Guyana Media Arts calls Jackson “the world's greatest musician”, and admits the news of the singer's death still hasn't really sunk in, while fellow Guyanese blogger The Intellectual Elite says:

I have never understood the fixation that a lot of the adult men I know have with Michael Jackson.

But I’ll admit that for much of my childhood I liked his music, which as someone pointed out to me transcended barriers all around.

And then I grew up, confused and disenchanted by his ambiguous sexuality, his unhealthy preoccupation with plastic surgery, and the child abuse allegations that continued to dog him. Like with another musician, I have been loathe to listen to Jackson, his musical genius notwithstanding. There’s absolutely no denying that he was a very talented musician…but it’s hard to put those kinds of eccentricities out of your mind.

Bermudian cartoon blog, The Devil Island, mourns for both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, who passed away on the same day, saying of the latter:

Come on. We grew up with him.
Yeah, he freaked at the end, but ‘I Want You Back'? ‘ABC'? ‘Ben'? What he gave us was so much more.

He was an icon. He changed us.

His compatriot Breezeblog comments:

Michael Jackson produced some of the best pop music ever made … but what a strange boy.

…but Crushing Fools comes to the singer's defense:

Although we may never know the truth about the allegations that was brought against Michael Jackson; I personally never believed they were true. I am of the opinion that Michael was a victim of imposed greed, a phenomenon that is widely spread today.

Meanwhile, Jamaican litblogger Geoffrey Philp posts a moving poem that he wrote in Jackson's honour and in another post, remembers his feelings about the musical icon:

Michael was born to sing, he was born to set our souls on fire–to show us how a spirit body could soar.

Year after year Michael would create great music. In Jamaica, I'd stand there at a party waiting for the moment, hoping for a slow dance when the DJ would play ‘Got to Be There' or ‘Ben'.

I continued to listen Michael's music when he played with my hero Bob Marley in Jamaica…Michael's music followed me through my young adulthood, student days, college days, young married days, young fatherhood days–no road trip was ever complete without a Michael Jackson song.

And, yes, there were the dark moments in his life. He is gone now so they won't follow him into his next life.

And if anyone is still inclined to judge, listen to ‘Human Nature' one more time.

Other Jamaican bloggers also weigh in. Stunner's Afflictions: “Another great icon of our generation has passed”; Girl With a Purpose: “His ‘Thriller' album was a testament to the musical and theatrical genius of the man. Yes, he had faults…but the guy was a musical genius!”

Barbados Free Press echoes her sentiment:

Yes, we know he went weird, but Michael Jackson’s Thriller is still one of our favourites and we remember him as he was – not as he became.

…while diaspora blogger Doan Mind Me says:

Do you remember the time when Michael was a pop icon rather than tabloid fodder?

At the end he was more bogeyman than boogie-man, more monster than hero…more caricature than role model but there was a time when Michael apparently was a cool inspiration to black folks and loved by everyone worldwide.

Without Michael there would be no Puffy, no Jay Z, no Chris Brownes, no Ushers.

And man could he dance!

A lot of the boo hoo hoo I miss him stories that will circulate in the coming days are a bunch of crap and highly hypocritical and come from the people who two days ago were more than likely dissing or laughing at ol boy.

Rest in Peace Michael; may you be less troubled now than in life.

His feelings are closely matched by Living in Barbados, who writes:

So, from a boy who seemed like a talented freak of nature, we ended up with a man, who had turned into a freak. Yet, he still produced stunning music and danced like no one else. I just hope that whatever demons he had to live with are now laid to rest.

From St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Abeni says:

It just doesn't feel right that MJ is no longer with us. I feel bad and I am not even the person who gets bent out of shape by celebrities. I am just shocked. Finally, some peace though for the King of Pop. RIP MJ, the music will live on.

Caribbean musician Rasheed Ali, who once met the legendary singer, remembers their encounter:

In 1977, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting and speaking with Michael Jackson. I felt sorry for him because he seemed so painfully shy but his warmth and kindness were genuine.

