All-star Break: no baseball, no basketball, football still months away, pretty much a dead time in sports. Time to take a brief respite to catch up on the hot news stories of summer, and whether they've been UNDERPLAYED or OVERPLAYED.
1.) The Michael Jackson story is still going strong. His death is probably THE story of 2009.....mark my words, besides the inauguration of President Obama (more of a 2008 story), the Time Review of 2009 will have Michael Jackson on the front cover, barring World War III, nuclear meltdowns acorss the country, or the discovery of an alien race. And maybe not even that. The biggest story line now? The family law issues: Jackson's estate, who gets what, who gets his kids......
OVERPLAYED
On a side note, most overplayed in LA: the battle over who pays for the Michael Jackson memorial services in LA: right now it's the city of LA, and every day I've been in the car it's the same sob story: "Who's gonna pay? Who's gonna pay?" - Another indication that greed and green rule the world.
2.) Obama's first year in office:
UNDERPLAYED.
Sure, plenty of new stories about him going to Africa, his dealings w/ the economic crisis, but I feel like after the "strict scrutiny" he was under after his first 100 days, the media sort of backed off on him, let him do his thing. Probably the most important president this country has ever had, he should be the #1 focus on everyone's mind, every lead story, every main headline.
3.) All-star game-
Way too much coverage of this dull event. The NBA All-star weekend is so interesting because of all the festivities like the dunk contest, 3-point shooting contest, and it thrives despite being in a sports-heavy time of year (February). The Baseball All-star game should be really exciting, not only because it's in the middle of the season of America's pastime but also it's got NO OTHER COMPETITION!!!! What other sports news is there out there these days? The Tour de France? NFL summer workouts? This thing should be very compelling, yet it's as dull as a worked out pencil, and too many sports stations were debating about whether it should decide home field advantage in the World Series, etc., etc. Urg.
OVERPLAYED.
-note: For an event that was way overplayed, the media couldn't even get it right by missing one of the only highlights, the Prez throwing out the first-pitch. It's like, "DUH????!!!!!" You had 60 minutes of pre-game coverage but failed to get that?
4.) The Sotomayor confirmation.
OK, c'mon, let's get real here, barring any dramatic mistakes by Sotomayor at this point (nearly impossible cuz she's AT the Senate hearings already and knows every word she says is scrutinized), she's getting in the Supreme Court. 'Nuff said. Despite the one "wise Latina" hiccup, there is nothing really in her way; she's got the qualifications, got the brainpower, got the circumstances (Obama handpicked her), she's getting in. That takes a lot of the suspense away, for me, and all the other stuff is just fluff. I don't remember John Roberts getting this much attention at his hearings, and he's Chief Justice. Alito was barely more than a formality, a backlog to Roberts. But now w/ Sotomayor, suddenly it's in the news every day, every moment. Today, a senator made reference to Ricky Ricardo of the I love lucy show and the big story was, "Did the senator's comments cross the line?" C'mon, gimme a break. I'm as interested about judicial politics and the personalities on the Supreme Court on the next guy, but I've penciled in Sotomayor weeks ago and learned about most of her issues, there are a lot more important news stories to get to that are not shrouded in a cloud of "OMG let's dwell on one thing she said years ago."
OVERPLAYED
5.) The stock market recovery- every time we get a stock market update I perk up my years and hang on every word, because this is the thing that will have long-term effects. Sotomayor, after she gets confirmed we won't hear of her for years. Michael Jackson, after this year he'll be an afterthought (not trying to devalue his passing, just pointing out the temporal nature of the story. However, what we WILL remember is the big economic recovery of 2009 that revived the world and allowed the country to get back to business as usual. Should that recovery happen, that is. It hasn't yet, but I think every day on Wall Street is crucial to making that happen. Although not directly indicative of the everyday person spending money to help the economy or people getting jobs to lower the unemployment rate, a rise in the stock market indicates willingness to invest, willingness to believe, and is most important for its psychological effect. When people believe things are gonna get better, they invest. When they don't think so, they don't. Every little piece of good news should be embraced as steps to a recovery. At this point, it's a good idea to create false good news, grasp at straws because that little bit of news snowballs into better news once people spend money based on that news, and then it keeps going, and going, and going. It's not false hope if the act of creating hope leads to hope: Just like when the market crashed, the bad compounded because people just were consumed with fear.....it was irrational. Let's combat irrational fear with a little irrational hope: create hope that's not really there but can lead to real hope. Just a modest proposal. Let's start doing it.
UNDERPLAYED.
-Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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