The other day I found myself waiting for a friend in a highly over-priced coffee shop located within the pleasant ambience of a local book store. As I did so, I attempted productive use of my time by reading yet again about the ongoing trial of Michael Jackson. In short order, however, my attention soon drifted. Broadcasting over the store’s sound system was what I guess would be called a song.

Against a monotonously rhythmic, yet fascinating, jazz-like background, a husky female voice was speaking (i.e. she was not singing) the following words again and again and again:

“Standing on a corner … just me and Yoko Ono … waiting for Jerry to land.”

After repeating this about forty-five times -- with a few minor variations occasionally tucked in for what I supposed to be for artistic cause -- the song just abruptly ended. Never was I informed whether Jerry ever arrived, or even who he was. My imaginings, however, left me with the firm conviction that because Yoko was involved all of this may well have had something to do with the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia. A tribute of some sort perhaps? … or perhaps simply an expression of the artist’s desire to ask him if in fact he was indeed grateful now that he was truly dead? … or not? Who knows? The more one thought about it, however, it was amazing how even more issues began to surface.

For example, putting aside the obvious -- like what was I doing listening to this in the first place? -- about the thirty-fifth time this sentence had been repeated I began wondering things like whether I really cared, or would ever care, if Jerry landed or not. And, then -- again because of the fact that Yoko was a named participant in this particular enterprise and since they were waiting on the corner anyway -- I further wondered if it was not somewhat insensitive for them to not also be waiting for John to land as well. Who knows? In the end I was left with this thought -- can one really ever catalogue fully the contents of some artistic minds? Perhaps not, and perhaps in some instances we may not wish to. We could find ourselves in mire that is somehow less than pleasant.

So, the song having now ended, it was with that thought that my attention refocused on Michael Jackson … as I still waited patiently for my friend to land.

This time around, however, as happened while listening to the song, I found myself wanting to put aside the obvious … like what kind of grown man forty-five years old wants to have milk and cookies, pillow fights and sleep in the same bed with another person’s child? Due to our bombardment by these facts repeated so often by the media, such questions now took on the repetitive characteristic of the song lyric I had just been listening to. Instead, my thoughts went to other issues that have been lurking on the story’s perimeter since its unfolding. Issues that not only have remained unaddressed to any degree of satisfaction, but because of this fact, have left us also with an unsettling feeling that via the Jackson saga we somehow have been confronted with some larger cultural mire against our will that we would rather have remained ignorant of.

For instance, what flaw in our culture’s character would produce parents who would knowingly expose their children to any celebrity with such proclivities? Don’t most people with any common sense know that most molesters of children are not shadowy figures lurking in bushes near school grounds? More likely they tend to be people of some prominence in the child’s life … a teacher, a minister, a priest, a relative, a neighbor or a family friend … predators in sheep’s clothing who seek sexual gratification from children who trust them. So, how much more hideous would that make the parent (who the child presumably trusts even more) who would make their child available to such potential predators in exchange for gifts? At minimum, are such parents not guilty of child endangerment even if they may not in reality be prostituting their children … and for what … a trip here or a jewel there?

Why then, I wondered, are we not seeing to it that such parents are prosecuted … if for no other reason than to dissuade others from doing so? When it involves the rich and famous, however, there appears to exist some twisted warp in the metal of our society that causes us to overlook such grotesque parental malfeasance and not insist that something be done about it. And, by that reality are we not all indicted? Does not our collective silence and inaction make us all to some degree complicit in these immoral conspiracies we witness? And even if not, at the very least, it certainly reveals us to be derelict in our duty to protect our young, does it not? Consider this… does not such apparent apathy make less sense to you than joining Yoko on the corner to wait for Jerry to land?

Scholastic Parent And Child ASIN: B00005N7Y8

Setting Limits with Your Strong-Willed Child : Eliminating Conflict by Establishing Clear, Firm, and ASIN: 0761521364