His gentle voice will continue to echo into eternity…

Puerto Rican diaspora blogger Liza adds:

Michael Jackson is dead.

I don't know what to say other than a part of my childhood has died with him.

…while over in the Bahamas, Nicolette Bethel says:

The whiter Michael got the further he got from me and from my friends. The more he assimilated, for whatever reason, the closer he came to yesterday. By the time his hair caught on fire on the Pepsi shoot, we’d determined that Michael, the Michael Jackson we’d grown up with, the singer of ‘Ben' and ‘Got to Be There' and ‘She’s Out of My Life', was dead. All that was left was the clone.

But here’s to Michael — to all the Michaels that he ever was — the greatest performer I’ve ever seen.

Scavella's Blogsphere adds:

When my husband told me…that Michael Jackson had been found not breathing at his home, having suffered cardiac arrest, I didn’t feel a whole lot of sympathy for him.

The reason? I’ve been convinced for the last twenty years or so that Michael Jackson died after Thriller, and that the person we’ve been calling MJ is the clone.

But now that the word is out that they couldn’t revive him, that he might be dead, it’s hit me. This is the boy who sang me through my childhood.

Trinidad and Tobago bloggers also have their fair share to say. Tattoo posts a list of his Top 5 favourite Michael Jackson songs, and follows that up with a more detailed blog entry:

While we had thought of him one day dying, when that day did come, no one was prepared. Cynic and fan alike, everyone was struck with a wave of panic, pain, and sadness when it was confirmed that Jackson had died.

I may not have known the man (or did I through his music?), I may not have ever met the man (would I have wanted to with all of his odd behavior?)…but I felt the beginnings of a little tear over the fact that this great piece of history…had come to an end. Just when he was about to try to prove to everyone that he could rise again, like the phoenix, he could go no further.

Islandista keeps it simple:

An era has ended. He touched all our lives.

And that is all that needs to be said.

And even as B.C. Pires wrestles with the reality that the shock over the murder of a woman on a police station compound in Trinidad “has already begun to pass, in Trini minds, into the realm of statistics…especially when Trinidadians have Michael Jackson’s death to talk about at the next fete and the pelau eating sweet”, he still manages to write a post remembering the singer.

This Beach Called Life sums it up this way:

I suppose it is only after he died Michael Jackson knew what his life really meant.

Bloggers from Cuba, the regional territory geographically situated the closest to Mexico, where the outbreak appears to have originated, are understandably very interested in the latest developments. Circles Robinson, writing at Havana Times, seems confident in his country's ability to stave off the threat:

No cases of swine flu have been reported so far on the island. Over recent years Cuba has developed a system to face possible epidemics after the spread in some countries of bird flu.

The authorities recommended that the population 'step up personal and collective hygiene including covering the mouth and nose when sneezing or coughing, frequently washing hands and maintaining cleanliness at homes and workplaces, as well as seeking medical attention when necessary.'

Experts are rushing to estimate just how dangerous the new Type A (H1N1) swine flu strain will be, gathering data on the outbreak in Mexico and other countries.

Cuba is known for its nationwide civil defense network that last year had to confront three powerful hurricanes.

Meanwhile, Along the Malecón, tongue firmly in cheek, says:

The Cuban government's ability to organize the masses and oblige people to comply comes in handy when trying to prevent an outbreak of disease. Authorities have proven that in their campaign against dengue fever, for instance.

The Cubans' organizational skill also comes through whenever authorities need to prepare for a hurricane, stage a mass rally or bring out people to vote (Option A: Fidel. Option B: Fidel. Option C: Fidel).

I know, I know…Cubans have their own style of democracy.

Girl With a Purpose reports that the Jamaican government is taking no chances:

The Ministry of Health has put Jamaica on a Swine Flu Alert.

This means that all ports of entry to the island, are being watched carefully by Health officials, to identify travellers from Mexico, USA and Canada, who may be infected with the virus…there have been Health Desks set up at the island's two international airports…which are being manned by nurses.

The blogger herself appears to be following the Jamaican authorities' lead: the rest of her post is chock full of practical information on protecting yourself against the disease.

