SPARKY:
A REMINDER!



Bless Wiley!

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Congressman John Conyers is calling on American citizens to sign on to a letter to the President that demands a response to questions originally posed by Conyers and 88 other members of Congress in a similar letter dated May 5, 2005. Conyers has committed to personally delivering the letter to the White House when it garners 100,000 citizen signatures.

Let's help him get there. Follow this link to sign.

Over 86,000 signatures so far, as of 12:00 pm, 6-2-05

*The congressman's website is having trouble keeping up with the traffic, and they may also be changing the address of the specific page. The links above will go to the Home page.

Petitions

• Democrats.com (http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/39) - 'Should Congress Investigate Bush's Iraq War Lies?'
• John Conyers.com (http://www.johnconyers.com) - 'Letter to President Bush Concerning "Downing Street Memo"' (online petition; goal: 250,000 signatures), John Conyers

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Oh sister dear:

n 2005, Michael Jackson went to trial on child molestation charges. The alleged victim was a boy, Gavin Arvizo, referred to as "the accuser." Arvizo was 13 years old at the time of the alleged crimes. Jackson was indicted for conspiracy with five (unindicted) co-conspirators to abduct the accuser, his sister, and his brother, falsely imprison and extort the same children and their mother, and for sexually molesting the accuser. On June 13, 2005, the jury found Jackson not guilty on all charges.

Bashir documentary: Living with Michael Jackson

A Granada Television documentary [1] about Jackson, in which he was extensively interviewed by British journalist Martin Bashir, was shown first in the UK on 3 February 2003 and then in the U.S. three days later.

Among other things, the documentary shows the twelve year old Gavin Arvizo. The boy is seen holding hands with Jackson and resting his head on Jackson's shoulder. The boy stated in the trial that the holding of hands was Jackson's initiative, the latter his own, because he was really close to Jackson, and Jackson was his best friend. He and Jackson tell about the two sleeping in the same room, though not in the same bed (they told about an occasion where each was happy to sleep on the floor and let the other have the bed). The boy has later told that he had not realized that the footage would be broadcast all over the world. After the airing he was teased by his friends. His mother claims that she has not given Bashir permission to film her son, and was not even aware of that until the airing.

Jackson stated in the documentary that several young children, predominantly pre-adolescent boys (including Macaulay Culkin, when he was younger, his younger brother Kieran and sisters[2] ) have slept in his bed, but he denies having had sex with any of them. Conversely, Jackson lets his children stay with his friends, for example with Barry Gibb. He emphasizes that children need and deserve lots of love — not sexual, but like having hot milk and cookies, tucking them in, telling a bed-time story, climbing trees with them, etc.

Responding to concern after the airing, Santa Barbara County District Attorney Thomas W. Sneddon Jr. stated that, under California law, even if they had slept in the same bed, without "affirmative, offensive conduct," it wouldn't have been criminal. [3]

Jackson is alleged of conspiracy with his aides to commit child abduction, false imprisonment and extortion, in an attempt to control PR-damage caused by the documentary. Jackson is also indicted for child molestation; however, this would have taken place not before but after the concern arose. ...

I love the American Jury System - Sparky