Monday, February 22, 2010

In the News...

I was surfing around the internet, which I do every Monday morning before Jewelry 2, and it was really a slow news week. Most of the coverage is the same old stuff from before, there is a war in Iran, the chaos in Haiti, a flood somewhere else, some peace talks and the Olympics. All of them seem to be just the regular speculation from before about what will happen and when an end to violence, destruction, and pain will come. So, I tend to avoid the typical "war coverage" news that seems to be so readily available.

Anyway, what actually caught my eye was an article about Coca-cola presenting at a food show in Florida (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/6874961.html). Seems pretty mundane right? Well, yeah it was, but the interesting part for me was the information behind the story. Coca-cola was represented by their Latin spokesperson and talking about international sales. The article went on to state Coca-cola was ahead in profits last year because of international sales. Coca-cola has been an U.S. company for years, its very telling when they are finding more of a market outside of the U.S. then in it. Makes you wonder what is going on. Can the sakes of Coca-cola really be the true indicator of our economy? It is an interesting proposal in my mind.

Looking abroad, there news always seems more happy. In Mexico from El Pais, there was a wonderful article about music. The part that actually interested me was, the entire article was about American Actors and singers. (http://www.elpais.com.uy/100214/pespec-471195/novedades/-la-musica-me-hace-feliz-) This was not the first of the articles I found (in spanish) from Latin American countries about American artists and actors. This made me wonder why is there not more articles about Latin artists in the United States. It is so rare to hear of an international band in the United States (unless you are a music buff) it makes me think America really is that self-centered. I love reggaeton which is a type "urban" hip-hop in Spanish. It is hard to find new reggaeton artists in the United States (some notable ones for you all to check out that are pretty easy to find are Don Omar and Wisin y Yandel) because they get little to no air time unless they are on "spanish radio stations". I wish there were a radio station out there that would play what is popular around the world instead of the same 20 songs that are popular in the U.S. right now. The United States needs to become more international on all fronts and that is such an easy think to do.