Princess Diana Died 10 Years Ago This Year. Who Cares?

I remember being woken up by a phone call in the middle of the night, 10 years ago. It was my girlfriend at the time (who eventually became my wife). "Hey, turn on your TV. There's some news happening. Looks like Princess Diana got into a car crash and she may have died. It was not because I was groggy that I was awakened by the high-pitched ring of my el-cheapo Zellers phone that I said, "Huh..." It was because to me, this was not a big deal. I've never been a fan of the royal family, and while I am a supporter of having Canada remain a monarchist country, I could care less about what happens to the members of that family. To me, this is no different than celebrity watching or watching that wretched TV show, Entertainment Tonight, or buying US Weekly, or other waste-of-money publications like that.

I was sort of between jobs at the time, so I had a lot of time to do...well, practically nothing. I did manage to chat with my landlord at the time about it, and he said, isn't it sad that Princess Di died, and I said, "No, I Don't Really Give a &#@, actually", to which he replied, after being taken aback by my strong language (for which I will not apologize in this case), "but wasn't she the people's princess?" For the love of freaking Mary Magdelaine, I could not understand his interest in this. Did he know Diana personally? No. Did he have any relationship with her? No. Why the hell was he sitting on his couch, shedding tears, aside from the fact that he was retired and did nothing other than watching TV. I was flabbergasted.

You know, I never understood why it seemed like such a big deal that Princess Diana died. Honestly, I don't. I certainly don't mean to trivialize death, since people die every day. However, I don't believe that we should mourn "any more" for Princess Diana due to the fact that she was part of the royal family or that she had this "fairytale" wedding (which was a total joke, since it shows that you can put all the money and pomp and ceremony into a wedding, but a good marriage that certainly does not make). Yes, mourn for Princess Diana because she lost her life in a tragic accident, but my goodness, this happens every single frigging day, yet we hear about people dying in car accidents and what not and don't even shed a tear. How they dedicated so much TV and print hours to covering the funeral and producing countless commemorative items in the weeks and months ahead, is nauseating to me. Do you know why?

Less than a week after Diana died, someone else died, yet she was not given not even a fraction of the absolutely insane news coverage on her life. I will argue to my deathbed that the death of Mother Teresa was exponentially much more of a tragedy than Princess Diana's was. But unfortunately, Mother Teresa was not young and blonde and graced the covers of magazines. Yet she has done more to help people and serve humanity in her years on this earth than Diana every will in 100 lifetimes. And while I have a number of hangups with the Roman Catholic church theological system, I will concede that they did something right in producing a woman of such fine character and sacrificial love like Mother Teresa. Yet ironically, despite all of her qualities that the world generally will give an approving nod, her death was not much more than second page news compared to the life of Diana, which was full of misery, infidelity and nothing more than vignettes in the life of someone who happened to marry rich. OK, granted, she did some charity work, but billions of people in this world do charity work. People with whom I've discussed with topic have indicated that she did have a brilliant smile, good fashion sense, and was intelligent...you've got to be crapping me - as if those three qualities are good reasons to admire someone? Only in today's celebrity-obsessed culture would that even closely resemble a selling point for a person, who obviously gave up on her marriage by dating others while she remained married to Prince Charles (who is also an asshole of royal proportions for cheating on his wife as well as just being a general dumbass). Sheesh... Besides, she couldn't have been that intelligent if she didn't bother to wear her seatbelt during the fatal car ride.

So, if someone asks me my opinion on the 10th anniversary of Diana's death...well, what else can I say? I won't observe it in the least, but in my opinion, the far greater tragedy ten years ago was the loss of a true humanitarian, who touched many lives with her service to God in such a tangible manner. You know, so few of us can go into the local slums of our local city and work for an hour with all sorts of people with physical and mental problems (trust me, I've done it - it's not easy). Multiply that probably by one-hundred fold and you'll get an idea of what kind of environment Mother Teresa worked in on a daily basis. Years after her death, I read a few books on her life and work, and it just is amazing the kind of conditions she had to work in - it would scare off most of us. Yet, she really exemplified Jesus' command to feed and clothe the needy, the sick, the rejected ones of society - she took care of dying/diseased/mentally deficient people for something like 40 years or so. Yes, this included lepers (like lepers in the Bible). That is something to behold for someone who is willing to put their own comfort levels aside to serve others. I was pleased to hear that the Indian government gave Mother Teresa a state funeral, something that is unheard of for that government to do for a non-Indian. So I'd encourage you, that if you want to remember a death of a person this year, focus on someone like Mother Teresa, who is worthy of your memorials and commemorations.

