I know this will undoubtedly infuriate many people although I personally don't know why it should. We Americans, who proudly boast that all are born equal, rush to pay homage to someone else just because, in their country, they have a royal title. I know, I know, these are the same people who think the characters in soap operas are real and I am wasting my efforts here, but it is my webpage and I assert my privilege to call a spade a shovel if I so wish.
Why is it so hard to comprehend that Diana was simply a person born in England, heir to a great deal of money, but still simply a person composed of the same types of tissues and organs as the rest of us and suffering from the same ills as all human mortals? I suspect that, without the use of perfume, the bathroom had as bad an odor after she used it as it does for everyone else.
But, she married a man with a title (we won't even discuss here that he did nothing to earn this title and has, other than attending school, done nothing in any line of work in his entire life). Wow! Suddenly she's the greatest thing since sliced bread. And then, after a few years of married life, she decides to get a little attention from a source other than her husband. But still the masses insist on thinking of her as a goddess. Why, just think, she went to areas that at one time had mines planted and she posed there, in her protective gear, and piously suggested that maybe mines were bad. Well, of course they are. They are meant to kill. Do they also kill and maim the innocent? Sure, and nobody claims that is good, but we've known that for some time and having some young woman tell us does not make it any more true. And by the way, does anyone really think that the area is which Diana was allowed to pose had not been thoroughly searched and cleared prior to her arrival? I don't care if the Prime Minister of England had told them to take her to an uncleared area, there is no junior officer in the world who would be willing to risk his career in that fashion. He might tell Diana that the area wasn't clear, but common sense tells us that she was in absolutely no danger.
Diana was lauded for her humanitarian work, her charities. Does everyone realize that what she donated to these projects was only her presence? For those who aren't in the know about these things, Diana was not employed outside of the home. In other words, she had all sorts of time to spend posing piously. She did not donate any real money. She simply asked everyone else to give theirs instead. Of course, her personal fortune (not counting her income as a princess) was only a mere $60,000,000 so she didn't really have any to spare. Sure, if she had given it all away, she could still have lived a life of luxury, but that wasn't sufficient motivation either.
Now, we have a constant barrage of news clips about the "Death of a Princess". My, my, an adulterous wife gets killed in a motor vehicle accident while being driven at high speed by a chauffeur who had been drinking and while accompanied by her lover, not her husband. But over a year later, the French authorities are still investigating it. Geeze guys, it was a drunk driving accident! Any local small town police department could have figured this one out by now! And don't blame it on any cameramen chasing them. Her windows were tinted and she could have leisurely driven along at the speed limit all she wanted. Instead, she took the attitude that speed limits don't apply to the rich and famous and she paid the penalty. For a change, it wasn't the innocent people in some other vehicle that was killed. And maybe Diana and her boyfriend weren't driving, but they were certainly in charge. They could have ordered the chauffeur to slow down, but they didn't.
And what about this rush to get away from the cameramen? This woman had been born in England, and had grown up brushing shoulders with rich and titled people. She fully knew the close scrutiny that these people were subjected to by the media. When she married, she knew full well what she was getting into. She was more than happy to accept the adulation of the masses, she just didn't want them taking pictures of her. Tough! She was not too upset about having her wedding highly publicized, and when she wanted to make a statement about something, why, then the media were more than welcome. A classic case of wanting to have her cake and eating it too.
And now the world wrings it's hands and mourns this terrible, terrible loss. Good grief! She was a person, prey to temptations just as we are, and just like we do, she fell victim to some of these temptations. Her family undoubtedly felt a loss, but many families lose loved ones and still go on. Yes, her kids are now minus a parent, but so are many, many other children and those other children aren't inheriting a fortune, have to worry about paying for college, don't have chauffeurs, cooks, maids, valets, summer estates, etc., etc., ad nauseum. Does that make up for the loss of a mother? I certainly would not be so foolish as to say so, but the other kids who have lost mothers are doing without the mother AND without all those goodies. Let's save our pity for them, not for a couple kids whose biggest worries in life will be which exotic place in the world in which to spend their yearly 52 week vacation.
C'mon folks, get real. Diana was a person, just a person, and she did nothing which the vast majority of the rest of us could not have done. It was her money, her marriage, and her title which made her famous. She had no intrinsic character trait that made her a superhuman in the sense of someone like Mother Teresa or Albert Schweitzer; both humanitarians who sacrificed for others. She was simply a person, no better and no worse than the rest of us.