i swear that ho needs to get a life...she needs to leave mj alone...all she is tryin to do is seek attention.

Why are you flaming her, just becuase she is anti-mj?

Metalbabe699 said:

Yeah, funny how she pulled out of the child abuse nonsense 'cos she discovered it was all about money for nothing. You would think she'd give up hating MJ by now.
Guess she's desperate for attention. Freakin' witch.

Cloudbuster said:

Please elaborate on her!

gloria allred IS a bitch, indeed. but i'm kind of warming up to her on this MJ thing

Filed December 24, 1997
I must admit that I have the same gut reaction to Gloria Allred that I have to Johnnie Cochran. And she doesn't even argue her cases in verse. In fact, she didn't argue her "Melrose Place" case at all. It was her partner, Nathan Goldberg, who battled Aaron Spelling's lawyers in court over the firing of the pregnant Hunter Tylo. Allred, the beautiful plaintiff standing forlornly by her side, ran the daily press conferences.

As the American Lawyer once put it: "Allred is neither a legal theoretician nor a trial strategist. ... While Allred gets the headlines, (her partners) do most of the trench work ... write most of the briefs, take most of the depositions and do much of the in-court questioning."

Allred's court is the court of public opinion. As such, she is a most disturbing symbol of what has gone wrong with our legal system. The fact that O.J. is playing golf, Louise Woodward is hailed as a heroine and Hunter Tylo has just been awarded $5 million has a lot to do with lawyers like Allred, manufacturing injustices. They argue their cases from talk show to talk show, and treat the juries as if they were refugees from the Jerry Springer audience pool.

Allred has given the term "skirt-chasing lawyer" new meaning. Her last long-legged victim of injustice before Tylo was Kelly Fisher, a former flame of Dodi Fayed, suing him for breaking his promise to marry her. Here was Allred working hard to establish a legal precedent that would favor a viciously persecuted class: ex-girlfriends of international playboys.

A sample of Allred's cases is, in fact, a litany of petty grievances. And since legal resources and public attention are both finite, the more we clamor against made-up abuses, the less we focus on the real ones proliferating around us.

A modern tableau of our culture would include Allred in her neon suits and black helmet of hair, standing alongside her victim du jour and making sure that her own face is never, as TV people say, out of safety -- that is never off-screen. Indeed, I'm not entirely sure that Gloria Headroom exists when off-screen.

Taking shamelessness to new heights, Allred in this latest case played the abortion card, sending Tylo forth to tearfully testify that her agent had been told by one of the "Melrose Place" executives that she could have an abortion if she wanted to keep her job. (The executive denied this under oath.)

What Allred is arguing here is, in essence, that a rotund person has an inalienable right to play a thin person on television. Tylo's role was to introduce a new character, a streamlined even bikini-clad vixen, to the series. Now, you may argue that a pregnant woman can be just as seductive, but that's the shorthand of American soaps, for heaven's sake. The producers were not casting a female Laurence Olivier to play Orinthia, the great seductress, in Bernard Shaw's "Apple Cart." And nobody has claimed that Tylo was hired for her thespian gifts. She was hired as a body type -- it was even in her contract.

But inventing inalienable rights is an Allred specialty. She recently argued in a California court that Girl Scouts have the right to be Boy Scouts. She has stood for the rights of a bus driver to refuse to hand out hamburger coupons because he was a vegetarian. She has battled a restaurant that listed prices only on the men's menus and a chain store that displayed boys and girls toys on different aisles.

And she has done it all with a staggering pomposity, even comparing herself to Martin Luther King Jr. During yet another lawsuit, she argued that anything which violates a woman's inalienable right to urinate in any facility at anytime is "the first step down the long, dark road of restricting women's rights."

No wonder Richard Belzer recently called her the "Al Sharpton of women." But I think that's unfair -- Sharpton is much more reasonable. Allred's sense of melodrama even rubs off on her clients. "We're just like everybody else," Tylo said after the verdict, "and for us to be treated like meat, it has to stop." News flash: pregnant soap-opera actresses to lose chains.

