Part of the Family Annette Funicello was a regular presence in our house, on television, that is, and is better remembered than any of her fellow Mouseketeers. She died tough, though, developing MS and living for 25 years with the degenerative disease. Her charity will continue, and leave a more lasting legacy than her television shows or films, but there are still some heartbroken boys remembering a first crush out there, I’ll bet.

Still Disagree?
Although after the Iraq War, I could barely stand to read anything he wrote, due to the unvarying effort he put into including his support for the war into even the most remotely connected, and even in no way connected, book review or other commentary piece, I remember that I used to like Christopher Hitchens, and could even still appreciate what he wrote. Now I guess he gets to find out about God.

Requisite Requiem
Michael Jackson was dead by the time I got to work on Friday, probably well before, actually, and it's a little hard to believe. I mean, we're the same age. Of course, he had a lot of problems that I don't, not least being an apparently excessive surgical modification jones, but that's pretty young for a heart attack, so I'm inclined to think he was over-medicating again and his doctor will have something to answer for, at least as much as any doctor treating Elvis in the King's final days would have.

I wasn't a fan, although I acknowledge his song-writing abilities and his dancing. He was deeply disturbed, even if he wasn't a child-molester, and the court system says not. I read someone sneering at his comeback attempt, but from the public displays of grief and mourning, I'd say he'd have solved at least some of his final money woes with this tour, and I'm sorry it won't happen. There'll be plenty of money somewhere for his kids, though, and for his family to fight over, I expect, although their focus will be on fighting over the kids, so I'm sorry for them, too, perhaps especially. What will happen to all those efforts to keep them relatively anonymous? So much damage done to him, perpetuated now and for how much longer?

At some point, they'll stop playing his songs non-stop on the radio, the news repeats will go into bulletin mode and then die off pretty much altogether, but there'll never really be an end to it all.

Any chance he's really still alive? Like Elvis?