Word: jacksonism
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...judge from the media coverage--the instant prime-time TV specials; the nonstop frenzy on CNN and in the newspapers; the rapid, rabid airing of the most lurid speculation--you would think Michael Jackson's arrest on charges of molesting a 12-year-old boy was the surprise ending of a story rather than the next and perhaps last act in a tale that threatens to carry with it a tragic inevitability...
...Jackson faced similar allegations 10 years ago--the criminal case was dismissed when the accuser refused to testify after settling a civil suit in which the family was reportedly paid $20 million--and rumors of infantile predation have hounded him since. The first time a star makes horrific headlines, the reaction is shock. The second time, it may be chagrin. The third time, it should be just a sigh...
Keegan also studies Stonewall Jackson's brilliant use of local knowledge to lead the Union armies a frustrated chase up and down the Shenandoah Valley in 1862. There are chapters on the British disaster on Crete in 1941 ("Foreknowledge No Help"), on the Americans' immense triumph at Midway a year later (a world-historical victory that owed as much to luck, Keegan ingeniously argues, as to intelligence) and the struggle of British intelligence to locate and destroy Hitler's U-boat offensive against England...
...visiting President Bush, and a twin suicide bombing in Turkey injured hundreds and killed dozens, among them the British consul, in a signal that al Qaeda had thoroughly infiltrated that country. But I got only two Breaking News E-mail Alerts—one to tell me that Michael Jackson was in custody, another to tell me that he had been booked and bailed. And lest one come down too hard on ABC News, the emphasis was almost universal. When I tuned to CNN to see how the president was faring given the alarming protests and flexing of terrorist muscle...
...took only a year for the top five words searched on the Net to revert from “Nostradamus, World Trade Center, Osama bin Laden, New York City, Terrorism” to “KaZaA, Dragonball, Tattoos, West Nile Virus, Britney Spears.” The Michael Jackson business is a sign, not a shift, of cultural trends. Still, with two years and a bit behind us, the return of popular news culture to its previous depths should alarm us, for the simple reason that politics has not followed suit...