After Allred and Tylo get through trivializing the legal system, what redress is left for real oppression? Lost in all this overwrought emotion were the facts. "We offered her," Sally Suchil, the Spelling Group's general counsel, told me, "a more substantial part in the following year of 'Melrose Place' for more money. She responded by filing a lawsuit." Allred, of course, held a press conference to announce the filing and during the trial often held two or three press conferences a day to dispense her latest spin. "If she ends up making a million out of this, which is what we've heard," Suchil said, "it works out at about $20,000 per press conference."

It's clear now that the most successful victims in America are the photogenic sort, preferably with just enough acting talent to be able to cry on cue. There are millions of real victims -- of real violence and real abuse -- who could use a good lawyer, but they do not wield such a megaphone. Denouncing Spelling is so much more fun -- and so much more profitable.

Source: http://www.ariannaonline....22497.html

+++

LA lawyer Gloria Allred has questioned George Harrison's death certificate, claiming that the "integrity of public records is at stake" because the place listed as the site of the former Beatle's demise is a non-existent address. It's believed that Harrison died of lung cancer on November 29th, at the LA home of his friend, Gavin de Becker, but postal authorities have said the official death certificate lists a different address, which doesn't exist. The locations of celebrity deaths are often legitimately masked, to prevent them from becoming shrines or places of pilgrimage for fans. However, Allred lodged a complaint because she believes that, "Celebrities and / or their supporters are not above the law, even if they are acting with good intentions, for example, to protect the privacy of loved ones." Allred added, rather tastelessy, "All things must pass, but not this." A spokesman for the LAPD responded by saying it was perfectly legal to give a different address as the place of death - unless there was an intent to defraud and, therefore, no-one's been charged with any offence over the completion of George Harrison's death certificate.

Friday December 14, 04:01 PM (mrib)
Source: http://216.239.51.100/sea...rrison_ph1 d.html+Gloria+Allred+publicity+stunt&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

+++

Custody Disputes Over Primates

The US media is notorious for the friendly coverage it gives to the pet trade in primates. A lot of the biassed coverage comes because people convince gullible reporters that the affection shown them by their pet monkeys is proof the monkey "loves" them and wants to live as a human being for ever. Some people even call their pet monkeys their "children" and claim they "adopted" them.

The media forgets that there is a real monkey mother behind every monkey kept as a pet - a monkey whose heart was broken when profit-hungry animal dealers stole her baby, often one baby after another, and sold the animal.

Two ongoing court cases illustrate the kind of press coverage the monkey pet trade gets.

In July 2000 New York State environmental authorities tried to confiscate a Diana monkey held as a pet by a Brooklyn couple. The couple had bought her from an animal dealer who had somehow managed to get hold of the animal, who belongs to a highly endangered species.

It is illegal to own endangered animals as pets in New York State.

As proof of their "love," the couple trained their wild animal to use a toilet and dressed her up in mini-skirts!

When she was 18 months old, the monkey endured a hysterectomy, which is major abdominal surgery for nonhuman primates, as it is with human primates. They did this despite the monkey not having access to a male monkey. They also had her canine teeth extracted to restrict her biting activity.

Detroit Zoo has a sanctuary area and has a male Diana monkey it plans to introduce to the pet monkey, who is now about six years old, if she gets confiscated.

The US media, led off by the New York Times, started a hysterical media circus about the poor family being deprived of their "child." It seems that the male Diana will have a long wait for his companion - if indeed he ever sees her.

In West Covina, California, an elderly male chimpanzee kept as a pet escaped. "Moe" severely bit a policeman's hand and scratched a humane officer. Soon afterwards he bit off the top of a finger of a visitor to the "owner's" home. The policeman and the visitor are suing the chimp's owners.

Moe was confiscated and sent to a sanctuary which has experience with chimpanzees. Publicity hound Los Angeles lawyer Gloria Allred joined the fray, saying that the chimpanzee should be taken from the sanctuary and returned to live in the residential neighborhood, despite many of the neighbors being terrified.

Source: http://www.ippl.org/custo...spute.html


+++

Take a hike, Gloria!