Further away from the source of the outbreak is Guyana, although the country's close proximity to Colombia, which has reportedly identified a few cases of the outbreak within its borders, has blogger Imran Khan paying attention:

I do not believe that it is yet time to panic but certainly the 12 suspected cases of swine flu in Colombia must be cause for concern.

The Minister of Health says we have little to worry about but stay safe people. While once pork is thoroughly it should bring no harm you may want to consider what and where you eat. It may be the safest thing, as far as possible, to prepare your own food until this whole thing passes.

Bermuda's Catch a fire and Trinidad and Tobago's Coffeewallah, however, really feel for the Mexican people during this trying time. Catch a fire says that the last thing Mexico needed on top of the Swine Flu outbreak was an earthquake:

For a country already under extreme stress from the flu outbreak, especially its medical services, this is not exactly helpful. I am a bit unsure whether everyone staying at home is a good thing or not here - less people in crowded areas to be injured, but more chances of people being in buildings that could fall.

And the potential for this to accelerate the spread of the flu there is, well, its not a pretty thought at the moment.

Coffeewallah, who met the Mexican President at the recently concluded Fifth Summit of the Americas, adds:

Today I really feel for President Calderon…my heart is with him in Cuidad Mexico rocked by a 6.0 earthquake and ravaged by swine flu. Very Animal Farm, makes you wonder really if Mother Nature is exacting her revenge on us. That'll teach us stupid humans. The Mexican economy which was doing okay is now going to take a hit. Mexican products, tourism and people are taking a blow that is simply not fair, one hopes that they will weather this storm and come out the other side soon.

Vaya con dios mis amigos.

Barbados Free Press is already seeing the fallout that the outbreak is having on the local travel industry, but is realistic about the situation:

No man and no nation can control the wind, tides and the seas. And so it is with swine flu. Nothing that Barbados did contributed to the outbreak, and little that Barbados does will matter on an international scale. Our government has instituted a watch at Grantley Adams international Airport, but realistically that is about all that can be done.

But Abeni, who blogs from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, is at the stage where she is dreaming about “pigs, virus giving pigs. Pigs contaminated with flu and gleefully infecting us all”:

Everywhere I looked people were wearing masks as if Soufriere had erupted and we had to protect ourselves from sulphur and ash. I saw long lines at the hospital looking for vaccines that were either nonexistent or insufficient to meet the demands. Disappointed persons could be heard wondering aloud if corilla and other forms of bush medicine were strong enough to fight off this threat. Meantime, visions of Stephen King's The Stand were dancing in my head.

Then I woke up and first thing on the television was news that this flu thing cannot be contained. Now I'm wondering if my island has the capacity to handle it should it arrive on our shores.

Barbadian diaspora blogger Doan Mind Me, on the other hand, seems unconcerned, writing a humourously quirky post - which he calls the “book of Pork-etry” - suggesting, with a vigourous nod to George Orwell's Animal Farm, that the swine of the world are somehow getting their comeuppance:

Chapter 12…
2. For were not the swine saved also by Noah in his ark at the bequest of the Lord? And if then swine be so unclean why did God choose at that moment to not smite us or choose not to have us drown or become extinct like the dinosaurs or the dodos? (Gotcha!)…
6. And in later days when religion started to hold less sway in the world and the world became more secular, and the cows were stricken by the deadly Jacob Crutzfeldt, there was hope that our ribs, succulent bacon and pigtails would find a new niche and finally be recognized for the value that they hold.
7. But there arose ones called nutritionists and health food fanatics and other heretics to continue with the crusade against our flesh saying pork is unhealthy and our meat was not readily digestible and other such obscene lies which made the people afraid and turned the people even further against us.
8. But alas enough is enough for vengeance is thine saith the lord and is he not lord of all swine-don (as opposed to all Swindon which I think is a spot in the UK).
9. So verily it came to me hence in a vision. The time for revenge is nigh on hand.
10. Let them again blame us for this swine flu but let all shudder in fear…
12. And there arose a great noise like the terror of an intense thunderstorm as the assembled hosts oinked loudly in support and the council of swine-don murmured in appreciation of the oration of Napoleon and approved of his idea to use the swine flu as a weapon against the anti-swine-ites and the haters of ham.
13. And so it came to pass.

