#this is my Don't Feel Bad For Us thesis so it seemed appropriate to wax a little poetic

[falderaletcetera]

something sweet for tumblr in general and @tamlin-the-ninth and @trivalentlinks especially, if either of you want it:

we don't get fireflies where I live. except that we kind of do.

when I was a kid, my dad had the occasional slightly unusual idea for family fun. he's a wine-maker, so one time he took us all out to the downs to pick gorse, which is a lot like picking blackberries (complete with pricks) except that you don't get to eat them along the way (which I don't anyway, so I appreciated the novelty.) I don't know how it was for my siblings, but he successfully tricked me into thinking it was the best fun ever, and collected the several gallons of tiny gorse flowers he needed.

(it's still one of my favourite places in the world - the cliff just ends right by the sea, which stretches on forever, so it feels like the edge of the world.)

then there were the times, always at a certain time of year, always at night - making it exciting already - where we'd be driven out somewhere special for a walk. we didn't use torches, and sometimes we'd have to pick our way around the quiet looming shapes of cows, which anyone who's seen one cow get curious and start a stampede can tell you is a slightly tense affair. and we went there to spot glowworms.

with the species here, it's the males that fly and the females that glow. some years the grass hadn't been cut in a while, so the tiny lights of them were much harder to spot; other years it was easier. always there would be bits of chalk standing out brightly in the grass that you'd squint at and think might be a glowworm until you get closer. always the first time you really see one, you'll know it for sure.

so we'd walk, and we'd call them out as we spotted them for the others to see too, and sometimes we'd catch a glimpse that would be immediately hidden behind shifting grass and we'd end up craning our necks on the spot in an effort to find it again; and sometimes the more sure-footed of us would walk out from the path - careful of both glowworms and cowpats - to spot them closer up. we didn't take anything, didn't do anything, just called them out excitedly to each other and kept count.

and it was magic.

(in the first year of the pandemic, as one of my healthier coping strategies, I started going for night-time walks along a route I wasn't familiar with. it turned out to lead to the sea if I kept on long enough, and there was a cat along one road who was friendlier than any cat should be at three in the morning. the route also ran right past a few farmer's fields.

until then I'd only seen glowworms in the place my father took us, and the streetlight glinted off the grass at the edge of this field in a way that made it easy to second-guess myself the first few times, but after a week or so there were more. they were real and they there and they were glorious. it was an unexpected and welcome gift from the world.)

they don't tend to photograph well, or at least my dad hasn't managed it with his much fancier camera. here's my best attempt so far.

I looked it up, and their family is Lampyridae, which wikipedia does call fireflies. colloquially, I tend to say that we have glowworms instead of fireflies, and that seems accurate too. but we do have these, and we hunted down and plotted out the constellations in the grass with the love and the wonder they warranted.

[noramoya]

June 13, 2005

“ THE VEREDICT OF MICHAEL JACKSON”

By David Walsh - June 15, 2005 -

“Michael Jackson's acquittal for sexual harassment to minors and related charges is completely welcome. Whether it is a sign of change of popular feelings or a more isolated episode, the decision of the jury of Santa Maria, California, to judge the singer NOT GUILTY of TEN CRIMES andFOUR MISDEMEANORS is appropriate, both from the legal and human points of view . In Contemporary America, unfortunately, rational and civil conclusions to these sordid episodes are far too infrequent.

In objective terms, the decision of the jury to acquit Jackson represent a pungent reprimand to the vengeful accusation LED by the District Attorney Of Santa Barbara, Thomas Sneddon, and supported by an ultra-right-attack-dogs. The verdict that rejects even the minors allegations, if the eight women and four men of the Jury were fully aware of the fact or not, it represents an indictment for the fraudulent and malicious character of the prosecution thesis. The Jury’s decision came in front of decisions by Judge Rodney Melville, who favored the District Attorney.

Jackson's acquittal also arises as an indictment of the dishonest role done by the American Mass Media, which have legitimized and tried to support the cause against the singer. The verdict stunned many media experts, who have done everything in their power to stigmatise and demonize Jackson in the last 18 months.

In the period immediately following the reading of the verdict, before the anchors-TV and the assorted pundits had the opportunity to bring their stories back directly, a number of television journalists admitted what none of them had admitted publicly before-that not There's never been a serious case against Jackson. However, the media approach quickly moved and tried to denigrate the meaning of the verdict, stressing the reserves of some jury members for Jackson's past behavior.

Even in this case, media managers and experts reveal their ignorance and instinctive hostility to elementary democratic principles. If the members of the jury have expressed reservations about Jackson's behavior or suspicions of bad conduct past, they did what they had to do: they listened to the evidence, discussed it between them and established that the accusation had not shown his case at Beyond Any Reasonable Doubt. It was this stubborn adherence to legal standards and democratic principles, including the presumption of innocence, which so irritated the legal institution and the models (of) Media, which have long discarded such membership.

Even if jackson had been guilty of sexual harassment, he would not have deserved the wild treatment received by the hand of the state and mass No humiliation is too big, no one debased is too complete for these forces.

Jackson appeared exhausted and on the brink of collapse for the end of the process, in the brutality of a Sneddon you see, in a microcosm, the character of the American Executive Class: ignorant, unconscious, tightened, who pursues without end anyone and anything that hints of opposition or "counterculture".

Why was Michael Jackson really under trial? Because his lifestyle is different, even bizarre, because he is perceived as gay, because he is black. In the paranoid, pornographic vision of the extreme right, whose perverse mental life deserves to be analyzed by a Freud, Jackson represents a provocation and a threat to "American values".

