diana is dead

14 years ago
the then-princess of wales,
diana
spencer,
was killed in a car accident,
with her boyfriend & driver---
the world mourned.

well,
to be more specific,
an ambiguous portion of the world
mourned---
“millions of people” in the world are said to have
sobbed,
because this woman died---
a woman, whose wedding cost alone,
could have financed a year’s AIDS/HIV retroviral therapy for over
16,000 people in South Africa
(as a random example of something the world needed more
than princess di’s “fairytale wedding”)---
the cost of her exorbitant 18 carat blue sapphire & diamond
ring alone ($65,000 in 1981)
could supply a year’s supply of therapy for 23 people---
just for a
dash
of perspective.

today,
i saw the cover of LIFE magazine,
which presently displays diana’s picture on the cover---
this picture was probably taken when she was in her late
20’s
(giving her that “youthful” appearance of the princess that everyone
wants to remember, and not the woman who wore a flak vest while
protesting landmines in her latter years---which some call her “loose
cannon” years, where she was involving herself in political issues),
when she died at age
36.

diana has been dead now for over a decade,
and the people at LIFE
can find nothing better to put on the cover of their magazine---
not one more important story or
living
person
in the whole world over,
and to top it off,
beside her youthful portrait,
the words
“Diana at 50”
are scrawled.

the magazine is to be sold at your local grocery
until
september 2nd---
that means that LIFE not only decided that there was
nothing or no one more important &
more relevant
to our present moment,
than this woman who has been dead for
14 years---
but they have decided that for the next three months,
there will not be anything more important & relevant
either.

need more perspective?
the totality of this absurdity hasn’t quite set in
yet?

consider the fact that in the united states alone,
9 people are estimated to die every
minute & in the world altogether, estimates run anywhere between
107 & 160---this means that in the time it has taken you
to get this far down the page,
depending on how fast a reader you are,
at least a 100 people in the world have died
whose faces you will never see,
whose names you will never know,
whose lives will not be splayed out in an
international magazine,
a decade from now.

diana’s televised wedding at st. paul’s in 1981
was supposedly viewed by
750 million people---
her ring cost more than most people’s yearly
salary & millions are said to have
watched her funeral as well,
which of course,
was also televised.
she is dead.
diana is dead.
dead as a doornail &
it is time for the celebrity-worshippers of the world
to just
let
go.

* AIDS/HIV retroviral therapy stats are taken from the Center for International Health and Development at Boston University’s 2006 report, “How Much Does It Cost to Provide Antiretroviral Therapy for HIV/AIDS in Africa?”---while these stats may be a bit outdated, the point being made here should not lose one iota of its emphasis.