Diana, blah, blah, blah

This is a thought I had last week while we were on vacation that I haven't been able to blog about yet. Warning! It may offend some folks who are overly obsessed with British Royalty.

I was watching TV early last Friday morning while Matt and Ellie were still sleeping. Being a little bit of a news freak, I scoured the news channels to see what was going on in the world. Of course, the only thing I could find on any of the news channels was the coverage of the memorial being held in London in honor of the 10 year anniversary of Princess Diana's death. Here are my thoughts on this in no particular order.

Why do I care? I'm an American. I'm sorry she'd died. It's a tragedy when anyone dies. But really, what makes her so special to me? She was British royalty, not American royalty. I couldn't tell you the names of other royal people from any other country but for some reason the news seems to think that I care tremendously about the British royalty.

The commentator (an American) spent a long time talking about where he was when she died and claiming that everyone, of course, remembers where they were when it happened - trying in vain to compare her death to that of JFKs. Guess what. I don't. I was starting my sophomore year of college, but I have no great memory of hearing the news and being affected by it. That's because, again, there was no reason for me to be affected by it. She wasn't a very influential person in my life. She was just another famous person who died tragically. (which, again, I state is tragic, but not life changing for me.)

There was also another comment made about how if she had lived, Diana would still have been in line to be Queen someday. Maybe I'm wrong on British royal succession, but my understanding is that because Diana and Charles were divorced, she would never be able to be Queen. That's just the way it is. So again, she really wasn't that important anyway.

Sorry if I've offended all of you Diana lovers out there. But really, why is it such a big deal? Why was it the only piece of news I could find on a Friday morning. Maybe it really was just a very slow news day. Or maybe the news believes that I, as an American, should be overly interested in an archaic system of royalty that doesn't affect my life.