Filed June 9, 1997
Last week, a California court turned down a lawsuit that sought to force a Boy Scout troop to let a 13-year-old girl join. Gloria Allred, the celebrity attorney representing Katrina Yeaw, accused the Boy Scouts of America of defending "gender apartheid." By mixing up fake discrimination with the real thing for the sake of an arresting sound bite, she diminishes the horror of real discrimination, real segregation, real apartheid.

So here we are once again, faced with a high-profile nuisance lawsuit by a publicity-addicted lawyer. Not only does such a lawsuit -- which is now headed for the state supreme court -- unnecessarily add to general rancor and hostility but, more important, in the court of public opinion, it makes it harder on those who legitimately seek legal redress for unfair treatment.

"I'm hoping to do hiking and camping," said Katrina Yeaw in explaining why she wants to be a Boy Scout. But when the case was filed two summers ago, there were 20 Girl Scout troops in Rocklin, Calif. -- three in Katrina's age group. And nearby Roseville has nine troops in her age range. "Some of these groups," Pam Feltenberger, the executive director of the Girl Scout Council in the area, told me, "are very high adventure. Even if they weren't, a lot of the Girl Scouts' activities are driven by what the girls want to do, not what the leaders want to do."

It is hard to convince anyone with any experience of the Girl Scouts that Katrina is suffering because she can't wear the uniform of the Boy Scouts. I have an 8-year-old Brownie, and she has already done enough camping and hiking to satisfy most any outdoor enthusiast. And she's not even a Girl Scout yet. But this case has never really been about a flesh and blood little girl and her love of hiking. It has always been about invented rights and surfeited lawyers looking for some made-up wrong to feed off -- a much less messy proposition than dealing with real wrongs.

Who benefits from such frivolous legal action? Appearing on a television show with Allred, I asked her who was paying her fees. After four rounds of ducking the question, she told me that the information is "privileged."

Privileged? It is closer to the truth to say that this sort of lawsuit is for privileged lawyers looking for a platform to promote themselves. Clearly, the young plaintiff would be perfectly happy hiking and camping with the Girl Scouts were it not for some high-profile lawyer -- unwilling to disclose who pays her fees -- trying to turn the case into a cause celebre.

As for Katrina's twin brother, Daniel, he has been made so uncomfortable by all the fuss that he no longer goes to his troop meetings. In fact, he is so weary of the case that he refuses to talk about it. "A lot of friends still ask me at school why she's doing this. ... I just tell them, 'Ask my sister.'" He should actually be telling them to ask her lawyer.

Aside from the fault lines being formed within the Yeaw family, the saddest thing about lawsuits like this is what economists call "the opportunity cost." Any time we pursue made-up injustices, a real injustice goes by unpunished. In a world full of real suffering, do we really have the right to tilt at windmills?

And whatever happened to our constitutional right to free association, anyway? As even fervently liberal columnist Julianne Malveaux argued on the same show with Allred: "As president of a women's organization, the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs, there are places and spaces where we want boys. And places and spaces where we want girls." She amplified: "We don't want to eliminate single-sex organizations or single-sex education. After all, Boy Scouts are not distributing opportunity, they are scouting."

On July 15, the case goes to the Sacramento County Superior Court. It is unfortunate that so much precious court time has to be wasted considering a non-case. And the final irony is that less than a year from now, when Katrina turns 14, she will be entitled to join the Boy Scouts through the Explorers, a division for both boys and girls aged 14 to 21. But Gloria Allred could not wait.

She's just a publicity seeking bitch. In 1997 she represented this model who wanted to sue Dodi for dumping her and hooking up with Princess Di. They even held a press conference and I saw the worst display of acting in my life; the model pretended to cry while Gloria ranted and raved about how horrible Di and Dodi were. Anyway the lawsuit was dropped after the car accident which led to their deaths...but like Charles Barkley said on Talk Back a couple of days ago she is using Michael to get her face on tv...she doesn't give a damm about those kids!

