The day Michael Jackson died.

The day Michael Jackson died. When it came up that Michael Jackson Noun 1. Michael Jackson - United States singer who began singing with his four brothers and later became a highly successful star during the 1980s (born in 1958)Michael Joe Jackson, Jackson had been rushed to thehospital, I was sitting at my computer. Thinking it would turn out justas the recent Heidi Montag Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled until (UTC) due to vandalism. story did when she was rushed to the hospitalduring some celebrity reality show in Costa Rica, or as countlessBritney Spears ambulance stories had, I brushed the story aside a bit.However, it wasn't long before online news outlets were running theheadline that Michael Jackson had actually, (this time), died. From my recollection, most of the headlines were technically properin the announcement of the death of the King of Pop. Rather thanomitting the sources of the news in their headlines, they attributed thenews to TMZ TMZ Transponder Mandatory Zone (aviation)TMZ Thirty-Mile Zone (around Hollywood)and the L.A. Times in their headlines. Some news outletsequally weighted their headlines with the news and the sources. Otheroutlets dwarfed the sources with shocking uppercase: huge letters"MICHAEL JACKSON DIES," small letters "LA Timesreports." Eventually, news outlets dropped the sources of theirnews from their headlines, declaring plainly that MJ had died. CNN CNNor Cable News NetworkSubsidiary company of Turner Broadcasting Systems. It was created by Ted Turner in 1980 to present 24-hour live news broadcasts, using satellites to transmit reports from news bureaus around the world. keptsources in its headlines for an exceptionally long time. After CNNconfirmed MJ's death with the coroner, it dropped its hearsay hearsay:see evidence. position and finally committed to the tragic story. I remember being more disoriented than saddened by the MJ news.Michael Jackson had been a part of my life for a very long time--mywhole life, actually. He played the role of background presence or whitenoise. I suppose he was an institution I bought enough into. Or maybe hewas that prize exhibit running at the local zoo that you felt proud ofhaving in your town but never tried to see. A few days prior to hisdeath, I entered the menagerie that is YouTube and randomly chose towatch his jaw-dropping music video "Black or White," only tohave my mandibular mandibular(mandib´ylr),adj pertaining to the lower jaw. muscles go slack again in witnessing hisidiosyncratic id��i��o��syn��cra��sy?n. pl. id��i��o��syn��cra��sies1. A structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group.2. A physiological or temperamental peculiarity.3. yet ingenious choices. He was very much alive in thevideo. But his death wasn't a shock to me, since I'd seenplenty of photographs recently of a frail-looking, wheelchaired man--heseemed on his way out. Little did I know, until the posthumous releaseof footage of an enormous concert he was rehearsing, that he was back todancing. A few hours after the news broke, I went into my local supermarketto grab some dinner. There I saw on the widescreen TV CNN'sindependent confirmation of MJ's death. Oddly, I started to get alittle giddy. Not because Michael Jackson had died, but because therewas a palpable air of excitement over the news. The employees at BravoInternational Supermarket were tickled chimpanzees, broken by thisbreaking news from the tedium of scanning items and debit-or-creditquestions. I grinned like one of them amidst the excitement. Iskedaddled into the frozen food section for dinner, then suddenly Ireceived a cell phone call. It was Lisa, an ex-girlfriend of mine, nowin Colorado. Lisa asked, "Did you hear Jeff Goldblum Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum (born October 22, 1952) is an Academy-Award nominated American actor. He often portrays quirky, intense or eccentric characters. He is also known for his distinctive appearance and his unique, staccato delivery of lines. At 6 feet 4 ? inches (1. died?" I stopped dead. I was immediately disturbed. I sought more information. Lisa said she'd heard that Jeff Goldblum fell to his deathwhile mountain-climbing in New Zealand New Zealand(zē`lənd), island country (2005 est. pop. 4,035,000), 104,454 sq mi (270,534 sq km), in the S Pacific Ocean, over 1,000 mi (1,600 km) SE of Australia. The capital is Wellington; the largest city and leading port is Auckland. . I asked her where she had heard this. It was from Tim, someone I didn't consider a very reliable source but someone possibly inside the entertainment industry. She said that according to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. Tim, the news was all over Twitter thatJeff Goldblum had died. * * * Some backstory back��sto��ry?n.1. The experiences of a character or the circumstances of an event that occur before the action or narrative of a literary, cinematic, or dramatic work: : A