For Mainstream-media in the United States, a Jackson's process was a manna from heaven. Incapable and reluctant to present the truth about everything that matters, the mass media instinctively gravitate towards anything that corrupt the social environment. With the precipitating support of the Iraq war, as well as the national policies of George w. Bush, efforts to divert the attention of the population from the burning themes of the day becomes increasingly hectic.

The general reaction of the media to the verdict Jackson was mischievous, if not defamatory. A guest interviewed by fox news by Shepard Smith calls Jackson " the plastic monster " and claimed that " we need intelligence tests for the jurors." numerous commentators have equally asked sneddon, defender Thomas Mesereau and jurors Assorted If they don't believe a child molester has been released. Not only have they thrown out the window the presumption of innocence the window, but an acquittal unanimously adopted by a jury means nothing for these elements.

Nancy Grace, the former prosecutor, who poured, every night, out reactionary poison on CNN, barely contained herself on the Jackson verdict. Grace, who has declared her believe in Jackson's guilt for months, started her program: "It's clean square in a California Court Jury, Michael Jackson issued a verdict that stunned the nation: NOT GUILTY ON ALL FRONTS ! It was a 13-year-old boy, Hispanic who brought Michael Jackson to court. And tonight, he's not guilty,because of his celebrity" Grace has been inciting a Jury member, Paul Rodriguez, defiantly asking at some point: “What do you think would have been necessary to convince the Jury that Jackson molested this guy?"

...”Debra Opri, a lawyer for Jackson's parents, finally put Nancy Grace in her place, saying : “Well, this is the bitter pill you're trying to swallow, Nancy. This is reality, not the reality you created for the last year... Michael Jackson is NOT GUILTY. Let him live his life in peace and stop trying to try the case again, ‘cause that's what you're doing !"

As noticed above, the media seized comments from a juror in particular, Raymond Hultman, in the sense that even if there weren't enough evidence to condemn Jackson of the crime he was accused of, the singer had probably acted improperly with underage boys in the past .

This exchange between the co-Conductor Katie Couric of nbc''s today show and mesereau was:

Couric: some jurors are saying that this is a verdict of guilt, not a verdict of innocence. A Juror said he believes Michael Jackson molested other children, not just this. So is this the claim that Michael Jackson's supporters think it is?

Mesereau: Yes, it is. Macaulay Culkin came and testified that he was never touched. Mr.. Robinson testified that he was never touched. Mr.. Barnes testified he was never touched. I mean, they tried to promote Michael Jackson's behavior theories that collapsed just because they weren't true.

Couric: but does it seem troubling to you,

Mesereau: I think it's total rematch.

Couric: find troubling, though, Mr. Mesereau, that a juror is saying: "I think Michael Jackson molested children or molested children first"?

Mesereau: No. I don't find it worrying because we won the cause, and we should have won the case He is innocent.

Polls record that a majority continues to believe in Jackson's guilt. But where does the audience get the information from? As Defender Barry Scheck Annotated on the today show, the audience saw the process through the prism of the media, while the jury saw it directly.

The elaborate conspiracy charged by Sneddon, that Jackson kidnapped the family of his alleged victim and plotted to send them to Brazil, was proven to be absurd. Mesereau had no difficulty showing that the family had gone shopping during their alleged captivity, including the body's waxing for the mother of the then 13-Year-old boy and orthodontics works for the second daughter and his brother. Testimony indicated that the family was "escaped" and returned to Jackson's Neverland ranch for three times, once in a rolls-Royce, but did not ask for help.

Defense presented test elements, not disproved by the accusation, that the boy's mother had received a $ 152.000 liquidation from JC Penney after he accused the security guards of having her groping, when, in fact, the damage is Been caused by violent husband. Mesereau was able to portray the woman as an artist of the scam who had a story of attempts to extort money from celebrities for the son affected by cancer.

Jury members declared the press after the process that the boy's mother had a very unfavourable impression on them. During his testimony, the woman claimed that "Killer" threatened her during her alleged captivity and planned to take her children away in a balloon.

In some cases, the prosecution's moves exploded their front. Called By Sneddon, as a witness, Debbie Rowe, Jackson's ex-wife, turned out to be very favorable to the In his opening statement the district attorney promised the jurors that rowe would testify that a video recorded praising Jackson had been under pressure and that his appearance was completely written. When she appeared, The Rowe, who is engaged in a custody battle with Jackson, disowned this version of the facts and called the pop singer "my friend".

The prosecution presented several former Neverland collaborators on the witness bench who claimed that Jackson had tested a number of boys in the early 1990. S. Most of these witnesses had either sued or sold Jackson stories and, as Pointed out mesereau at couric, the guys who testified denied any impropriety.

The jurors who spoke to the media explained that the prosecution had never done simply a case. One of the jurors, a middle-aged mother, told the press, " the evidence said everything. We had a closet full of evidence that gave us back the same thing, that there weren't enough " to condemn. " things don't come back," he said.

In a statement that they had read to the judge in court, the jury of eight women and four men explained, " we the jury feel the weight of the eyes of the We have studied the testimonies, the tests, the rules and the procedures. We confidently come to our verdict. "

The jurors explained that while the process proceeded, they began to think less about Jackson as a celebrity. "even if he is a superstar, he is a human being", he explained a female juror. " to see it in the whole process, is a normal person. He made it real to my eyes. "

Rodriguez told abc good morning America that Jackson thanked them. " he looked towards us. In fact, I had a visual contact with him, while the last part of the verdict was read and made just a grimace said pretty openly, 'thank you' ".

Source: FB page "a Michael to know & all truths"

Modified by Arcoiris-15/6/2017, 02:15