So Michael Jackson’s innocent. As little as I care, I can’t help but know that because it’s everywhere. It’s on the internet, the TV, and the radio. Co-workers are telling each other and even my mom told me when she got back from work.

I pride myself in generally not giving a shit about celebrity trials. In fact, I usually go out of my way to not read the articles, not watch the TV specials, and not listen to the gossip around the cooler. Even if there's some chance I might care about the verdict (like if some hot young starlet is on trial and, if found guilty, her punishment would be to date me), I know that the trial itself will be long, drawn out, heavily examined, dissected, reenacted, and over publicized, turning it into a media circus where the main attractions are watching paint dry and a side show game called, "Make A Mockery of American Justice." And the end result is always the same. The jury emerges from their seemingly endless deliberations, and announces the verdict that, without fail, shocks and baffles people all across the globe. Nine times out of ten, that verdict is “Innocent.”

To Michael Jackson’s credit, it’s not really his fault he’s screwed up. He has been pushed to the limits of sanity from birth. His parents ruined him, but the world loved him. He grew up being beaten and manipulated, and we gave him a crown and the world’s biggest paycheck. Is the end result really that surprising?

My opinion of him changed today. While some of the world breathed a sigh of relief, and some of the world screamed for a retrial or a hanging, I stopped hating him as much as I had before. My hate had been replaced by pity. I pity him because, had he been found guilty, he might have gotten some help. Regardless of whether or not he crossed the line, his actions are not that of a healthy, sane man. He might have been brought down to earth by a prison stay or time in an institution with a good shrink. But now he’s going back home, same as always, nothing has changed. I pity him because the best thing in the world he can do right now is disappear from the public eye for a while, and I know he’s not capable of that. I believe that in his mind he could never conceive of not being the center of attention.

So he’ll go on making a spectacle of himself. He’ll get in and out of trouble again and again. He’ll be an idol for some and a whipping boy for others.

What does all this mean to me? Nothing. Like I said, I don’t give a shit.