I would have told her to FUCK OFF! MJ was being way to polite by telling her to go to hell.
[This message was edited Sat Dec 7 16:16:35 PST 2002 by fonkywonder]

Now this article puts things into perspective...

Worry about your own kids, not Jackson's

December 7, 2002

BY SUE ONTIVEROS SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Advertisement
www.suntimes.com/output/o...sue07.html


When entertainer Michael Jackson showed off his young child recently to adoring fans in Germany, boy, did he set off a controversy. In what I figure was a spur-of-the-moment deal, Jackson dangled the infant over the balcony.

Would that we all were as concerned about whether our country will soon be at war with Iraq. Nope, that isn't the sort of thing that gets our collective attention. An aging pop star's misguided moment, now that's what will set off the outrage in so many of us. Now, high-profile California attorney Gloria Allred has asked California's child welfare services to determine if the singer's three children are endangered.

Rather than judge Jackson's parenting, I just wonder: Are any of these self-righteous folks guilty of the following activities? For example, tossing an infant in the air and catching him. Maybe because I'm such a bad catch, this act strikes fear in my heart every time I see it. ''But he likes it'' is the usual response I hear whenever I've suggested it's not such a good idea. Yeah, the kid likes it all the way to the emergency room when someone misses.

A lot of those kids who ''like'' being swung in circles by their arms end up in the emergency room, too. But I'm sure none of the Jackson censors has done that, either.

I'm sure none of the Jackson critics ever left their child in a car while it was running ''just for a minute.'' Surely none of the outraged are the folks driving with the kids who aren't strapped in by seat belts. Couldn't be.

And none of them is one of the parents in summer who are sunning themselves but allowing their toddlers to maneuver crowded pools or beaches because there are a couple of teenage lifeguards on duty. Of course not.

There isn't a parent around who hasn't had a reckless moment. My guess is the real outrage over Jackson stems from the fact that we find him pretty odd. Being odd does not disqualify anyone from parenthood.

***

While Michael Jackson's actions didn't particularly alarm me, I do have to question the parents I read about in a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor. It seems coed teen sleepovers are gaining in popularity. According to the article, more than half the respondents in a survey of youths by TeenPeople magazine have attended coed sleepovers.

Parents of young teens figure since there are more boy-girl friendships, the coed sleepovers are platonic and harmless. The article mentions cross-gender pop culture role models, such as the title characters of ''Will & Grace'' and Elaine and Jerry from ''Seinfeld.''

I have to think these parents have very short memories of their teen years or are in deep denial. Let me remind you that the sexual curiosity you had as teenagers remains alive and ready to act, given the opportunity, in today's teens. And a coed sleepover sounds like prime opportunity.

Just about every television show and pop/rap song around deals with having sex any time all the time. Today's teens are bombarded with the message that ready or not, they too should be having sex. Do they really need coed sleepovers as another way to push them toward physical relationships they may not be ready for emotionally?

Oh, and those TV pals, Will and Grace, Elaine and Jerry? Each couple has slept together. So much for ''platonic'' TV role models.

Here's the transcript where Charles Barkley stood up for Michael. Props and Pounds for him...IMO the media this milking this MJ shit because it boots ratings and sells papers to make him their whipping boy!

OFFICAL TRANSCRIPT OF TALK BACK LIVE 12/4/02*

NEVILLE: And welcome back, everybody. I'm Arthel Neville. Making his weekly visit with us now is CNN contributor Charles Barkley. Hello, Mr. Barkley. CHARLES BARKLEY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Hey, girl. How are you doing?

NEVILLE: Nice to see you today.

BARKLEY: I'm glad to be back. Got a little tan. A little tan.

NEVILLE: All right. And you know what, Charles, we want to hear what you have to say about this story. It seems the media just can't get enough of Michael Jackson. Today Michael limped into a Santa Maria, California court again to testify in a dispute over no-shows at a couple of concerts. It seems he's nursing a nasty spider bite that left his leg swollen.

And you might remember last month, when Michael dangled his infant son over a balcony at a hotel in Berlin. And the incident prompted attorney Gloria Allred to ask for an investigation into whether Michael endangered his youngest child. Here's what Michael had to say to Gloria.


