LONDON (Reuters) –
The promoter of Michael Jackson's planned run of 50 concerts in London wants his family to stage an all-star show in his memory and said on Tuesday he had discussed the idea with them.

Randy Phillips, chief executive of AEG Live, also said Jackson appeared to be fit and ready to perform the day before he died last Thursday, aged 50, after suffering cardiac arrest.

"At some point the world needs to see this production, and I would imagine if we could do it, it would be done as a tribute with the family ... but also other stars who loved Michael and were influenced by him," Phillips told Sky News.

"But the world needs to see this production, and it's done," he said, referring to the spectacular that Jackson and AEG Live created for the run of shows at London's O2 Arena which had been scheduled to open on July 13.

"We're discussing that with the family and obviously the sooner the better."

Countering suggestions that Jackson was in poor health and should not have been pushed to rehearse for a series of physically demanding concerts, Phillips said he had spoken to the star the day before he died.

"He gave me a hug and whispered into my ear: 'Now I know I can do this', he was that engaged."

Photographer Kevin Mazur told Reuters earlier that Jackson had been "full of energy" at rehearsals in Los Angeles.

"A picture tells a story," he said, referring to images he took in Los Angeles on Tuesday, June 23, two days before Jackson's death. They were released to the media this week.

"He was just the same old Michael and when he hit the stage he was full of energy, happy, very upbeat, having fun."

Phillips said AEG Live was considering releasing footage of Jackson rehearsing in order to prove this point.

FINANCIAL FALLOUT

Insurance experts have said AEG Live, which has offered full refunds to the 750,000 people who snapped up tickets to the Jackson shows, faced sizeable financial losses. Phillips conceded that hiring Jackson had been a risk.

"When you're in business like we are, you take risks all the time and in the case of Michael Jackson ... we thought it was an acceptable risk.

"We had (insurance) coverage and stuff like that. We probably will be fine financially from this but, right now, we're trying to do the best thing for the estate."

Phillips described what he saw at the Los Angeles hospital where Jackson was taken after falling ill.

"They brought him in on a stretcher and they put him into the emergency room," he said. "I was sitting in a chair right outside the ...operating room, and there was tons of activity, and they were trying to resuscitate him and save him and working really hard.

"I sat there ... it seemed, honestly, like an eternity. But it took about an hour, an hour and a half before the nurse came out and told (Jackson manager) Frank (DiLeo) and I that there was no hope."

He said Jackson's doctor Carlton Murray was one of the people who told the singer's children that he had died.

"I stood at the doorway when they went in and they told them and just the look of fear in their faces... it was hard. I'll think about that the rest of my life. But they seem to be doing really well."

He added that he had tried to dissuade Jackson from hiring Murray as his personal doctor, because of the costs involved.

"Michael told me ... 'you don't understand. My body is the machine that fuels this business and I need personal care and I want a doctor 24/7 like President Obama would have and this is my doctor'."

(Additional reporting by Avril Ormsby; editing by Robert Woodward)

Flower Girl Dresses

Dresses increased dramatically to the hoopskirt and crinoline-supported styles of the 1860s; then fullness was draped and drawn to the back by any dresses had a "day" bodice with a high neckline and long sleeves, and an "evening" bodice with a low neckline (decollete) and very short sleeves.

One may usually wear a bra, but for modesty wearing a camisole / vest or full slip is also an option for the top. Dresses are sometimes worn with tights.

