While I do agree with you about the over-hype, I also understand that both Ted Kennedy and Michael Jackson were symbols of some larger concept in history. I don't think all the hype surrounding their deaths is for the individuals but for what they symolized. It would be like if you lost your favorite Grateful Dead tee shirt. It's not the tee shirt you miss (you have dozens of other tee shirts) but what it represents--your first Dead concert and the people you were with at the time and who you were and what you were doing in your life at that time. The tee shirt was a symbol for all of that and now it's gone. Human beings like symbols.