*then they show the GO TO HELL clip*

NEVILLE: All right, Gloria, you heard it. Michael Jackson says you can go to hell. What do you say?

ALLRED: Well, Arthel, he wants me to go to hell, but I want Michael Jackson to go to parenting classes to learn how to protect rather than endanger his babies.

NEVILLE: So is that the motive behind your public outcry? Because apparently officials in California can't do anything, this is out of their jurisdiction. The incident took place in Berlin.

ALLRED: I don't think that's correct, Arthel. I think that the district attorney of Santa Barbara probably does not have jurisdiction to criminally prosecute Michael Jackson on a charge of child endangerment. However, I do believe that Children's Protective Services and the dependency court do have jurisdiction, because their jurisdiction is over the child, not over the parent. And they have a duty to protect the child.

Now, Michael Jackson may be surrounded by an entourage of certain people who may agree with him, but I want Michael Jackson to know that I'm not part of his entourage. And I'm concerned about the safety of that child. No one should dangle a baby over a fourth-floor balcony, which could subject the child to great bodily harm or even to death. And I don't think that he has a proper awareness of the risk of harm to which he subjected that baby.

NEVILLE: Gloria, you can't see Charles Barkley, but I can. I think you're making his head hurt.

ALLRED: Well, I'm not concerned about his head. I'm concerned about that little baby who can't speak for herself or himself and can't protect himself. And any person in this country, Arthel, who witnesses an act that they believe might endanger a child, or might be an act of cruelty toward a child, or an act of abandonment, abuse or neglect of a child, should do exactly what I did, which is report it to Children's Protective Services in their county. And I know a lot of people have done that in their counties and do take that responsibility seriously.

BARKLEY: First of all, lady, you act like you ain't got nothing better to do than worry about Michael Jackson and his kids. He's apologized. He said that he's wrong. And I'm pretty sure there are some other kids out there in L.A. who probably really do need your help. But you just want to be on television and talk about Michael Jackson.

It's none of your business, basically. He made a mistake and he apologized.

ALLRED: Mr. Barkley...

BARKLEY: Every time some high profile case breaks out, you jump on television and act like you're god. Only god can judge other people. Why don't you go back to your office, wait on another case, and shut the hell up?

ALLRED: Well, Mr. Barkley, you know something -- you know, I wish you would send the same amount of energy protecting this baby as you have just spent on...

BARKLEY: He's not your baby.

ALLRED: ... attacking me. I'd like the opportunity and the courtesy of your being able to give me a chance to respond to what you just said. This baby cannot speak for himself or herself, cannot protect themselves. And any person should do what I did. And I think that Mr. Jackson's attacks on me are not serving the best interests of the child. What he needs to do is get out there and learn how to be a parent who protects, not endangers his child.

That's what this is really all about. You shouldn't be defending his actions.

BARKLEY: I'm not defending his actions. The man apologized. What more do you want him to do? He apologized. When a person makes a mistake, they apologize. He apologized, he said he made a terrible error.

What more? We've been talking about this for three weeks now. He apologized the next day.
ALLRED: Here's what's more. Because what he said was that he didn't intend to harm the child. That's not relevant on the issue of child endangerment. All that's relevant is, did he willfully take that baby and dangle that baby over the balcony? That's what's relevant. The fact that the child might not have been injured is not relevant. The fact that he endangered the child is what's important. And...


BARKLEY: The fact of the matter is that's the only time you've ever seen Michael Jackson with his kid. Am I right? So you're just going to go by that little synopsis he's a bad parent?

NEVILLE: OK. We're talking about basically Gloria Allred versus Michael Jackson. And we're going to Texas now, where Bob (ph) is standing by on the phone. Go ahead, Bob (ph).

BOB: Good evening. This is Bob (phone) from Tennessee, actually.

NEVILLE: Oh, Tennessee. Go ahead, sir.

BOB: How are you doing today? I just wanted to make a comment that Gloria's more interested in her own self-promotion than the welfare of those kids. I'll ask Gloria, what would you do in all of a sudden everyone stopped listening to you? Would you finally just go away.

