I think the key is just to make sure there's no food in your office. Also, probably don't go in there at night.

Trudy, if you mean by "easily" "is a valid interpretation", then you're right. If by "easily" you mean "obviously", then you're wrong, as I can think of at least one other valid interpretation, namely starfucking.

I'm pretty sure I meant the former. Completely sure, actually.

In all likelyhood there are some of each -- but my point was that if you believe in someone you tend to show your support.

This is the easiest guy in the world to try and blackmail and some people close to him (who let him hang out with their children) believe that to be the case. Most of the legions of people declaring him a baby-fucker, otoh, have never met the guy.

my point was that if you believe in someone you tend to show your support.

Yes. However, that doesn't mean that these people have any reason to believe in Jackson. Some people believe so strongly in Elvis that they think he's still alive. Some people believe in Ronald Reagan so strongly that they deny he showed early Alzheimer's symptoms in office.

some people close to him (who let him hang out with their children) believe that to be the case. Most of the people declaring him a baby-fucker have never met the guy.

The thing is, Trudy, people who would choose to be close to him are a self-selecting group. If you think the guy is a perv, or even if you think he might be one, you're not going to want to be in the same room with him, much less let your children do so. The people who are likely to hang out with him, probably already think he's been railroaded

I've read the court documents' summary on thesmokinggun.com, and I think there's a fair chance this case is a blackmail attempt. But I can't imagine being so sure about that, that I would take any chances with my children.

Thank you, Lyra. Me too.

Alibelle, I think you might need to find another place to work. I would not work at a place that had a known rat problem so bad that open trash cans were not workable. Rats are not an acceptable side-effect of working in an office.

I am seriously considering it right now. Despite the fact that my job is really easy, low stress (outside of this), has little supervision, has extremely flexible hours, and decent pay.

Alibelle, they have to keep the vegetation, I was just saying that so you would know that the rats live OUTSIDE. Like coyotes and opossums and all the other city-adapted creatures we have around here.

Oh, I see. I would still like all of them to be completely and totally gone, though. To the point where I wouldn't mind snakes, so long as they made the rats be gone. And I'm not thrilled with the idea of snakes, either, but they freak me out so much less.

I don't know whether Jackson is guilty of sexual abuse.

I do know that he is an unfit parent. Point-blank. Anybody else in the world who hung an infant out of a window would have lost custody so fast it made his head spin.

But I can't imagine being so sure about that, that I would take any chances with my children.

But what if he was a good friend? You might not give a fig what anyone has to say except your kids.

He's not just a freaky-deaky famous guy, he's somebody's friend too.

OTOH, I don't think that keeping my kids, had I any, far far away from MJ is necessarily a signal that I think he's guilty, either. That, I can't know. What I can know is there's a) enough reason to wonder and b) more than enough reason to know that this is a man with some serious problems and in no way a healthy environment for children, unattended or not. No child of mine would be within a mile of him if I could help it, and his guilt or innocence on these particular charges is pretty much a side issue to that.

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My feeling on the parents who are still letting their kids hang with MJ is this: if, like in Trudy's example, your kid's Little League coach has been accused of pedophilia, I frankly feel that the parent has a much better basis for judging whether or not the allegations are true. Because a coach/teacher/clergy member is a part of your local community, in a more or less everyday way.

But the parents who are sending their kids off to Neverland Ranch -- I honestly don't think they have that kind of social, locally based community with Michael Jackson. So how would those parents really know if the allegations were true?

And, legally, of course he's innocent until proven guilty. However, particularly in a situation like this, where these parents aren't hanging out with MJ, or with people who know him well enough to vouch for him -- even though, legally, he's innocent, why would you take a chance like that with your CHILD?