MICHAEL JACKSON

Scorned, admired -- and mourned

Sometimes, death is a blindside hit. When it comes at the end of a long life as it did last week for 86-year-old Ed McMahon, you are saddened by it but not particularly surprised.

'Homosexual demon' target of exorcism

To Manifested Glory Ministries of Bridgeport, Conn.: Perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me what a ''homosexual demon'' looks like.

'Thriller' was greatest triumph, greatest tragedy

I got to interview Michael Jackson only once, at the family home in Encino, Calif. This was on the occasion of his 21st birthday, and I remember thinking that for a guy approaching a milestone, he didn't seem very happy. Truth is, he seemed tired. Not from fatigue or exertion. It was an existential tired, as if he felt worn down by the simple act of being.

IRAN PROTESTS

The world witnessed the killing of Neda

Maybe you were there when Neda died. If you were, you saw a tragedy, of course -- a 26-year-old Iranian protester gunned down in the streets. But I am convinced you also saw the future -- a profound change in the way you and I will henceforth comprehend the world.

GOP blind to its race problem

The modern GOP was created in 1965 with a stroke of Lyndon Johnson's pen. If that is an exaggeration, it is not much of one. When Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, he made a prediction: In committing the unpardonable sin of guaranteeing the ballot to all citizens regardless of race, he said, he would cause his party to lose the South ``for a generation.''

MINORITIES

The Right is not being persecuted

A reader wants to know why I didn't mention what David Letterman said. John, from Monroe, Wash., wrote in response to a recent column on the shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington. I argued that high-profile media figures are filling the Zeitgeist with comments hateful of and demeaning to such marginalized minorities as Jews, blacks, Muslims and gays and that this validates people like accused shooter James von Brunn. I quoted a few examples.

The ugly consequences of open hatred

''Them Jews aren't going to let [President Obama] talk to me.'' -- the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. ''I hate gay people . . .'' -- Tim Hardaway, former NBA star.

REALITY TV

Privacy invasion now a way of life

We'll discuss Susan Boyle's mental state in a moment, but first let me show my ignorance. A few weeks back, a reader asked what I thought of ''Jon and Kate.'' I had never heard of them.

Supreme Court debate: We've been punk'd

So Newt Gingrich now says Sonia Sotomayor is not a ''racist'' after all. She must be trembling with relief. Gingrich's backpedaling came last week in an article on HumanEvents.com. It leaves just two high-profile Republicans, former Rep. Tom Tancredo and radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh, still clinging to that absurd allegation.

STEREOTYPES

`You don't really know me'

I am your scapegoat. I am your boogeyman. Brown-skinned, kinky-haired, black man, me. So I was not surprised (it was just another day at the office) last week when a white woman from suburban Philadelphia called police from her cellphone, claiming she had been locked in the trunk of a Cadillac by two black men. Nor was I shocked (it was just another day in the life) when police said Bonnie Sweeten was actually holed up in a luxury hotel at Walt Disney World, and there never was a kidnapping, much...

It's good to be able to relate to others

A few words about identity politics. That's the knock on Sonia Sotomayor, who was nominated to the Supreme Court last week by President Obama. If confirmed, Sotomayor, who is Puerto Rican, will be the first Hispanic to sit on the nation's highest tribunal.

NATIONAL SECURITY

Freedom is worth security risks

`No one can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.'' -- Edward R. Murrow Let's talk about the next terrorist attack.

Truth panel? Not sold on this argument

If incompetence were a crime, you might have a case. Heck, if arrogance were a felony, you could put them on Death Row. But these things are not against the law, so forgive me if I'm not sold on the argument that we should launch investigations of the failures of the Bush years. It's a view advanced by many, including Sen. Patrick Leahy, who wants to empanel a ''truth commission'' and CNN commentator Jack Cafferty, who wants a special prosecutor.

THE LIBERTY CITY FIVE

Convictions a sorry symptom of the post-9/11 Great Panic

Like the Mounties, they finally got their men. And all it took was three years, three trials and millions of taxpayer dollars. At that price, you'd like to feel a certain satisfaction from last week's guilty verdict against five men from inner-city Miami who stood accused of conspiring with al Qaeda to launch terrorist attacks in this country. You'd like to feel you'd seen justice done.

Pelosi's story has lots of holes in it

Somebody call me when Nancy Pelosi gets her story straight. So far, the House Speaker's explanation of what and when she knew about the Bush administration's policy of torturing suspected terrorists is crookeder than Dick Cheney's smile.

FARRAH FAWCETT

When you can't even die in peace . . .

Our subject today: the end. It's a hell of a thing when you can't even die in peace. For what it's worth, I hesitate to say that. One should be slow to foreclose hope, always leave room for miracles. Still . . .

Blacks must confront their homophobia

''The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.'' -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

CHRISTIANITY

Why this tolerance for torture?

Between 1933 and 1945, as a series of restrictive laws, brutal pogroms and mass deportations culminated in the slaughter of six million Jews, the Christian church, with isolated exceptions, watched in silence.

Grievance and rage combustible

Afew days ago, a high school student in Sarasota failed history and another failed civics. As a result, the one wound up shot in the chest and the other jailed on a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.