Brute News: 1 Jul 09

• Several photos of Michael Jackson and his children have been released to the public. They're astonishing in their normalcy. Meanwhile, the death of the pop king continues a worrysome trend of being big news. I'll concede that I'm interested as anyone else, but I can feel us just creeping towards making him a cultural whipping boy again, something that the man's death provided a temporary reprieve from. [MSNBC and NPR]

Update: MSNBC is reporting that Jackson's will has been made public. This is the kind of thing that we don't need in the news.

• The New York Times is revisiting Steven Spielberg's Jaws, which critic A.O. Scott attribrutes to inventing the modern summer blockbuster (thereby changing film forever). A great watch, if only to see how underwhelming (from a technical standpoint) a summer blockbuster once was.  [New York Times]

• MSNBC is keeping us up to date on SC Gov. Mark Sanford's (R) extramarital affairs. He is now admitting to more relationships than previously stated. He is also under investigation regarding the use of tax dollars to see his Argentine mistress. I think fellow blogger/political junkie Donna Coltharp nailed this issue superbly:

I don't believe any human frailty -- even the frailty of hypocriscy -- is particular to one party or the other. I feel sorry for him. The human heart is so much more complicated than many people understand. And I profoundly resent that I must be witness to his private pain, and that of his family.

Agreed. Even though Sanford called for Clinton's resignation over the Lewinsky scandal, I still find this cultural crucifixion vile. The public's funds are the public's business, but neither the media nor either political party should be in this man's family affairs. [MSNBC and Happiness, Anyway]

• Kelley James Shirley, of RUSE, is sounding off on the election of Al Franken to the Senate. Of course, the big news is that Franken puts Democrats at a filibuster-proof majority, just in time for the president to make a big push on healthcare reform. In short, Kelley is scared and I'm not. [RUSE]

• Lastly, Farhad Manjoo is waxing emphatic about the new Firefox. The broswer makes use of the as-yet-incomplete HTML5, which (among other innovations) seeks to eliminate the need for plug-ins. As the internet rat race wears on, the hope is that everyone's browser will no longer need additional software to run video or flash animation. [Slate]