SF Gate columnist Mark Morford notes that all of the important news, like the uprising in Iran or the health care overhaul, is forgotten when somebody like Michael Jackson dies. He write:

There’s meaningful, there’s epic and there’s revolutionary. What about all three?

Do you want to even compare? Do you dare even try? Don’t you already know the outcome? Of course you do.

You already know which kind of event, which sort of dramatic happening, which kind of ill-fated death and historic melodrama we as a culture value far, far more than any other. You already know which will hold us in thrall for days and months on end, which causes more tears and heartbreak and which kind of event will spawn books and movies and tributes and earnest memories by the million until we ourselves pass on to the hereafter, smiling and dancing and humming a desperately catchy tune.