(WARNING!! THIS BLOG ENTRY IS VERY LONG AND CONTAINS MATERIAL NOT SUITED FOR CHILDREN, ALTHOUGH YOU SHOULD TALK TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT THIS STUFF).

Now, what you are about to read is true and factual, interlaced with some personal opinions. It will not be entirely suitable for children, so if you let them read this, it's your fault.

I have, to the best of my knowledge, refrained from commenting on the Michael Jackson trial.

Well, that's not entirely true. I have taken a moment here and there to comment when someone says "I don't think he did it" or "He's just misunderstood" or "he's never had a normal life."

My comments have basically been "are you out of your fucking mind? Of COURSE he did it!! And no rough childhood or anything else makes it okay to victimize children."

These brief rants are usually met with looks that are more than a little uncomfortable, which is okay. It means you struck a nerve or scared them into not discussing it around you again.

But today, I have decided that I must comment after reading the information that came both from "the king of pop's" website as well as his "personal advisor" Jesse Jackson on television yesterday. And just so I don't mis-quote this, I will post verbatim the quotes from the Fox website and here is the link to said story:


LOS ANGELES — Declaring himself "completely innocent" of child molestation charges, Michael Jackson (search) said Sunday that he is the victim of a conspiracy and asked fans around the world to pray for him.
In an interview with the Rev. Jesse Jackson (search), the entertainer would not elaborate on his conspiracy belief, citing the court-imposed gag order that prevents him from discussing his trial in detail.
However, he said he believes he is just the latest of several "black luminaries" to be unjustly accused, citing former South African President Nelson Mandela (search) and former heavyweight boxing champions Muhammad Ali and Jack Johnson as others.

"I just want to say to fans in every corner of the Earth, every nationality, every race, every language, I love you from the bottom of my heart," Jackson said toward the end of the hourlong interview broadcast live on the Internet.
"I would love your prayers and your goodwill, and please be patient and be with me and believe in me because I am completely, completely innocent. But please know a lot of conspiracy is going on as we speak," he said.
Jackson also said he is in "intense pain" since falling in the shower earlier this month, although he said at another point that his health was perfect. He arrived late to court on March 10, wearing pajama bottoms, a T-shirt and walking stiffly, and his representatives said at the time he had been treated at a hospital for a serious back injury.


"I was coming out of the shower and I fell and all my body weight — I'm pretty fragile — all my body weight fell against my rib cage," Jackson said. "And I bruised my lung very badly."
He said the injury has caused him to cough up blood and was so painful that it brought him to tears in court one day when he was seen wiping his eyes with a tissue. He said he remains under a doctor's care.
When Jesse Jackson noted how thin he is, the pop star replied that he has never been a big eater, something he said has always concerned his mother and others, including actress Elizabeth Taylor (search), a friend.
"Elizabeth Taylor used to feed me, to hand-feed me, at times," he said.
"Please, I don't want anybody to think I'm starving, I'm not." he quickly added. "My health is perfect, actually."
The entertainer also denied recent rumors that he is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.
"That's not true at all. It's just one of their many schemes to embarrass me. It's to drag me through the mud," he said.
However, he indicated some sort of battle is under way over the music catalog he owns that contains the rights to songs by the Beatles, Little Richard and others.
"There's a big fight going on, right now as we speak, about that," he said. "I can't comment on it, but there's a lot of conspiracy out there."
He spent the first 40 minutes of the interview reminiscing warmly about his career, his family and such childhood musical heroes as James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Sammy Davis Jr. and the Beatles, saying he grew up in a household filled with music.
Jesse Jackson told The Associated Press earlier this month that he and Michael Jackson frequently pray together, and he told his audience Sunday that he speaks by phone with the entertainer nearly every day.
Michael Jackson, a Jehovah's Witness, said prayer is helping him get through his trial, which resumes Monday.
"I gain strength from God. I believe in Jehovah God very much," he said.
Asked the lowest point in his life, he responded: "Probably the low point, the lowest point emotionally, is probably what I'm going through."
He said the high point was when he recorded his heralded "Thriller" album of 1982. He set out to make it a disco version of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker Suite," and believes he succeeded, Jackson said, noting it won eight Grammys and was the biggest-selling record of all time.
"I would say that was the pinnacle," he said.

That's right. Jackson said he is the "latest of several black luminaries to be unjustly accused." Oh, he also managed to work in that he won eight grammys and has the biggest-selling record of all time, even if that was over 20 years ago.

Now, there are several things that should get your attention in this story, but the main one is the Nelson Mandella part. Jackson has the audacity to compare his facing molestation charges to Nelson Mandella being imprisoned in South Africa for over 20 years by racists in that country's apartheid regime.

Really? You, the king of pop, sat down with your lawyers and your spiritual advisor Jesse Jackson, and THAT's the best you could do? You couldn't compare yourself to Rodney King or OJ Simpson or Robert Blake, but Nelson Fucking Mandella?

