Earth to Planet J.Lo: Who cares?
By Renee Graham, The Boston Globe

Tomorrow night, Jennifer Lopez will confirm what folks who care about such things have long guessed - she is engaged to Ben Affleck.

An engagement is certainly a joyous occasion. Still, I think of it as a private event best shared with close friends, family members, and the dozen or so co-workers within earshot who will be bored silly by every niggling detail about subsequent wedding planning. Most people, even if they could, might not feel a need to announce such things to ditzy Diane Sawyer on ABC's ''Primetime Live,'' but then again, they aren't intoxicated with the The Self-Importance of Being Jennifer Lopez.

See, Lopez thinks this is news we can use. There's the threat of war with Iraq and a national economy as unstable as Anna Nicole Smith, but hey, Jen and Ben are going to have a go at it, and don't we all feel better? Inhaling the rare air of Planet J.Lo, Lopez clearly believes that if it's important to her, it must be important to us.

Pardon me if I pass on this cup of celebrity Kool-Aid.

Hollywood, of course, is swollen with people utterly convinced that everything they wear, everything they do, and frankly, everyone they do, means something to the rest of us. But Lopez has taken her Mighty Me-ism to such extents that she makes her ex-boyfriend, the musical scavenger formerly known as Puff Daddy, seem shy and retreating. Let's think about this for a minute: Lopez is going on TV to announce, among other things, that she's engaged. Again. And will soon be married. Again.

For those keeping score, this will be Lopez's third marriage. (It's the first for Affleck.) First there was a yearlong union with model Ojani Noa in 1997. Then she hooked up with backup dancer Cris Judd in 2000, shortly after the high-profile bust-up of her high-profile publicity-stunt relationship with Sean ''Puff Daddy-P.Diddy'' Combs. Her marriage to Judd was barely longer than the honeymoon, and now she's sporting a golf-ball-size pink diamond engagement ring even before her second divorce will become final in January.

In the future, we will all be married to J.Lo for 15 minutes. Read on