ALLRED: Sir, I frankly feel that I have a moral duty to speak out. That I should not be silent in the face of a significant risk of harm to a child. And I know that many others feel the same way. That they would not turn their backs on a vulnerable baby who is at risk.

I think what Michael Jackson did, what we saw in that video was reckless, it was irresponsible. I don't know any of us who would give our baby to him to dangle over a fourth-floor balcony. And I think that action, if it were not by a celebrity, would be condemned, would be criticized and would be investigated.

NEVILLE: OK. I have an e-mail coming in now from Rich in New Jersey. He says, "Good for Gloria Allred. If anyone thinks that these kids are in danger now being with this nut, wait eight or ten years."

OK. And, Paul, we haven't heard anything from you on this particular subject. Do you have anything to say?

DIAMOND: Well, I don't think this is about Gloria Allred. I think this is about the question Ms. Allred has raised. And the question she has raised is, is Michael Jackson a fit parent?

Michael Jackson thrusts himself on us every day. He thrusts himself into the public eye. And he names one kid Prince Michael I. He names another kid Prince Michael II. He's got more plastic in his face than a model airplane.

His kids are swabbed in what looks like what Woody Allen would say somebody puts on to drive through plutonium. You really have to wonder whether he's all there and whether he's a fit parent. And I think that's all she's asking, and I think it's a legitimate question.

NEVILLE: That is...

NEVILLE: And welcome back, everybody. Time for the question of the day. Should child protective services investigate Michael Jackson? And in the audience, Mike (ph) says what?

MIKE: I don't see any real basis for it. I don't condone what he did. I think it was a stupid act. He agrees it was a stupid act. But I think it's blown out of proportion.

NEVILLE: Thank you very much, sir. Do we have time for an e- mail here? It's coming in from Jay in Illinois. He says, "Michael Jackson should have charges filed against him. Just because someone is famous it doesn't mean they should be able to get away with a stupid act." Listen, Charles Barkley, we are out of time. So good to see you.

BARKLEY: Good to see you, girl.

NEVILLE: All right. I'll see you next week. And I hope to see you back here tomorrow. I'm Arthel Neville. So glad you could join me, and join me again tomorrow at 3:00 Eastern, 12:00 for you West Coasters with more TALKBACK LIVE

fonkywonder said:

perhaps. but if he didn't come out with something every 2 weeks that made him look like a lunatic, then they wouldn't have any reason for it.

I once had a college class where we had to watch something that had Gloria Allred in a debate with other lawyers. I can't remember exactly what it was about, but the broad would NOT let anyone else get a word in edge-wise once she got on a verbal roll, and she's damn LOUD about it too. She's extremely annoying, to say the least.

Mike's career has been stressed over the years to the point that he seems to be at his breaking point. I've NEVER in my life heard or heard about Mike saying anything remotely cross to anyone through the media. The publicly demure, manchild is frustrated! And is letting it hang out. This is historic stuff! Although I'm not a fan of either her or Mike, it made me LMAO when Mike told her to "go to hell."

Supernova said:

Fox News should put together a show featuring Gloria Allred and Ann Coultier... they're both on there about every day anyway, I'd love to see these 2 go at it nightly. Both extemely looney in their ideology, but on opposite sides.


In fact, they should use them to replace Hannity & Colmes. Colmes is a pussy and Hannity makes me want to vomit. And not in the entertaining way that Coultier does.
[This message was edited Sat Dec 7 17:45:46 PST 2002 by AaronUnlimited]

Michael Jackson is the BIGGEST publicity seeking ho.
He knew the reaction he'd get by dangling his baby. That's why he did it. He WANTED that worldwide furor and he used his newly purchased child to get it.
Why don't you MJ fans stop blaming everyone else for his screwed up life and put the blame where it belongs: Right on Michael Jackson's lying, attention-craving head.
Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston love to blame the press for their problems, and yet they repeatedly put themselves in bad situations. The press just reports it.
Come on, Whitney. Doing a nationally televised interview stoned is not exactly a wise choice.

fonkywonder said:

Charles put it out all in check.Gloria Allred needs some action Badly.tired Ole Trick.

