Paris Jackson Seals Emotional Farewell

In what was one of the most emotional moments of the memorial for her father, Michael Jackson's 11-year-old daughter Paris told the crowd "ever since I was born daddy has been the best father you can ever imagine." before breaking down in her Aunt Janet Jackson's arms. Click Here for the full story

Celebrities speak, sing in tribute to Michael Jackson

In a strange turn of events the Rev. Al Sharpton spoke and actually made sense.  

Rev. Al Sharpton addressed the crowd and spoke of Jackson's contribution to the music world.

"When Michael started, it was a different world, but because Michael kept going, because he didn't accept limitations, because he refused to let people decide his boundaries, he opened up the whole world in the music world," Sharpton said. "He put on one glove, pulled his pants up and broke down the color curtain."

Sharpton then addressed Jackson's children.

"There wasn't nothing strange about your daddy," he said. "It was strange what your daddy had to deal with, but he dealt with it."

Singer John Mayer then took out his guitar and performed Jackson's "Human Nature."

An emotional Brooke Shields, who was 13 when she became close friends with Jackson, said they bonded "because we both understood what it was like to be in the spotlight from a very, very young age."

The service turned to tears, though, as Jackson's brother Jermaine sang "Smile," a favorite song of Michael's. After struggling not to cry through the song, Jermaine was hugged by his surviving brothers as he left the stage.

Martin Luther King III, Bernice King and Congresswoman Shiela Jackson Lee also addressed the crowd.

Source: CNN

Denied

I entered the draw for tickets to the Michael Jackson memorial, but I will be watching it on tv with millions of others.

Oprah seeks sainthood with phony reality show

Thu Feb 28, 8:56 AM Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter)

- The first oddity (but certainly not the last) about the eight-week Oprah Winfrey infomercial "Oprah's Big Give" is that there is nary a single genuine giving moment to be found during the opening hour.

It is instead a profoundly hyperkinetic and unwieldy adventure in product placement, in Oprah-as-Messiah hype and, ultimately, in what's so utterly fake and insidious about "reality" television itself.
Because the ABC series operates under the high-minded guise of bringing life, rescue and joy to people in need, it's actually even more disturbing than those shows claiming no similarly socially redeeming purpose.
While the recipients of this largesse no doubt truly benefit in a format that's one part "Queen for a Day" and one part "The Amazing Race," the question must be asked early on: Is it worth being exploited as a quasi-pathetic charity case on national television, replete with on-cue manipulative sappy music and photo ops choreographed by editors seemingly in the throes of epileptic seizure, to gain that helping hand?
The idea here is that, armed simply with a photo, directions and $2,500 in cash, 10 selfless soldiers -- including an Iraq War vet, a dot-com millionaire, a paraplegic author and a pre-med student -- must change the lives of their needy assigned human/family in five days through fundraising, corporate sponsorship or just plain love (which in this case is another synonym for cold hard cash).
The "Biggest Giver" will wind up with $1 million, though Oprah insists "that's a secret!" Oh really? These people are taking weeks out of their busy lives just to help their fellow man?
What makes "Oprah's Big Give" especially unwatchable is a vertigo-inducing pace. Few shots last more than three seconds, making it virtually impossible to get to know any of these people on anything more than a surface level. Which is probably as it should be.
Shallow as a birdbath, the program would appear to exist less as a true philanthropic exercise than yet another self-aggrandizing vehicle in Oprah's divine quest to become synonymous with all that is virtuous and good on Earth. We might well refer to this as "Touched By a Talk Show Host."