A Couple More Dead People

Alright, I don't know where to start. Let me get this straight, the state of California is 24.3 million dollars in debt, so much debt that they are now writing IOUs. So, what does the city of Los Angeles do? They throw the best-darn-tootin funeral the world has ever seen and will probably pick up the tab! The city is yet to hear from the Jackson family about whether they will help pick up the cost but looking at their reputation of exploiting even the youngest of children in an endless pursuit of money something tells me LA shouldn't hold their breath.

But is it just Heidi and I or is this one of the most morbid spectacles ever. Take a look at this photo of a "lucky winner" of a ticket to a funeral! The message that was sent out to winners read, "Congratulations, your application was successful." This is a memorial for a very disturbed, sad, dead man not admission to BYU. One woman twattered "OMG OMG OMG OMG i got tickets to the michael jackson memorial service!!!" Creepy, ugly, disturbing stuff, seriously how demented are these people? Something tells me their not there to pay their respects.


And how about this guy, he also died. Anyone know who he is? Well, he may not have been a fancy singer and dancer but the decisions he made did result in the deaths of tens of thousands of American servicemen and even more Vietnamese. He was Robert McNamara and he died this morning more than forty years after he finished his seven year run as the Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. This documentary is one of the best war docs you'll ever see as "the film shows is a man who belatedly realized his frailties and decided to warn a younger generation not to repeat his mistakes"; go check it out right now.

Anyway, McNamara had more than forty years to think about the mistakes that were made in Vietnam and the resulting chaos that took one life after another life after another life.... History professor Joseph Nye wrote about McNamara that "he never really came to terms with the question of whether he could have saved lives if he had gone public with his dissent after he lost faith in the war. Like all of us, he was a flawed man, and some part of me will never forgive him for the consequences of his mistakes in Vietnam."

Could you imagine spending nearly half your life living with the guilt that you had a big part in the deaths of so many young people? Man, it must have been awful. He tried to redeem himself by pointing out his own mistakes and begging us not to do the same...unfortunately many of us didn't listen, especially those in positions of power. What do you think, is redemption possible for McNamara? How about Michael Jackson, is he headed north or south?