I know! what a fucking bitch!

shygirl said:

Damn,would you please stop acting as if you know Michael personally? YOU do not know what he has gone through,or what's going on in his mind! YOU have not spent most of your life in the public spotlight,the way he has.And YOU most certainly did not have a tough,demanding father like Joe Jackson.I'm not defending Michael's actions in this case,but I think you should remember the saying "Don't judge a person until you have walked in THEIR shoes".

Voilà...

---
Thanksgiving is the biggest day of the year for American families. In every home in the United States, dinner is turkey with all the trimmings and pumpkin pie. It was at such a typical dinner that I spent Thanksgiving two years ago - but with a rather atypical American family. For the guest's at my friends home in New Jersey were Michael Jackson and his five year old boy, Prince Michael The First, and three year old girl, Paris.

Yes, the same Michael Jackson who, after dangling his youngest child, Prince Michael The Second, over a 50ft Berlin balcony, is now condemned as the world's worst father. In spite of Jackson's abject apology for his crazy behaviour, I am told by social workers that if the incident had happened in this country, all three of his children could've been taken into care. And yet, on the basis of four whole months I spent around Michael and his two elder children before and after that Thanksgiving, I came to a controversial conclusion: Jackson isn't the bad dad he's portrayed to be. Not only that, but Prince Michael The First and Paris are, in my experience, among the best behaved, least spoilt and most balanced of children.

During my time with the Jackson children, I got to know them quite well. I read to them, with Paris on my lap, and Prince sitting next to me. I also told off Prince for running over my foot with a toy tractor. (He responded by politely saying sorry, and repeating the apology with the prompting from his dad, who didn't think the first sounded 'sorry enough'.) This was not the behaviour of the spoilt, dysfunctional brats I was expecting.

But there were other surprises. The Jackson children of popular mythology live in isolation and are denied contact with other kids. But I have seen them play for hours with friends.The Jackson children reputedly have all their toys destroyed at the end of the day for fear of infection. But I have seen them hugging and sucking the manky, unhygienic plastic junk that all children have.I have trailed around a toy shop with Prince and Paris on one of Michael's private shopping binges. It took place at 7pm and was brought swiftly to an end because the children's bedtime was approaching - they were allowed just one toy each.

Jackson may be neurotic, eccentric and downright flaky, but Prince and Paris are bright, confident, affectionate and considerate. They say Grace before meals, speak in sentences rather than monosyllabic American grunts and are forbidden, like many children, from using rude language. Prince has a solemn face, but an impish nature and a relentless curiousity. Although he is surrounded by staff eager to do his father's bidding, I found no hint of arrogance in the little boys manner.Paris was tiny when I knew her, with a cute, pointy little face. She would always compete with Prince to be the first to jump on Dad's knee.

Since Jackson is divorced from the children's mother, Debbie Rowe, they were looked after by Governess Grace on the rare occasion when Jackson wasn't around. A Hispanic lady, who kept herself in the background, she was always watchful. I do not believe anything would escape her attention and, if she is still the nanny, I dread to think what grief she would've given Jackson for the balcony nonsence.

The children's clothes seemed to be chosen by Michael in Prince's case, with help from Governess Grace in Paris's. On special occasions, Prince tends to be done up like a little Lord Fauntleyroy. Paris always seemed to be wearing dainty, lacy and slightly dated velvet dresses.

As a father of three, I could see Prince and Paris exchanged a healthy amount of argy-bargy that goes on between siblings. Over one meal, Prince spotted that Paris had smuggled her security blanket up to the table. 'Paris has a blankey, Paris has a blankey' he taunted. Michael pointed out that Prince really shouldn't laugh because he had a 'blankey,' too. The little boy look chastened and a little embarassed at this having been revealed. Thirty seconds later, but quietly, this time, Prince started again: 'Paris has a blankey, Paris has a blankey...' Paris ignored him.