Public Officials Outed For Their Hypocrisy

I heard some news recently and thought, "Good for Larry Flynt!"

Whoa there, you are probably thinking. What on earth are you doing giving an accolade to the founder of the pornographic Hustler Magazine?

Well, let me just say that it's not what you think. I don't support Flynt's pornographic magazine, and his other business pursuits that revolve around smut. However, to show that I can be reasonably objective, I try to call a spade a spade, and when I see Flynt making reward money available to expose the hypocrisy amongst lawmakers, politicians, religious leaders, and other high-profile officials, I have to applaud him on that, since some of these same officials are acting two faced in making laws against pornographic materials, same sex marriage, abortion; meanwhile, their lives behind closed doors reek of hypocrisy.

Take, for instance, the latest on that David Vitters guy. Congressman in Louisiana who is married with four kids. Was recently outed has having been on the list of patrons for some high-end escort service a number of years ago. Strangely, until the story broke, he never admitted this. After the story broke, he started sounding contrite and talked about "serious sin" in his past, etc. I'd think for any politician who has some skeletons in the past, better expose them before starting to champion family values or what not. I have no issues with someone who has had a not-so-delightful past publicly recognize that they have since moved on and have received forgiveness, etc. At least you know that they have some credibility, being able to admit that they were not so perfect, but learned from mistakes. For Vitters to now come clean AFTER he is discovered; well, I don't really feel sorry for this guy, no different from that idiot Bill Clinton (who was not a conservative) who bold-faced lie to the American people on national television.

Of course, Vitters, just like evangelist Ted Haggard, claimed that he got nude massages, but no sex was exchanged (kind of funny, with the amount of registered massage therapists out there, you'd turn to either an escort service or male prostitute for a massage). Yeah, whatever.

Also recent news is the absolutely mind-numbing $660 million settlement between the Roman Catholic church and victims of sexual abuse (in the U.S.). As my wife and I read through numerous headlines, we were shocked by how widespread this abuse was - settlements were reached in various States with various amounts of victims. This just proves to me the whole fallacy behind the requirement of priests remaining celebate. The Bible talks about (in 1 Corinthians, I believe, about the fact that "it is better to marry than burn with passion." As human beings, we all have sexual urges, and unless a person is clearly gifted with the gift of celibacy (I don't consider it a gift, but anyway...), I'd say don't bother getting in a position where you'll get tempted. In my entire life on this earth, I have only met one person who (maybe) has demonstrated that she has this gift, and that's only from conversations and such that I've had with her. I would say that women would more likely have this gift than men, but I am not here to discuss celibacy, so let's move on...

How about "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger. Against birth control (never understood this), but she had her tubes tied, speaks out against adultery even though she committed it, does not believe in divorce, but she got divorced. Again, if it's in your past, but you have changed and you admit your past and move on, that's one thing. But if you are, say, preaching against homosexual relationships, while you are covertly pursing one - that's much more damaging to your credibility than admitting your past, but realizing that some mistakes you did make helped shape a different position on an issue.

This sort of goes back to my blog posting on the "myth of nice guys" (search my blog from last month - June 2006 - and you'll see it). I still maintain that those who seem to have a perfect life and perfect relationship in public likely have the most to hide.

Last year, there was Mark Foley, the Florida congressman who sent sexually explicit messages to his male pages (the text of these are public record, but pretty disturbing considering how bold an elected official will be in using such a traceable medium such as email. This didn't stop one guy (last name was Doyle, I think), who was like 4th in command at the department of Homeland Security in the U.S., who last year was busted on the spot for sexually laced emails to what he thought was a 14-year-old girl (literally - the police showed up at his door while he on his computer). This guy (55) even sent photos of himself wearing his official Department of Homeland Security badge, and passed along his government land line and cell phone numbers to this 14-year-old girl, who was obviously really a police officer. How a guy as dumb as this gets a high level government job with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, I will never understand. No wonder they haven't found Osama Bin Laden yet.

See, some scandals I'm not surprised about (like that Minnesota Viking "love boat" scandal). These guys never claimed to be above-the-board moral types, and they are not really in a position to be considered role models anyway. But I think for anyone to step into the public eye on either a political or religious platform based on some subset of moral values, better examine yourself first to make sure that you are consciously able to follow your convictions without some hidden stuff in your closet.