month prior, I had wrapped a film called TheBaster. On it, I was the stand-in for Jason Bateman, who co-starred inthe film with Jennifer Aniston. Jeff Goldblum had a small, funny role inThe Baster, and some of my most memorable moments were with him. For example, one day at Equinox equinox(ē`kwĭnŏks), either of two points on the celestial sphere where the ecliptic and the celestial equator intersect. The vernal equinox, also known as "the first point of Aries," is the point at which the sun appears to cross the Fitness Club in Tribeca, as thecrew hurriedly set up a shot, I found myself standing in alongside Jeff.Jeff was this wiry wir��yadj.1. Resembling wire in form or quality, especially in stiffness.2. Sinewy and lean.3. Filiform and hard. Used of a pulse. , six-foot-five hypomanic actor who never seemed tostop talking. For the shot, we were walking on treadmills. He had justbeen drilling his lines over and over with his tireless assistant. WhenI stepped on the treadmill next to Jeff, replacing his assistant, heasked if I would do the lines with him, which of course I obliged. Butafter a round of lines, he put me on the spot by asking me to think of alove standard which for unbeknownst reasons he wanted to sing with mebetween rounds of lines. I drew an almost absolute blank. The only songI could bring to mind was "Chicago" as sung by Tony Bennett For other people named Tony Bennett, see Tony Bennett (disambiguation).Tony Bennett (born Anthony Dominick Benedetto on August 3 1926) is an American singer of popular music, standards and jazz who is widely considered to be one of .So, Jeff Goldblum and I belted out "Chicago" while walking ontreadmills in Equinox as the crew set up lights around us. I also recall an amazing time hand-doubling for Jason Bateman witha B Unit, only to be yanked away to do a camera rehearsal with A Unit,and Jeff. I had only watched rehearsal, never actually having done it,and here I was suddenly thrown into a walk-and-talk with Jeff Goldblum,complete with a considerable amount of blocking and activity. After thehigh-pressure experience was over, I happened by video village and sawthe scene I had just done with Jeff looping on a monitor. I was shocked:I did it! It was surreal seeing myself as an equal with Jeff Goldblum.And it was pretty damn cool. My last brush with Jeff was after The Easier had wrapped, a fewweeks later on the set of a film called Morning Glory morning glory,common name for members of the Convolvulaceae, a family of herbs, shrubs, and small trees (many of them climbing forms) inhabiting warm regions, especially the tropics of America and Asia. The family is characterized by milky sap. . While Ididn't interact with Jeff in that film, I was there for the day hepicture-wrapped. The next day, he showed up in background holding with afemale companion, and he was so generous in saying hello to us. Tallman. Thin man. Pretty girl. That was the last I saw of him. Then, abouttwo weeks later, gone. * * * Back to the phone call with Lisa. Before I ended the call, I askedLisa to get from Tim where he had read the story. I can't rememberif she called it a rumor or if I established it as a rumor in my head.But at this point, I was seeing her story as a rumor. Whatever thecharacterization, I was considerably rattled and unnerved. As I checkedout of the supermarket with my dinner, I couldn't follow what thecashier was saying to me. I was obviously distracted. No more was I agiddy, grinning chimp. At home, I wanted to go straight to the horse's mouth tosubstantiate the rumor. I went to local news websites, and all were onlyrunning stories of Michael Jackson's death and of FarrahFawcett's on the same day. No Jeff Goldblum. I decided to visit NewZealand news websites--they weren't working, presumably pre��sum��a��ble?adj.That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. broughtdown by an influx of rumor traffic. I even went to an Australian newswebsite. Nothing. I felt as if I had my finger on a trigger. I happened to have agood friend named Marie-Pierre standing in on Morning Glory, the lastfilm Jeff Goldblum had worked on. In one cell phone call or textmessage, I could tell her "Jeff Goldblum died." Had I reachedher, the news could have spread around the film set where Jeff had hadhis last role. I did call Marie-Pierre, but only left a message askingif she'd heard about a rumor. I wasn't specific. Suddenly, I remembered the website called Digg. On Digg, peoplepost links to stories, videos, and other items of interest. Sure enough,on Digg I found entries about Jeff's death, linking to a story on awebsite called Media-fetcher. It was this site Lisa had just cited in atext message where Tim had read the story. I read it over ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I examined this strange online document. For one, it was a rip-offof the old Yahoo! News Yahoo! News is an Internet-based news aggregator provided by Yahoo!. It features Top