This would never have happened on "Law & Order"

I imagine it was much the same throughout New York, and indeed, throughout the rest of the country. I was in midtown Manhattan yesterday in a corporate high-rise with many, many televisions tuned to the various bus.-related cable talkfests. But of course, everything became "Jacko"-related starting at 4:30. As the minutes ticked by before the verdict was announced, crowds began to form in front of those TVs, to the point you couldn't get through the lobby or hallway where the TV was situated. It was quite amazing to see the number of high-powered professionals who were wasting valuable "billable hours" to find out if a determinedly demented washed-up pop star would be declared "guilty" for the supposed transgressions he committed at "Neverland."

Bizarre.

And to see the looks on the faces of the (primarily) white crowd when the verdict was announced was remarkable. A mixture of rage and knowing smirks, and mutterings of "He's so guilty."

I didn't get the fascination with the trial (or with little Michael, for that matter; I've never been nostalgic for the freakish Jackson Five).

I didn't get the freakshow outside the court house. It looked like the Terrie Schiavo ghouls had been transported by aliens from Florida to California, sprinkled with members of some sort of Michael Jackson cult.

And I don't get the certainty with which people found Jackson surely to be guilty. I do believe, if given the chance, the crowds in front of those corporate lobby TVs would surely have publicly and gleefully stoned the man-boy before he could escape into his limo/SUV; maybe as a proxy for OJ, or maybe for some other sense of justice denied.