The media madness surrounding the Michael Jackson death shows little sign of abating, despite the embarrassing predictions of crowds of up to a million revealing the magnitude of the hype. Posthumously enshrined as a civil rights hero at his memorial service, Jackson is still a singer/dancer of note, but I have a hard time seeing his death as being earth-shaking.

My nephew, Brian Bradshaw, was killed by an explosive device in Afghanistan on June 25, the same day that Michael Jackson died. Mr. Jackson received days of wall-to-wall coverage in the media. Where was the coverage of my nephew or the other soldiers who died that week? There were several of them, and our family crossed paths with the family of another fallen soldier at Dover Air Force Base, where the bodies come "home." Only the media in Brian's hometown and where he was stationed before his deployment covered his death.