I know the events of Michael Jackson's untimely death have reached a point
of exhaustion, but I had to post this video because I recently took
some time to see the movie "This Is It", the documentary that shows
Michaels last effort to reclaim his throne as pops most celebrated
performer. Say what you will about the true intent of this release
,whether it was to capitalize off the mans death or to showcase the
brilliance that still existed in the man, who had long been forced to
reclusion and, I believe, ultimately to his death-this film gives us
insight to what magic was still there and what eventually could have
been one of the greatest come backs in music history...alas...we'll
never know.

I just finished watching a great movie about the inventor of the
intermittent wiper blade, Robert Kearns. This great invention was
stolen from Mr. Kearns by Ford and he fought for 12 years to prove it.
He was eventually awarded over $30 million dollars in his suits
against Ford and Chrysler. This article was written August 6, 1990 for
People Magazine by Ken Gross.

Wiper Man Robert Kearns Won His Patent Fight with Ford, but That
Didn't Mean He Was Out of the WoodsBy Ken Gross When Robert Kearns
popped open a champagne bottle on his wedding night in August 1953, he
couldn't have seen that it might one day make him rich. At first he
couldn't see much of anything; the cork hit him in the face, virtually
blinding him in his right eye. But the accident got the homegrown
inventor to thinking—about his eyes, the way they blink and,
improbably, about how difficult it is to drive in a drizzling rain.

Kearns's musings led to a basement invention, a windshield wiper that
automatically blinks on and off in light rain. The device became a
standard feature and is now installed worldwide on an estimated 20
million cars annually. But Kearns never profited from the idea.
Instead he found himself locked in a bitter patent battle with the
Ford Motor Company that would endure for more than 12 years.

In July a U.S. district court jury in Detroit finally awarded him $5.1
million for patent infringement and lost royalties. A Ford
spokesperson said the company was "pleased" with the verdict. Kearns,
however, was not.

In fact he was not even in court. Miffed by a judge's ruling that
squelched Kearns's bid for manufacturing and production profits as
well—and the $140 million he sought—he vanished midway through the
proceedings. "I had to go," he said later. "If I had stayed, it would
have legitimized what was happening."

Kearns disclosed to PEOPLE that he had first driven from Detroit to
Ohio, where he met an old college roommate. Running out of money but
wanting to be isolated from the press and even his family, he then
made his way back to his modest Gaithersburg, Md., home, secretly
crept inside at night to get some blank checks, and drove to Little
Bennett Regional Park, a nearby campground. There he spent the next 10
days living off knockwurst and pork and beans cooked over a portable
stove.

Shortly after the jury announced its decision, Kearns returned home.
Now he says he wants to reject the court's $5.1 million award and
appeal the judgment. If so, the move would surprise few who know the
eccentric inventor best.

Kearns has already paid a high price for the sake of justice: a failed
marriage, a nervous breakdown and long years in litigation. When he
began tinkering with his revolutionary wiper, in 1962, he was an
engineering professor at Michigan's Wayne State University and a
small-time inventor (his early credits included a comb that dispensed
its own hair tonic). Kearns installed an experimental version of his
"intermittent wiper" in the family's Ford Galaxie in 1963 and brought
it to Ford. The company hired him as a consultant, worked with him for
six years—and then dropped him. Instead of the supplier's contract he
had hoped for, Kearns got a handshake and a wiper motor mounted on a
plaque.

With a wife and six kids to support, the distraught inventor worked as
Detroit's buildings and safety engineering commissioner, then moved in
1971 to Maryland to work for the National Bureau of Standards. One day
in 1976, he cracked. Kearns landed in a Maryland psychiatric ward, and
by the time he emerged several weeks later, his red hair had turned
completely white. Shortly thereafter, he retired on disability.

In 1978 Kearns filed suit against Ford. During the legal odyssey that
followed, three law firms abandoned him, one judge died, and finally
even his wife left. "It got to the point where the only thing that
existed was the lawsuit," says Phyllis Kearns, now 58 and an editorial
assistant at the National Institutes of Health. "There was no end to
it."

Even so, Kearns's children hung tough. Eldest son Dennis, now 35,
became a licensed investigator to assist his father and once, during
negotiations with Ford attorneys, placed his .45 automatic on a desk,
no doubt leaving the impression that he meant business. In another
less-than-heroic episode, he also began an eight-month affair with a
paralegal in an opposing law firm. The romance ended soon after she
turned over some crucial documents, but a judge refused to admit the
evidence and fined the father $10,000 for his investigator's
underhanded strategy.

By January of this year, when the case finally came to trial, the
whole family had rallied to Kearns's side. On hand in Detroit were
ex-wife Phyllis, the six kids and Kearns's girlfriend, Jean Ryan, 59,
a retired government cartographer he met eight years ago at a meeting
for divorced Catholics.

Almost from the start, the case began fueling new debate about the
country's 200-year-old patent laws and the wisdom of having jury
trials for such complex matters. In the end, Kearns's award was
"shockingly low," says Washington, D.C., attorney and longtime patent
expert Harold Wegner, echoing the view of many. "It's ludicrous for
perhaps intelligent but uninformed individuals to decide such
complicated issues."

With interest, if the judge awards it, Kearns's $5.1 million award
could double, and he has additional suits pending against a score of
other automakers as well. But the case has already cost him $650,000,
financed with a small inheritance and his various jobs, and he is
still faced with $3 million in outstanding legal debts. Appealing the
Ford decision would forestall any award for now and mean further
expense. "I've always told people that my greatest fear is that I
would be $12 short of getting to trial," he says. "Now it looks like
I'll be $1.2 million short," which is the estimated cost of an appeal.

"There's no precedent for a hero like Bob Kearns who's willing to go
the distance," says son Dennis, vowing to stick by his father. As for
Dad, the inventor insists that money never was the point anyway. "I've
done too much hurting," Kearns says. "I want to protect other
inventors by showing the little guy can win."

Ken Gross, Teresa Riordan in Gaithersburg

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Sent from my iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

This is a rough draft of my own rendition of the classic book cover-"The Great Gatsby".