Category: MJEOL BULLET

Superficial Analysis Hinders Understanding of Jackson MB#306 APRIL 24 2006 – #306Can Michael Jackson really be blamed for the actions of liars, shysters and criminals? The question has been a hot topic off and on at various sites and forums around the world. When approaching this analysis of Jackson, some public figures have openly and rather unfairly based their opinions on him being a “monster” that “society created”. This is a ridiculously off-base and rather superficial analysis. At times during the 2005 trial, even celebrity ‘friends’ would proclaim to know the answer to all of his troubles, and prescribed that he isolate himself from children because, after all, it’s his fault for allowing them into his home, right? Aside from the isolation theory being a shallow and incomplete solution, it is also akin to a doctor putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound and sending the patient home.

Oh, So NOW You Miss Michael Jackson? What the $@#%? – MB#305 APRIL 1 2006 – Michael Jackson has hopefully cleaned house by temporarily closing his California home to everybody-and-their-mama. What does this mean to those who had previously called for its closure, and who are now opining both about its and Jackson’s importance? This has became an issue with me after talking to certain people over the course of months about Jackson-related issues like the Hurricane Katrina single and the decision to close Neverland. It has come to my attention that whether they admit it to themselves or not, they miss Michael Jackson; a position made clearer to me after Jackson announced that he was closing Neverland Ranch.

Trial Review: Karlee Barnes Testimony – MB #304 MARCH 12 2006 – Karlee Barnes, the sister of Brett Barnes, testified May 6 during the Michael Jackson false molestation allegation trial of 2005. Ms. Barnes’s testimony was ripe with information which prosecutors would have probably preferred jurors not have heard. This is the witness with whom the media fell into a form of “group-think”. These episodes of group-think seem to be completely asinine in retrospect. During her testimony, she confirmed how her family first met Jackson. And yes, the family, including Barnes, spent a lot of time talking with Jackson over the phone for years before they ever actually met face to face. If you paid attention to the overwhelming amount of media coverage, you may remember the phrase “365 nights” in relation to how much time Jackson is alleged to have allowed her brother, Brett, to sleep in his room, wherever he was, during a world tour; implying that Jackson was shacking up with some kid for a year. It was only after the testimonies of Marie and Karlee Barnes that the public found out the entire family, including their father, also traveled with Jackson during that tour and was well aware of where their children were and where they were sleeping during that period.

Jermaine Jackson Knocks down Tab Report, Threatens Lawsuit – MB#303 MARCH 7 2006 – Maybe if Michelle Caruso, Diane Dimond and Joe Scarborough were forewarned that Jermaine Jackson (J. Jackson) would appear live on CNN’s Larry King Live, they wouldn’t have looked so foolish, as they feasted on the words of apparently manufactured hot garbage from the latest wannabe Jackson “scandal”. That ‘hot garbage’ – an alleged book proposal — claims Jermaine Jackson is supposed to have made wild and rather unbelievable allegations about Michael and Joe Jackson, his children, and the family’s past. He is supposed to have shopped those specific ideas around for publication in 2003. The desperation for another Jackson scandal is now blaringly apparent even to those who earlier wouldn’t have given any of these Jackson stories the time of day. The media, however, never seems to tire of shooting themselves in the foot. Whatever credibility problems exist, they only have themselves to blame.

Persecuted Lawyer Runs for Santa Barbara D.A. – MB #302

FEB 20 2006 – The attorney currently suing Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon and his office has now thrown his hat in the race for District Attorney(DA).

It would be safe to say that Tom Sneddon will be retiring in disgrace after the wrong-headed and doomed prosecution of Michael Jackson. His upcoming absence has sparked an interest in at least one other non-handpicked person to run for Santa Barbara District Attorney.

Attorney Gary Dunlap’s website, www.electgarydunlap.org , gives a few talking points about why he should be elected as the county’s next District Attorney. Two of those talking points were obvious digs at the current system.

One states, “Let them know you are suspicious of years of malicious prosecution” and another states, “25 years of 1 man rule is enough”.

From a Santa Maria Times Jan 21 article came word that Dunlap was considering a run at the position of Santa Barbara DA. Dunlap has been an attorney for over 35 years, taking many cases in defense of people who can’t afford attorneys, and who have been prosecuted by the DA’s office.

Dunlap’s attempt to ‘throw-the-bums-out’ is intriguing if only for the newsworthiness of his own tribulations suffered at the hands of current DA Tom Sneddon.

Debunking News Reports from Unnamed Sources – MB#301 What do you do when you hear a report claiming you were somehow involved in a conversation with an alleged raging Michael Jackson complaining about someone he knows? Well if you are Michael Jackson’s father, you release a statement correcting the record. Joe Jackson released a statement though his spokesperson, Angel Howansky, denying details which were spread in an apparently false report from NY Daily News reporter Michelle Caruso. The apparently erroneous article dated Feb 7 2006 claims that a “family source” says Michael Jackson called his father “in a rage to announce he was leaving Bahrain for good”.

Panic Attack Averted, MJEOL Forums Reborn – MJEOL MiniSITE Bullet #1 FEB 6 2006 – When one door closes, another always opens. I say that after experiencing what I thought would be a massive re-installation of the MJEOL FORUMS which completely locked up on us a few days ago. First, let’s get into a mini-backstory of the MJEOL FORUMS. The evolution of the MJEOL forums, as well as the website, consisted of a number of incarnations of the site and community. If you’ve been with MJEOL long enough, you can remember when the MJEOL forums were powered with phpBB software…then Invision (ipb) software….then, after an ipb lockup, vBulletin software was the preferred choice…and then we went back to ipb. LOL! If your memory goes back long enough, you can remember the InsideTheWeb (currently ezboard) version of MJEOL. Oh snap! Ah, memories! Now fast forward up to the recent past…

Trial Review: Marie Barnes Testifies to Trust in Jackson – MB#300 JANUARY 27 2006 – MJEOL continues to review some of the details which were revealed during the Michael Jackson trial which often went under-reported or unreported. Our Trial Reviews are especially important as they continue through the midst of the James Frey (A Million Little Pieces) scandal and about it being important that the public knows how to separate truth from fiction. Being someone who had just come off of covering the Michael Jackson trial where the truth seemed to hold little value to the media and to segments of the public, I screamed at the top of our lungs to anyone who would listen after Oprah Winfrey called into Larry King’s show implying essentially that the truth didn’t matter. As her later mea culpa suggested, the truth DOES matter. There is still truth yet to be recognized concerning Jackson by an industry which concealed or outright lied about a plethora of factual information which gave context to a number of issues during the trial. With that said, we pick up with the testimony of Brett Barnes’s mother, Marie Barnes who testified on May 6 2005.

Absurd Kapon Allegation Not New – MB#299 JANUARY 22 2006 – How can you tell when some media entities are trying to score their next Michael Jackson fix? You can tell when the so-called legitimate news media start to take us for another ride down that tabloid-road, filled with unfounded allegations about Michael Jackson which –had they been about anyone else – would never be given the time of day. Earlier this month, Celebrity Justice –redux site tmz.com posted news of a “new molestation suit” against Michael Jackson. When doing so, they may not have realized how some in the public would react to such absurdity. Or maybe they did? Even a poll on their own website at the time of this writing showed that 69% of their visitors think the lawsuit is bogus. Tmz.com, however, left out more than a few facts about this “new” allegation in their initial article; namely that this isn’t a “new” allegation, that the accuser’s claims were investigated by two separate police forces, and that the allegations were dismissed as wholly unbelievable.