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Forty years ago the U.S.A., we, Americans, put men on the moon. I watched that on a black-and-white TV in a gathering of family and in the company of friends. That was an accomplishment, a high point in U.S. history. We went back and forth, to and from the moon for the next six years. Apollo ended in 1975, and Man hasn't strayed past earth orbit since.

Yesterday, Man (granted, a small subset of Man, in a rapidly decaying U.S. city) carried on an episode of strangeness that marks our societal decline...

2 cruisers lead Jackson mementos to cemetery

Santiago Esparza / The Detroit News

Detroit -- Two hearses jammed with stuffed animals left in memory of Michael Jackson were given a two-car police escort Friday to the toys' burial at Woodlawn Cemetery, leaving police officials highly critical of the decision afterward. ...

At the cemetery, the toys were unloaded from the tops of the hearses and from boxes inside the vehicles. They were then placed into clear plastic bags and then inside donated vaults.

The cemetery donated the equivalent of three graves for the vaults. A donated gravestone also detailed the singer's impact on the music industry and the world.

Jackson's songs played over speakers as a service was held. "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" played as the hearses arrived and "Ben" as the service ended. ...

An exhibit will be established at the museum honoring Jackson, and some of the items left in his memory will be put on display, Smith said.

Timothy Vick of Ferndale brought a photo Friday he took of the singer in 1989. He said Jackson left a mark on his life.

"I think I cried more for him than when some family members passed," Vick said.

Let me get this straight…Americans buried (in 3 plots no less!) stuffed animals? Because…why? A perfect example of an exercise in symbolism over substance. Those stuffed toys belonged in a dump or an incinerator, not buried in a cemetery.

If I wasn't sure before that the U.S.A is in a terminal, Romanesque sort of shrivelly decline, then this episode would seal it.

We go, in some 40 short years, from putting Americans on the moon to burying Michael Jackson’s stuffed memorial toys. Points on a line that’s on a negative slope.

Hey, why can’t we turn this around and make Michael Jackson’s incipient burial not an otherwise mindless display of further strangeness, but symbolic of burying child molestation forever?

At least Michael Jackson’s lifetime craziness would finally end with some real accomplishment. Instead of...

Jermaine Jackson: 'Michael should not be buried next to bad people'

Michael Jackson's brother, Jermaine, is fighting to prevent the singer being buried in a public cemetery alongside "bad people".

...further degredations.
h/t Darleen Click @ Protein Wisdom