Adding insult to injury for most bloggers are rumours that the pair have not only reunited, but allegedly got married, prompting Cheese-on-bread!, a Barbadian blog that has long been an avid Rihanna supporter, to write a post highlighting “six reasons why Rihanna would marry Chris Brown”:

1) She wanted to see Chris Brown in a suit. Granted, it's the most mature I've seen him look, since he often looks as though he's dressed by a group of deranged Sesame Street muppets. That suit would look real nice with a pair of handcuffs though…
5) She's getting bad advice. Already proven.

The blogger goes on to say:

All last week the net was inundated with stories of her being back with Brown, married to Brown, pregnant for Brown, beating up Brown first and to be honest I'm over trying to figure out the truth from the lies.

I think the biggest problem with this drama is that both Rihanna and Chris Brown's publicists are spinning out of control. A lot of bs is being slung and I fear it's all for ‘operation save Chris Brown's career' and not for Rihanna's benefit.

Trinidadian blogger This Beach Called Life is of the opinion that Brown will likely hit Rihanna again:

This was obviously no simple beating. I am no expert but I think Mr Brown will hit again and he may hit harder and choke longer next time. The message Rihanna is sending to domestic violence victims is that it wasn’t so bad. The message she is sending to abusers like Chris Brown is give her your best shot.

There is palpable disappointment in the regional blogosphere over the pop star's apparent unwillingness - or inability - to be a spokesperson for domestic violence. Another Trinidad and Tobago-based blogger, Attillah Springer, writes a stirring letter to Rihanna:

I don’t know if my words will have any effect on you, but I feel like I have to say it. The scary thing is that we are so comfortable with violence that your fans can get over Chris Brown’s behaviour. They say, small ting. Everybody has to get licks some time.

This is a country where we make a lot of excuses for men’s violence against women. This is a country where little girls can be abducted, raped, killed and then you hear people call in to radio stations and condemn them for being too ‘fresh’.

This scares me, Rihanna. Especially since women like you are role models. The epitome of this bizarre construct called modern woman. You, the post feminist self-determined Barbie, who have money, a top career, men the world over who practically worship you and thighs to make the rest of us women die of jealousy. You who are all these things can’t possibly accept such behaviour from a man.

I fear that the news of your return to your abuser sets a bad precedent to all the Caribbean girls becoming women who admire you, your rise to fame, your spectacular claiming of Hollywood. You, a regular Bajan girl that could be any regular other girl from any regular other island.

She adds:

We have this way of thinking that doesn’t always take reason into consideration, because we think we’re in love. We would rather take the occasional licks than lonely nights or trying to find someone else to love us.

And I look around at my other sister friends who are agonizing in relationships with men who either don’t deserve them…and I wonder about love and power and sex and if we will ever figure out how to balance them all.

If women like you can negotiate around and past the problem of abuse and add your voices and your strength and your ideas to women who don’t have the resources or the confidence in their own voices to break themselves out of cycles of violence.

Rihanna's compatriot Cheese-on-bread! sums up the feeling of the Caribbean blogosphere in one pointed sentence:

All I know is that if she marries or for that matter reconciles with Brown, she's going to squander a lot of goodwill being sent her way.

Jamaican litblogger Geoffrey Philp, who lives in Florida, says that he's come to realise that “I love you” are perhaps “the most difficult words to say to a friend or partner and especially within Black and Caribbean families”. He suspects that this may have something to do with the fact that so many West Indian families are single-parent households:

…Many of us shared a similar predicament: we were raised by single mothers and we were now parents who were trying to figure out how to be good fathers.

Part of the difficulty in our circumstances was compounded by the fact that we rarely heard these three simple words and as a result, found it difficult to say them ourselves.

He continues:

There is a hard pragmatism in single mothers. There has to be. She is both nurturer and disciplinarian. And in the case of a boy, especially when he enters his teens, his mother often leans hard on him, so he rarely sees her nurturing side.

