What's next, Britney Spears being a decent mother? Or sane?

Who knows anymore. But apparently, Michael Jackson is a good father, claims a publisher who accompanied the pop star and his children to Japan last month.

Jamie Foster Brown chronicled the trip in the current issue of her Sister 2 Sister magazine - and told us that Prince Michael Jackson, 10, Paris, 9, and Prince Michael II (a.k.a Blanket), 5, didn't have their faces covered when they were indoors.

"They were walking around me, and we were taking pictures without [their trademark veils] - they were very loose. But when they did go outside, they put the scarves around the children's faces.

"I just noticed how nice the kids were. They're not privileged at all. They have a lot of fun with [Michael]. They're intelligent, extremely well-spoken. They like to play jokes."

It was one such moment when one of the kids was fooling around that Michael Jackson reprimanded him, thinking he'd been rude to Brown.

"That was his misunderstanding," she told us.

"He wasn't raised around people 'playing the dozens,' using slang or stuff like that. He doesn't know about kids showing off - you don't take that badly. He just seemed to be a good parent. More so than most of us!"

Jackson's mother, Katharine Jackson, was also on the Japan trip, during which Disneyland Tokyo closed the whole park down for them. The consensus is that Jackson is doing well lately. If that's possible.

A $3,500-per-person dinner with the singer sold out, and devoted fans still felt the thrill. "People were falling down. People were fainting," Brown attests.

So the sight of Michael Jackson makes Japanese fans drop harder than an emaciated Nicole Richie at Hyde? Wow, you learn something every day.