LONDON – The promoter who booked Michael Jackson for a sold-out comeback tour says a tribute show based on his canceled concerts is likely.
Randy Phillips, chief executive of promoter AEG Live, told Britain's Sky News television on Tuesday that the "world needs to see" the production Jackson had been working on.
He says members of the Jackson family, and other world music stars, could take part in a tribute show using routines and sets already created for the scrapped tour.
Phillips says he believes Jackson's comeback would have been one of the best arena shows ever produced. He says a video of Jackson's rehearsals for the tour does exist.
He says Jackson said he believed he was ready for the 50 sold-out performances at London's O2 arena.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Though most states have child abuse laws allowing religious exemptions for parents who shun medicine for their sick children, recent cases have raised the thorny legal issues for parents following less-recognized faiths.
Historically, many of the parents addressed by the laws have embraced faiths like Pentecostalism and Christian Science, while others are Jehovah's Witnesses — all established denominations that the law has gradually taken into account.
It's harder for judges to decide cases involving parents who don't belong to a well-known denomination, yet also don't believe in using medicine for their kids. Legal and religious scholars say it's becoming more difficult for courts to decide when to honor the religious beliefs of parents and when to order conventional medical treatment for extremely sick children.
The manslaughter trial of an Oregon couple who claim they were following their religious beliefs in the 2008 pneumonia death of their 1-year-old daughter was to begin Monday. Carl and Raylene Worthington are members of Followers of Christ Church, which has been investigated for past child deaths.
In Tennessee, Jacqueline Crank and her minister Ariel Sherman face child neglect charges in the death of her 15-year-old daughter Jessica, who died in 2002 with a basketball-sized tumor on her shoulder. Prosecutors say based on Sherman's advice, the girl's mother relied on prayer instead of medicine.
Sherman has been accused of being a cult leader whose Universal Life Church is not a legitimate religion. He has denied such charges and says the church is Christian-based and embraces the Bible.
Believers in faith healing point to a Biblical verse in the Epistle of James, which describes how church elders should be called in to pray over the sick. There's no mention of doctors, and literalists interpret it to mean medical treatment should be eschewed over prayer.
Gregory P. Isaacs, an attorney for Crank, who's out on bond, argues that Tennessee's religious exemption law is untested and too vague.
"It really has a tremendous amount of problems," Isaacs said. "What is an organized religion and what is an ordained minister? What illnesses can you attempt to heal by faith? Those are the two pitfalls in the statute. That's not what's really clear."
Jim Dwyer, a William and Mary Law School professor who's written articles about and participated in litigation on the topic, said it's often more complicated for courts to discern cases with unaffiliated religions because judges and juries aren't as familiar with them and are skeptical of their legitimacy.
"The Supreme Court has adopted a very broad definition of religion," Dwyer said. "But ... you have to show sincere religious beliefs. Some judges might be skeptical of sincerity if it's something they've never heard of, if the person says, 'I don't belong to a certain church. I just have some beliefs that I saw on the Internet,' or 'In our own home, we've developed this set of beliefs.'"
Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton, a pediatrician and co-director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University, says when treatment for an illness is very toxic and the prognosis is dire, courts tend to rule parents don't have to pursue medical treatment. If that's not the case, courts are likely to order the treatment.
"Until medicine became effective, there was no push to say we absolutely have to do medical treatment. There wasn't this notion of deference (to religion) until medicine began to work and to become institutionally powerful."
Besides the states that have religious exemption laws, five states — Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska and North Carolina — have repealed such laws.
Many of the exemption laws were enacted in the 1970s. Rita Swan, director of the Sioux City, Iowa-based advocacy group Children's Healthcare is a Legal Duty, which lobbies states to repeal such laws, said that since 1975, there have been at least 274 known cases of U.S. children who have died after medical care was withheld on religious grounds.
She says the majority of such cases are still associated with established denominations like Pentecostalism, though "the Internet has opened up some more possibilities than it did before" and there have been some cases involving unaffiliated denominations.
At least two recent high-profile cases involve parents whose beliefs were drawn from Internet-based religious groups.
Authorities in Minnesota convinced a judge to force 13-year-old Daniel Hauser into chemotherapy, prompting his mother Colleen to skip a court hearing and — with her son in tow — go on the run for nearly a week in May.

They headed to Southern California, where they considered a trip into Mexico for alternative cancer treatments, before eventually returning to the Hausers' home in Sleepy Eye, Minn., about 100 miles southwest of the Twin Cities. The boy has since received chemotherapy treatments, which appear to be working.

The family prefers natural healing practices suggested by an Internet-based group called the Nemenhah Band, which says it follows American Indian beliefs.

In Wisconsin, a jury convicted Leilani Neumann, of Weston, Wis., of second-degree reckless homicide in May for failing to rush her 11-year-old daughter Madeline Kara Neumann to a doctor. She died of untreated diabetes in March 2008.

Prosecutors argued she killed the girl by ignoring obvious symptoms — she couldn't walk or talk and was believed to be in a coma — until it was too late. The mother testified she didn't realize her daughter was so ill and did all she could to help, in line with the family's belief in faith healing.

Neumann sought the spiritual assistance of the online evangelical Christian ministry Unleavened Bread Ministries.

In the wake of the Wisconsin case, Swan said legislators there are considering a bill that would repeal the state's religious exemption to its child abuse and neglect law.

"In the U.S. under the First Amendment, we're not supposed to be establishing religion or carving out any preferences for prestigious religions," Swan said. "The courts should not be giving any kind of deference to established denominations and making any distinctions."

___

On the Net:

Children's Healthcare is a Legal Duty: http://www.childrenshealthcare.org/