
The bottom line is that we can get all the global news we want on television and online but the news that touches us where we live is still best obtained by reading the local paper
--
C. Jackson Blair
blair-notes.blogspot.com
Jack Blair
Saying Goodbye to the "Gray Lady"
“The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, ‘The Gray Lady’—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record. The Times is owned by The New York Times Company, which publishes 18 other newspapers, including the International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe. The company's chairman is Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., whose family has controlled the paper since 1896.”
-Wikipedia
I have read The New York Times for as long as I can remember. It is by no means the only paper I read, but I consider it factual, reliable and trustworthy.
Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. is now at the head of the Times organization. A number of years ago Arthur and I were on a white river rafting trip on the Green River which runs from Vernal, Utah, to Dinosaur National Monument, and then through some of Utah's most rugged and remote landscape...before finally meeting up with the Colorado River.
You learn a lot about a fellow when you are working together to keep a small raft from flipping in the rapids. You also learn a lot about people when you are cooking all your meals by an open fire and sleeping in the woods.
Young Arthur is a very bright, well educated and articulate young man. He followed in the footsteps of his father. He has a natural love of the environment and open spaces, a keen interest in the less fortunate, and a strong need to return the family paper to the power and influence it once enjoyed. His family has been the moving force behind The Times forever. Arthur seemed to me then to be well prepared for eventual leadership of the family paper.
Arthur ascended the throne at the Times as a very young man. Following one’s father is always, at best, a difficult assignment. To follow him into the great recessionary period we have today plus the competition presented by the Internet, is a daunting task. When Arthur was named publisher I worried that he was still young for such responsibilities.
He has faced an incredibly difficult tenure. Major players in the stock of The Times have attempted, without success, to pry loose the family hold on the organization. Some of these investment banks have simply cashed out their holdings. Others decided to stay and continue trying to change the management structure.
When one family has such a huge stake in any organization, and many of the generations are living off their stock dividends, it becomes extremely difficult to explain the adverse change in their bank and investment accounts. Imagine the pressure Athur Sulzberger must be under.
Investors have questioned whether a non-Sulzberger executive might be in the best interests of the newspaper and the paper’s stockholders. So far, the family has remained tight and refused any such suggestion. A change in management is impossible the way the stock ownership plan is currently written. The family has the controlling shares.
We are dealing here with a difference in perception. The world has changed remarkably. Newspapers are not only in competition with one another, but with news services and the Internet. Readers can get their news more quickly by simply logging on to their computers, or even their cell phones.
Any newspaper that wishes to remain in business must be mindful of these changes and be willing and able, to accommodate change.
I refer you to the Wikipedia definition above. The old “Gray Lady” does not seem able to change. Like many people, and organizations, change is coming hard to the Times. Arthur may very well be the last member of the family to operate The New York Times.
Investors know that for The Times to survive, change is essential.
The old “Gray Lady” likes things the way they were.
So news organizations have chronicled the agonies at The Times: the dwindling ad revenue, the staff cuts and the ever-smaller circulation.
If The Times was to have any real chance of surviving they surely need to depend on other “gray heads” who actually prefer holding a newspaper. Readers like myself who are not ready to give up the real paper for news online.
We are an aging group and we won’t be able to sustain newspapers forever but we are a group whose support The New York Times should not wish to loose.
That said, a few weeks ago I was speaking to a good friend who is equally dedicated to holding a paper while reading it. We lamented the diminishing size of The New York Times. And we commented on how much less we were getting for our money.
On Sunday, May 24, 2009 the concern became personal.
Tucked into my very thin copy of the Sunday New York Times was a letter from Ms. Yasmin Namini. Ms. Namini is senior vice president for marketing and circulation at The Times and she was writing me a letter telling me that The Times was raising subscription rates.
On Monday, May 25, 2009, I politely responded to Ms. Namini telling her that she wasn’t raising my subscription rate because I would no longer be a subscriber. I have a hunch that Ms. Namini may be getting a lot of mail with a similar message.
Fortunately, we have local papers that meet my needs.
In the changing world of national information there are no large papers that can tell me about what is happening around my town. For that, I depend on, as did my own parents, the locally owned and operated newspapers.
If you want to know which new store is opening, who is celebrating a seminal birthday, what honors have come to our town, or what time a local theater might be showing a film you want to see; if you want to know what vegetable is on sale at the grocery this week and who is running a special on sweet corn, you want to pick up the local paper.
The local paper will celebrate with you when your child or grandchild does something special in school or grieve with you when a loved one passes.
You will find none of this information on your internet. Frankly, you will not find it in The New York Times either.
So I say a reluctant farewell to a hand held newspaper called The New York Times. I won’t stop reading the Times, but I will learn to live with receiving it FREE online.
I will feed my habit of a handheld newspaper by continuing to buy and read the local one. And I am not unmindful that even my local paper runs syndicated columns and provides me with a synopsis of national and international news, too.
The hard truth is that we need to know what is going on in our world but we also need to be engaged in events in our own hometown.
The bottom line is that we can get all the global news we want on television and online but the news that touches us where we live is still best obtained by reading the local paper
--
C. Jackson Blair
blair-notes.blogspot.com
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