Stories, U.S. National, World, Business, Entertainment, Science, Health, Weather, Most Popular, News Photos, Op/Ed, and Local news. website format, sporting a shift in color schemefrom the original. It replaced the Yahoo! logo with a generic logo thatsaid "Top News Stories." Another generic logo read"Global Associated News." Something smelled funny. On my first read, I somehow missed a handful of typos. I moved awayfrom the story and sniffed around the webpage until I came to thefooter. At the footer, I found this paragraph, resembling a disclaimer: And I found my relief. It appeared that this webpage was the sourceof the rumor of Jeff Goldblum's death. People didn't read thedisclaimer at the bottom of the webpage. People only read the story.They didn't seek more information or perspective. They simplyreacted to the words they read, then passed them along. I called Lisa back. I told her it was a rumor, that the story wasnot factual, that the story was generated using a template. I told herto tell Tim how dangerous his spreading a rumor could have been, inlight of my connection with Marie-Pierre and the set of the film MorningGlory. His actions could have disrupted the very set where Jeff had lastworked. I started to get texts asking if Jeff Goldblum had died. I repliedthat it was a rumor. I also learned that a similar rumor was goingaround about Harrison Ford getting lost at sea. When I finally connectedwith Marie-Pierre later that day, she confirmed that Harrison Ford wasindeed not dead ... because she was standing right next to him. You might define "unsanity" as the condition where yourbehavior is fueled by fancy rather than by fact. The parallel in thisstory would have been if I had immediately started to tell people theemotional news that Jeff Goldblum had died without checking sources tosee if the story was factual or including the sources making the claims.Many people did this about Michael Jackson on the day Michael Jacksondied. They said, "Have you heard Michael Jackson died?" butdidn't pass along the sources of their information. They simplyreacted to the words they read or the words they heard, even thoughthere was no independent confirmation and his death wasn'testablished at the time. Television anchors, too, discussed MJ'sdeath even though it wasn't officially confirmed. Although the falsity of Jeff Goldblum's death was uncovered,my nerves weren't recovered. I was unsettled by the presumed news,and its proven falsity didn't immediately calm me down. Such is thelasting power words can have over us. Had I not researched the source ofthe story, I would likely have turned considerably more upset, and myemotions might have consumed me. Since Jeff Goldblum was very muchalive, it is understandable how I could have turned unsane. Instead, my general semantics gen��er��al semantics?n. (used with a sing. verb)A discipline developed by Alfred Korzybski that proposes to improve human behavioral responses through a more critical use of words and symbols. education kept me sane. How? First of all, it heightened my awareness of language andspeech. According to general semantics, language and speech work likemaps. They depict a territory called reality, and they swirl around us,influencing how we perceive reality and influencing our paths as wenavigate it. And, of course, maps can be wrong. A general semanticseducation kept me focused on the territory and distrusting of maps. Itmade me pursue reliable maps rather than unreliable, unverified,unsourced ones like those that come over a cell phone, that come overTwitter, that come from a template engine Template engine may refer to any of the following: Generalfor all uses in generating output from templates, see template processor Specificfor use exclusively in a web template system, see template engine (web) "for the purpose ofentertainment." General semantics education teaches that there isan important difference between the events that happen in JeffGoldblum's life, and what people say about the events in JeffGoldblum's life. And on top of that important difference, there mayalso be an incompatibility. In a rumor, that is just the case: the wordsare one thing, and the events are something else. We must continuallykeep these lessons in mind as we listen to speech. A general semantics education also taught me about semanticreactions. Semantic reactions are the responses we have to words, maps,symbols, headlines, stories, announcements, and any manifestation ofspeech or language. General semantics pays special attention to thespeed at which we respond to these manifestations. Immediate responsesto speech are called signal reactions. Delayed responses to speech (suchas when people ask about its meaning before responding) are calledsymbol reactions. You can think of the difference like this: When yousee a traffic signal, you know that a red light means you should stop,and you immediately do so. That is a signal reaction. When you see amysterious symbol at the entrance to a cave, you