Much of Jackson's eccentricity goes back to his own father's harsh discipline. With his own children, Michael is tough but in an infinitely more considered, humane way. He is resolutely anti-smacking, and somewhere inside the hazy fog of whatever it is that obscures his sharp mind is a solid determination that his children should have the most normal upbringing possible. He is anxious in particular, that when they all hit their teens they should avoid drugs and other distractions of a showbiz background. He insists 'no means no', but discipline must be administered without anger or yelling. When the children are naughty or unkind to one another, he favours taking things away from them and making them stand in the corner. At home in Neverland he rations their toys. They are not allowed to refer to toys as 'mine' when they have friends over and have been taught that the only reason to have money is to share its benefits with others.

Somewhat astonishingly, Michael claims to come down heavily on vanity. He tells how he caught Prince combing his hair in a mirror and saying 'I look good.' Michael corrected him sayi 'You look OK.'Prince and Paris are also taught to be diplomatic, but never to lie. Even white lies are wrong according to their father. He prefers to teach children to 'see things from a different dimension'. Prince, for instance, is afraid of turbulence on aeroplanes. If you tell him he's not on a plane but a rollercoaster, Michael explains, he will know it's a lie. But if you say we're on a plane, but think of it as a rollercoaster, it becomes a matter of perspective.

Michael is also hard on himself. One day when he was recording his last album, Invincible, Prince came to the studio and spilled popcorn on the floor. Michael insisted on cleaning it up himself. 'It's my son who made the mess. I'll clean it up' he told the bemused musicians as he got down on his hands and knees.Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a friend of Michael, and host at Thanksgiving dinner, believes the star has a rare, instinctive empathy with children - possibly from never having grown up himself. He tells of the time his eight year old daughter got lost at Neverland. Finding her crying, his instinct was to tell her not to be silly, but Michael intervened and said: 'I know how you feel, I remember that happening to me when I was a little boy'.

I saw this empathy many times. Michael talks to all children as if they were adults. He will not tolerate them interrupting an adult conversation but is unusally attuned to hearing a child's voice asking a question when most of us choose to be slightly deaf. He is terrified of dogs but has bought his children a golden retriever, thinking it was wrong for him to pass on his irrational prejudice. He also dislikes making up answers to awkward questions the children ask. He likes to go to his vast private library to research the correct answer.

So what was Michael Jackson doing in the now infamous balcony scene? What led a man obsessed to the point of paranoia with his children’s safety, to endanger his baby so needlessly? I can only guess he was a carrying out, in a daft way, another of his principles - that children should be taught not to be afraid of anything. He told me at dinner that night that he is in love with danger, but didn’t know why.

It is hard to see his explanation carrying much weight with the social workers Michael may face if anything like the Berlin incident happens again. But perhaps they could take notice of a part of the speech he made about childhood and his children last year at Oxford University:

‘What if they grow older and resent me, and how my choices impacted their youth? “Why weren’t we given a normal childhood like all the other kids?” they might ask. And at that moment I pray that my children will give me the benefit of the doubt. That they will say to themselves, “Our daddy did the best he could, given the unique circumstances he faced.”

‘I hope’ he concluded, ‘that they will always focus on the positive things, on the sacrifices I willingly made for them, and not criticise the things they had to give up, or the errors I’ve made, and will certainly continue to make in raising them. For we all have been someones child, and we know that despite the very best of plans and efforts, mistakes will always occur. That’s just being human.’

Illuminating stuff, although you could have provided us with the source!!!

It was written by a British journalist, Jonathan Margolis, for a Sunday newspaper.

Sorry, it was typed up as it's not on the newspaper's website. I doubt Margolis writes regulalrly for the Mail on Sunday - after all, it's a right wing housewives tabloid.

Ellie said:

Yeah, Margolis is probably a guest writer. I'm surprised this article appeared in that publication - it is afterall a trashy, right-wing (fascist?) tabloid - just like it's daily cousin.

Even more ironic since the Daily Mail were prosecuted through a complaint from Reuters after they digitally altered a picture of MJ a couple of weeks ago.