For the past decade or so, celebrity watchers have speculated whether Michael Jackson is simply a freak or something significantly more dangerous such as a pedophile. However, it now seems the judicial stakes have gotten higher as Jackson’s shenanigans may have contributed to the death of an unsuspecting bystander.
Upon admitting the king of pop to the hospital for allegedly exhibiting symptoms of the flu, hospital officials at the Marian Medical Center in Santa Monica, California bumped a 74 year old grandmother on a ventilator suffering cardiac arrest from the trauma ward to make room for Michael Jackson.
Mrs. Ruiz had to be rolled out of the room assisted by a hand-pumped ventilator. Michael Jackson was able to walk in under his own power with a tummy ache and the chills. One does not have to be Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman or Bones McCoy to diagnose which case was the actual medical emergency.
From the sound of it, all Michael had --- if he was sick at all --- was a case of the nerves. Normally, one might tell him to take it like a man, but in Jackson’s case the sentiment really wouldn’t apply.
It is pretty safe to conclude that Mrs. Ruiz was a victim of the pernicious disease of celebrity favoritism. Those blinded by glitz, glamour, or even large wads of money will respond someone as important as Michael Jackson deserves preferential treatment.
But more importantly, more important on whose scale? If anything, Jackson’s social utility might actually be less than the average patient.
Mrs. Ruiz was the mother of eight children, the grandmother of twenty-four, and the great-grandmother of twenty-six. According to her daughter, she “was the heart of the family.” Apart from grabbing his crotch and now apparently those of underage minors, what has Michael Jackson accomplished of similar lasting value? When you come down to it, hasn’t the average janitor or sanitation engineer contributed more to the upkeep of society than this sicko?
Anyone who has had a loved one in dire need of medical attention does not want this precious resource allocated in such an ephemeral manner as to whom is more subjectively impressive in the eyes of medical personnel. Unless Michael Jackson needed a plastic tube shoved down his throat in order to breath, he should have been forced to wait four or five hours in the emergency room like everyone else.
Those with a level of compassion below that of even Mr. Spock will calculate in a disturbingly dispassionate manner that Mrs. Ruiz was passing away anyway and should not have been made a priority. Even so, Mrs. Ruiz should not have been forced to endure Michael Jackson’s histrionics and compelled to take on a supporting role in his neverending drama.
The Ruiz family should have been made a priority at the hospital and allowed to concentrate on comforting their matriarch and emotionally preparing themselves for her pending departure from this world. Instead, they were made to feel lower than the medical waste dropped on the operating room floor as those gathered around this ailing woman were crowded into a cramped room and others barred from being at the side of their loved one so that Michael Jackson might have his tizzy in luxurious privacy.
Throughout much of his adult life, Michael Jackson has lived in a bizarre fantasy world that has lately gone beyond private amusement rides and an undue attraction to chimpanzees. Now, because of his refusal to live in the real word and his insatiable need for attention, a woman has died and one of life’s most grievous events has been made all the more unbearable for a family that before now had nothing whatsoever to do with this lamentable saga.
It is about time Michael Jackson was held accountable for his actions. Perhaps the courts should be used to punish him for something he’s actually done rather than for shadowy allegations that cannot be proven one way or the other, and, even if true, are as much the fault of the parents allowing such violations to take place as one does not have to be a practicing psychologist to see that Michael Jackson is not right in the head.
Copyright 2005 by Frederick Meekins
No comments:
Post a Comment