don't know what itmeans. You have to inquire about its meaning and investigate beforedeciding to enter the cave. You can't have an immediate response.That is a symbol reaction. In my opinion, signal reactions are not as bad as you hear ingeneral semantics, and they are extraordinarily helpful in themanagement of automobile traffic. Generally speaking, you nevercontemplate the color of a traffic light and instead you respond to itimmediately. But in general semantics education, you learn of the perilsof signal reactions. When people read the sentence "Jeff Goldblumdied" and pass along the sentence immediately without asking thequestion "What does that sentence mean?" or "Sayswho?" they are exhibiting signal reactions of the problematic sort. When we are ruled by signal reactions, what often follows is thatwe passionately believe what we hear and we quickly pass it on to othersin that passion, rarely ever questioning what we are hearing, and alsoneglecting to cite our sources. We hear the sentence " Tim said heread on Twitter that Jeff Goldblum died," then we tell others themuch shorter sentence "Jeff Goldblum died." We don't hearabout Mediafetcher or FakeAWish because our speaker omitted themalready, and our own audiences don't hear about them either--or Timor Twitter. Signal reactions are especially problematic when they corroborate To support or enhance the believability of a fact or assertion by the presentation of additional information that confirms the truthfulness of the item.The testimony of a witness is corroborated if subsequent evidence, such as a coroner's report or the testimony of other adeluded sense of reality--when they spread knowledge of something thatcan't be known or isn't known. To combat signal reactions,general semantics strongly encourages "taking a semanticpause." That means having symbol reactions to speech. CNN exhibitedthe most delayed response the day Michael Jackson died. It didn'tdrop the sources of the story it read in TMZ and the L.A. Times until itfound independent confirmation. As a result, it was probably the sanestnews outlet on that tragic day. Signal reactions can be costly, emotionally and physically, butperhaps of most note, societally. Imagine if I had had a signal reactionto Lisa's story. I might have pulled the trigger and passed alongthe rumor to Marie-Pierre on her film set; I might have stirred fancyover text message as people asked me about the rumor; and I might haveended up distraught by something entirely baseless and generated by acomputer. Instead, very, very simply, I paused when I heard the news,and I maintained that pause for an amount of time adequate for me toresearch the words and speech I had heard. I paused before letting thenews shape my belief and take over my emotions, and before poisoningothers' beliefs and emotions. As a result, I maintained my sanityand contained others' sanity. It is times like the tragic day of Michael Jackson's death,with a world of people wailing, that general semantics education plays acolossal role in personal as well as societal maintenance. If generalsemantics calms the nerves of those people hearing a rumor, it iscalming a society. It is creating a society without as muchexcitability excitabilityreadiness to respond to a stimulus; irritability. ; a society with reactive restraint; a society withdiminished impulses toward informational recklessness; a society withconcern and accepted responsibility over the semantic reactions ofothers. The events of the day Michael Jackson died were memorable in howthey unfolded in different media, as well as how they impactedindividuals the world over. General semantics education had a protectiveinfluence on at least one individual experiencing the news of thatdramatic day. Note (1.) This is a screen capture from an .mht archive made from theoriginal web-page. The archive employed a script to insert the currentday's date rather than hard-coding the date of the news into thearticle. To avoid confusion, the author edited the screen capture toinsert the date of the death of Michael Jackson rather than keep thelater date when he made the screen capture. Ben Hauck is Webmaster for the Institute of General Semantics The Institute of General Semantics is a not-for-profit corporation established in 1938 by Alfred Korzybski, located in Fort Worth, Texas. Its membership roles include members from 30 different countries. andthe New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Society for General Semantics. A long-time student ofgeneral semantics, he sits on the board of directors for NYSGS. He livesin New York City New York City:see New York, city. New York CityCity (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. . Website: http://www.benhauck.com This article was presented at the general semantics internationalconference "Across the Generations: Legacies of Hope andMeaning," September 13, 2009, at Fordham University. For video ofthe presentation, please see the author's website.