Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Royal Heinie

I suppose it's just harmless fun, but the obsession of the American public with British royalty seems bizarre to me. That a B-list American celebrity is about to marry a parasite on British society (who by the way, is not in the line of succession to the throne unless his brother and his family are wiped out, not that it matters) is the biggest consumer of TV time and column inches even as, well, certain other stuff is happening, seems disconcerting..

If I am correctly informed, the colonies who have since become the United States fought a war to get out from under the British throne. Since then, the rest of Europe has eliminated or privatized their monarchies. But the Brits squander massive taxpayer cash on allowances, horse drawn carriages and ceremonial officials whose only function is to wave around ritual objects, soldiers in medieval garb who practice human statue routines, and the maintenance of massive, impractical ancient structures. All this makes the useless twits who constitute the Windsor family the most fascinating people in the world, it seems.

In case you didn't know it, the pet cause of the Prince of Wales is the promotion of homeopathy.

But at least the symbolism of the wedding may be positive. Although it won't produce a monarch of African or common descent, it does signify that British culture has changed. Nobody wants to mention that subtext, however. I suppose it would be unseemly to point it out. What would really be a step forward, however, would be for Britain to become a republic and make these people get real jobs. I'm not holding my breath.

2 comments:

Don Quixote said...

The zeitgeist in many parts of the world seems to involve masses of people thinking it's entertaining to give their attention to the lives and doings of twits and gits.

I remember being in a southern California courtroom about thirty years ago, for a minor traffic infraction, and the judge, who was corpulent with a red nose, didn't really listen to what a single person fighting a ticket had to say. The bailiff didn't want people to wear hats in court, in order to pay respect to a man who wasn't earning it. The judge's chorus was Pay the fine, Pay the fine, Pay the fine. He didn't even understand what was said to him. I wondered if he were drunk. Finally, at the end of the evening (inconveniently scheduled, of course, to add to the misery for all in attendance), a man in a tux came up in front of the court and the judge made a sarcastic joke about how the man didn't need to dress up just for the court (boy, he wasn't kidding). The man explained he was a magician who'd just come from a gig. The judge hinted that if the man would do a couple of tricks for all in attendance, perhaps he'd let him off of the traffic violation.

Which is what then transpired.

I seemed to be the only person present outraged at the mockery. Most people seemed entertained by the pandering. And I think this partly explains why people think the Royals or Trump are entertaining in stead of being outraged. (Not to equate the Royals with the world's biggest, sickest con man.)

Anonymous said...


"Although it won't produce a monarch of African or common descent, it does signify that British culture has changed. Nobody wants to mention that subtext, however. I suppose it would be unseemly to point it out."

Well, the race industry has not wasted this opportunity...and yes, it's unseemly.

https://tinyurl.com/y6u5wg55