If the boy had grown up in a dual parent household and if the parents were clever, the roles (some children never figure that these are roles) would fall to the father as disciplinarian and the mother as nurturer or they may even be reversed depending on the tendencies of the parent. Someone has to be the “bad cop.”

But the roles are important because after being disciplined, you still need someone to tell you that X still loves you and X really cares for you and that everything will be all right. This is difficult to believe when X just beat the hell out of you and now wants to comfort you.

Many children in the Caribbean grow up in situations like this and are often exposed to the parent (read mother) who seems to have a split-personality. One minute the mother is all luvvy duvvy and the next minute she wants to kill you.

And the sad truth is that this has been happening in Caribbean communities for a long time.

The absence of strong father figures in many Caribbean households has had an impact on present-day family relations, Philp maintains, but he believes that “some things need to end and begin with us. Right now.” The reward?

[Being] able to say to our children, the three magical words that some of us never heard from our parents: ‘I love you.'

Another diaspora blogger, Karen Walrond, who originally hails from Trinidad and Tobago, shares an experience that was very different in a post for blogher. Far from having maternal role models that were distant, she fondly remembers the close relationship she has with her grandmother, who taught her a few things about love:

Almost exactly 7 years ago, I announced my engagement to my now-husband, Marcus. Soon after that day, while in Trinidad visiting family, my grandmother (who was 96 at the time) pulled me aside.

‘Karen,' she said in her soft voice, ‘you realize that as a good wife, you should always make sure that your husband looks good: iron his clothes, lay them out for him every day. Make sure you make him a good breakfast every morning. But there's one thing you must never forget,' she said, leaning towards me conspiratorially.

‘You must never shine a man's shoes.'

I always smile with bemused affection whenever I think of that day. My grandmother (who, at almost 103 years old, is still full of great advice) has always, for as long as I remember, talked to me about love and relationships. And even though much of what she has to say seems a bit outmoded (in seven years, I don't believe I've ever ironed my husband's clothes), I've always found a kernel of wisdom in everything she's ever told me.

Make sure your husband feels loved and cared for. But this doesn't mean you should let him think you are his servant, or are in any way beneath him.

Her grandmother's example taught Karen a lot about the importance of making those you care about feel loved and cherished:

I remember watching when she would pay the man who would help her take of her garden, and then invite him to help himself to as many of the large mangoes or avocados on her trees as he could carry, to take home and share with his family. I love thinking about those days when she would invite me to sit with her and enjoy some guava cheese (her weakness), as we talked about my future, and how much more important happiness, good family and good friendships were than money. If there is one woman in the world who really and truly went out of her way to make sure I understood what love should be, that woman would be my grandmother.

Now that I'm a mother myself, I do my best to recreate those moments with my own daughter. I talk to her about how her friends should treat her, and how she should treat her friends. I talk to her about what I hope for her when she grows up, and decides to have her own family. I tell her stories about how her father and I met, and how much we love each other today. I tell her about how I felt the first time I saw her tiny little face in the hospital. And when we're out and about, I often try to do something nice for a stranger — something simple like smile and hold the door open, or even pay for the coffee for the person behind me in line — just so she sees that love, indeed, can be all around.

Finally, Abeni, who is based in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, writes an open letter to her heart:

For the first time in almost 6 years you are going to be alone on Valentine's Day. I know you are not really a Valentine person but some things tug at you more than others. How does that make you feel? I can't hear you, can you speak up a little louder please?

You thought you would be sad but you aren't. You see heart, you knew exactly when it all went wrong.

Suddenly, this alone thing is not too bad at all. The road ahead looks chock full of adventures that you actually want to discover. I am smiling again, the real smile that makes my entire face come alive, the one that comes directly from you. You know, the one that makes the whole world smile with me.

And guess what heart? I am so incredibly proud of you for continuing to fiercely beat through it all. Heart, we are going to be okay!

In the end, it's all about love. Love for others and yes…love for yourself. Happy Valentine's Day!