And by the way, your spiritual advisor and shit storm stirrer for hire Jesse Jackson must have a tough time advising you spiritually, since you're a Jehovah's Witness and he's not, but hey, let's not get religious symantics get in the way of a good cover-up.

The problems with this case are pretty easy to see. The prosecution, as has been the rule rather than the exception in celebrity cases the last 10 years, was almost totally inept, especially when facing some of the best defense attorneys in the country. Secondly, the family of the victim, especially the mother, had zero credibility since she was a grifter who had spent ten years trying to blackmail and strong-arm celebrities into giving them money. Thirdly, the kid was scared shitless, coached too much, and exaggerated on the stand.

There were obviously other kids better suited to take this on, and expect that some or all of them will come forward and be involved in similar cases before too long. Jackson's own lawyer stated that they "put the wrong kid on the stand."

My biggest problem with this whole cluster fuck is this: I believe that this boy and many others have been molested by Michael Jackson. And molesting doesn't mean gang banged with and in front of other kids. It means, according to dictionary.com:

"To subject to unwanted or improper sexual activity. "

Now, the too-small amusement park ride seats and kids sleeping in his room aside, do any of you really believe that he has never improperly touched a child? Really?

Now, the mother is at fault and should be charged as well, given that the whole world knows Jackson paid another kid and his family a pile of money to keep quiet about their relationship, whatever it was.

(A sidenote here. If a family agrees to take money to be quiet, then they should fucking be quiet. You've named a price, it was met, now shut the fuck up already. You cannot testify at a trial on the subject, you cannot be interviewed on the subject, and you cannot release documents about the settlement, becuase you signed it and agreed on a price for your victimization).

That said, not everyone is "fortunate" enough to be molested by a multi-jillionaire celebrity that can write ten million dollar checks to make people shut up and go away. Some kids get molested by family, some by teachers, and some, like me, by a babysitter.

The trouble is, most kids that get molested are just that: kids. They don't know how to tell someone what happened or what to tell them for that matter. They're scared and confused and feel guilty and bad and at fault. Compounding that fact is the likelihood that the molester probably made veiled threats that blamed the victim, threatened the parents, or said that the kid would be taken away from his parents. At least that's what mine said.

(Although women can and do molest children as well as men, The fact that this was done to me by a male babysitter is the main reason I will never ever have a male babysitter for my child / children).

I don't blame anyone for what happened. Not myself and not my parents. I never have and I never will. Well, I take that back. I blame the asshole that did this to me. But what I think of now is how often it happens and goes unreported. Here are some statistics:

There are roughly 4,000,000 child molesters in the U.S. right now

1 out of every 3 girls will be molested before turning 18

Between 1 out of every 5 and 1 out of every 7 boys will be molested

The average victim’s age is between 8 and 11 years old

Females reported family members as molesters in 29% of cases

Males reported family members as molesters in 16% of cases

Males reported acquaintances as molesters in 44% of cases

Stepfathers are statistically higher perpetrators of molestation/sexual abuse

A typical child molester will molest 30 to 60 children before being arrested and around 380 children over their lifetime

42% of pedophiles began offending before age 12

75% of pedophiles began offending before age 13

70% of those adjudicated guilty of child molestation serve no time for the crime

Heterosexual males present a greater risk to both girls and boys

According to the FBI child molestation, like rape, is one of the most underreported crimes: only 1-10% are ever disclosed.

A study of sexually abused children found that they were unlikely to have been molested by identifyably gay or lesbian people, the American Academy of Pediatrics says. The study, published in the July 1994 issue of "Pediatrics", explored the assertion that gays and lesbians are at particular risk of sexually molesting children. This was one of the justifications presented for strong anti-gay legislation placed on ballots in several States in 1992. Of 249 cases of child abuse studied, only two offenders were identified as gay or lesbian. In this sample, a child's risk of being molested by the heterosexual partner of a relative is more than 100 times greater than by somebody who might be identifiable as being homosexual, lesbian or bisexual.

There is a lot of information out there. More than enough to be informed. If you have children, you should read about this and make sure you are aware and alert.

Why have I told you this today? I have no idea. But as I started hearing about this shitbag comparing himself and his plight to those of great men like Nelson Mandella and Martin Luther King Jr., I decided to write about my thoughts on the case, and that led to this. The disclaimers at the top were added after the fact, as I didn't want someone to stumble upon this without warning.

I've left out the details of my incident so as not to attract attention away from what is important here and to not sensationalize what I've written. Remember, communication with your kids is important and being aware and alert is important. Not living scared is important. Anyone can be a victim of a crime like this and, in all likelihood, you know at least a few people that have. Know that these people are out there and know the warning signs. Above all, know this, as it is stated in nearly every statistic you read about child molestation:

Children are not likely to lie about sexual abuse.

So if they tell you about it or tell you that they were molested or abused, do this:

Listen.