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The world reaction to the unexpected death of Michael Jackson extends to young children

I had occasion to meet up with the same family whose two-year-old was learning to lie in an earlier story. It was only a day or two after the death of Michael Jackson, and the older sister (five years old) told me, "Did you know? Michael Jackson, he went to sleep and he is never going to wake up."

Her younger sister (now three), corrected her.

"No, he's dead!"

Published Friday, July 10, 2009 7:00 AM by oldnewthing
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# re: The world reaction to the unexpected death of Michael Jackson extends to young children

Friday, July 10, 2009 10:16 AM by Falcon

I see your psychic powers have developed beyond debugging - you predicted Michael's death (and the conversation with said children) a year in advance!

# re: The world reaction to the unexpected death of Michael Jackson extends to young children

Friday, July 10, 2009 4:24 PM by Joseph Bongaarts

My psychic powers tell me we are not to far from pre-emptive year-long queue references.

# re: The world reaction to the unexpected death of Michael Jackson extends to young children

Friday, July 10, 2009 5:13 PM by configurator

Falcon, I think he wrote that post 'just in case' Michael Jackson dies, and set it to publish a few days after.

# re: The world reaction to the unexpected death of Michael Jackson extends to young children

Friday, July 10, 2009 6:37 PM by Gwyn

But, he must have had the conversation with the children a year ago, so how did they know that Michael Jackson was going to die?

# re: The world reaction to the unexpected death of Michael Jackson extends to young children

Friday, July 10, 2009 7:01 PM by Jon Bright

Or maybe, just maybe, Raymond is smart enough to *both* have a queue *and* be able to insert entries at the front of it.

Please don't make the pre-emptive comments come back.  Or worse still, make Raymond stop blogging.

# re: The world reaction to the unexpected death of Michael Jackson extends to young children

Friday, July 10, 2009 7:28 PM by joel8360

But...the pre-emptive comments! The snarkiness! That's the best part!

# re: The world reaction to the unexpected death of Michael Jackson extends to young children

Friday, July 10, 2009 7:34 PM by RJ

Jon,

I think the above comments were meant in a light hearted manner.

And yes, I loved those pre-emptive comments, sometimes they were the best part of the story! :)

# re: The world reaction to the unexpected death of Michael Jackson extends to young children

Friday, July 10, 2009 11:10 PM by Paul Coddington

I am sure that the children would be comforted by Sky television's rolling updates blunder...

"DOCTOR WHO WAS WITH MICHAEL JACKSON WHEN HE DIED..."

Daleks?

# re: The world reaction to the unexpected death of Michael Jackson extends to young children

Friday, July 10, 2009 11:39 PM by Falcon

@RJ: I agree, and I can confirm that regarding my comment.

Also, this is hardly the first time an entry has jumped the queue: look at http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2009/04/03/9529929.aspx

# re: The world reaction to the unexpected death of Michael Jackson extends to young children

Sunday, July 12, 2009 7:41 PM by Arafangion

Raymond wouldn't be the first to predict Michael's death...

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/07/06/the-gap-michael-jackson039s-online-death.html

Seems several other news sites predicted it in advance, as well!

# Not fair

Monday, July 13, 2009 4:06 AM by Igor Levicki

It is not fair to prioritize queues for dead people. Michael Jackson should have waited his turn.

# re: The world reaction to the unexpected death of Michael Jackson extends to young children

Monday, July 13, 2009 7:30 AM by Bill P. Godfrey

"DOCTOR WHO WAS WITH MICHAEL JACKSON WHEN HE DIED..."

That's incredibly stupid. How could a TV show be with someone?

("Doctor Who" is the name of the show, not the character. Obsessive fans take this common misconception very seriously. Not that I'm obsessive fan, oooh no.)

# re: The world reaction to the unexpected death of Michael Jackson extends to young children

Monday, July 13, 2009 1:56 PM by Ken Hagan

Regarding the original blog...

I wonder what's going on here. Has the five-year-old learned that euphemisms are generally used in such cases, but the two-year-old hasn't? Or is the older one using it for her *own* benefit and the younger one doesn't understand death enough to care? Or perhaps they are just teasing each other (in which case I think the younger one gets the points!).

# re: The world reaction to the unexpected death of Michael Jackson extends to young children

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 8:53 PM by Roger Hågensen

That 2 (now 3) year old is damn smart, learned to lie at 2, knows what death is at 3.

I just hope that kid gets to evolve on her own instead of expected social behavior pushed into her mind.

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