The Bear Minimum

Well, I didn’t really, but that particular line from that particular song seemed apt considering my topic today.

Yes, it has happened. The earth has moved a 8 centimetres off it’s previous axis due to massive earthquake in Chile last week. It’s a very strange thing to contemplate, but those in the know over at NASA have calculated and said that yes indeed, that massive quake has altered how the earth sits on it’s axis ever so slightly, which has shortened the day by a tiny 1.26 microseconds.

There are some more obvious affects to the earth after this devastating quake, including the island of Santa Maria, just off the Chilean cost, having risen approximately 2 meters out of the ocean! I do find all of this fascinating on an intellectual level, however I’m also very, very aware of how those in Chile will be feeling right now. It feels like only a short while ago the world was rallying to aid Haiti, and now Chile is facing similarly grim times ahead. I do hope people are still in a giving mood, as both of these nations will not be able to recover quickly - or at all - without the aid of the rest of the world.

It does seem to me that the world is facing more and more extreme weather and geological events in these modern times. Oh I’ve no doubt that events with tremendous and terrible repercussions occurred in the past - the eruptions which buried Pompei and the palace at Knossos come to mind - but we seem to be getting these devastating seismic events more frequently in the past decade or so.

Perhaps, dear reader, I’m just getting old, and ruminating on such tragedies a little more. I do love this big blue world of ours, and hope she continues to safely ensconce all her children for yet a few more millennia.

Today I am going to write of Mr Michael Jackson, and the media frenzy that has occurred since his passing. It is sad to me, that there has been such a staunch out-poring of love and respect for Michael, now that he isn’t here to witness it. One hopes that those who believe he is nonetheless able to see what effect his passing has had on the world, are right.

There have been two autopsies so far, but still Joe Jackson is unsatisfied and has requested a third. With no evidence to substantiate his claim, he has nonetheless been going from one media group to another, claiming that Michael was deliberately poisoned. My personal interpretation of Joe’s behaviour is that he is just trying to remain in the spot-light for as long as he can, shamelessly promoting his new record label. Multiple times in the past week, when Joe was asked about his son, he has not said much on Michael, no, instead he has turned the talk to his ‘great news’, which is of course that he has a new record label. I think, dear readers, that this man is most assuredly a schmuck!

Along with that particular issue, there has also been a great deal of media coverage on Jackson’s will, as he has made his mother executor of his estate and the legal guardian of this three children. Joe Jackson, thankfully, has been entirely omitted from the will. As has Jackson’s ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, who has declared that she will be filing for custody of the two children she bore Jackson. Of course, there is also the ongoing saga that is the memorial service, and all the media rigmarole that has surrounded it. Thankfully all seemed to go off without too much trouble.

My personal favourite from the rumour mill has to be the ’sighting’ of Jackson’s ghost at the Neverland Ranch, on an interview with Larry King on CNN, along with the barrage of fake celebrity death reports that this event has, for one reason or another, sparked. As for the ghost, it seems pretty clear to me that it is a shadow of a person on a balcony on the floor above that caused that ‘apparition’ to be seen, and the rumours of celebrity deaths just seems odd.