I’m still waiting for Vinyl Turnip to fix that link …
Easy enough to say, but I think you have it backwards. The willingness comes first. Lots of people not living in luxury do charity work. The only thing her means afforded her was the ability to do more of it than thousands of others combined. And she did.
Well, she was an assistant at a nursery school/day care…I vaguely recall that she had also worked as a nanny and a cook. So, probably, yeah, she did have to drive to a shitty job in shitty weather at some point.
From the way People magazine finds excuses to print retrospectives about Diana every 6 months, you’d think she was still alive.
In heaven?
And a waitress.
Wow, she said that?
I thought it was bad enough when she equated yearly PAP smears with herding women down the assembly line that is the sexist medical profession, mistakenly characterized people with AIS and equated female genital mutilation with plastic surgery practices in the U.S. I guess that belongs in its own thread, though.
Yes, they do.
And they usually do it without expecting publicity or public adoration or hero worship.
But i’m actually pretty indifferent to the whole Diana thing. I don’t like her, but i’m also not interested in excoriating her. I think that, to the extent that her public persona is overblown and over-hyped and over-exposed, it’s more the media and the public that is to blame. The media wouldn’t spend so much effort on people like the royals if the public didn’t eat it up.
First, I don’t give a crap about Diana either way. I think she was a kid who got manipulated by people more powerful than she was into a situation that would make most people miserable. Not knowing much about her, I’d guess she probably did the best she could in a rather weird, uniquely stressful situation. She did enjoy enormous privilege in a world where a lot of people are starving and suffering, but that’s the way our fucked up world is. I can’t imagine wasting the energy to hate her or cuss her, as if she did actual harm to someone. Does she take up a ton of media attention? Sure. It seemed that she hated it as much as the rest of us do. I can’t see how that’s her fault.
This I don’t understand. The press attention is what caused the charity work? I don’t think so. Plenty of people get a lot of press attention and don’t seem to give a crap about the less fortunate. I get that you don’t like Diana, but why try to negate her charitable urges? She probably actually did give a crap about the people she tried to help. I can’t fathom why you’d try to take that away from her. She got a lot of media attention, and she used some of it to draw attention to causes she cared about. What better use for it could there be?
Yep, she put her pants on one leg at a time and sat down to crap too. She had psychological problems and was a screwed up person in a lot of ways. Despite how the media portrays her, she was not a saint. So what? She was more to be pitied than scorned, don’t you think?
How would you feel if someone said you only did your volunteer work out of guilt/obligation towards your brother, not because you are actually a charitable person? Wouldn’t you think that was unfair, unkind, and uncalled for? I’d have to say the same about Diana. It’s not impossible that she was simultaneously a massive celebrity, part of the Windsor royal family, an honestly compassionate and charitable person, a screwed up bulimic, and an insecure, naive girl of average intelligence at best.
Honestly, I can’t understand all the heat behind condemning a dead girl. Her fame was likely never a function of her desire for fame per se, and it certainly can’t be laid at her feet anymore, now that she’s dead, for chrissake. I’m as sick of her continued overexposure as anyone, but I can’t blame her for it. I wish she’d rest in peace (and quiet).
I support the Royal Family with my taxes. The last time anybody bothered to work it out it costs me 62 pence a year. What’s that - a dollar and ten cents? That includes all the money for fulfilling the function of a Head of State. We’ve got Queen Elizabeth, and you lot have George W. Bush. I think we have a bargain.
Here you go www.dianaisstupid.com
Some kind of non sequitur joke?
What makes you think she expected any of those things for her charity work? The fact of the matter is that unless she was on a charity mission, she did her best to avoid reporters and photographers. Only when it served her causes did she cooperate with their feeding frenzies. That’s one reason I said she was bright. She used the press to bring to the world’s attention the plights of people whom no one ever heard or saw.
She had a choice about where she worked, she sure as hell didn’t work in a nursery because she needed the money.
Getting up early for her means some flunky settin gout her clothes, another cooking for her, and others doing the household chores.
Getting home for her meant not having to start over worrying about the electricity bill, or the car tax, or even just doing the ironing.
She probably never even washed her car.
Imagine how your outlook on life would change is you had complete security of income, of medical treatment, that you don’t need to concern yourself ever with material worries, imagine not needing ever to actually try, everthing you do is your personal choice, and every little bit of charity work would be lauded it up in the media.
Now contrast that with millions of others, caring for elderly relatives without respite, looking after mentally ill family unseen and unnoticed, or just something as simple as wondering wether you can afford to send our children off to university.
I’m sorry the royals get my money, 67pence is way too much in my book, I have a far better use for it.
There are plenty of other even less deserving cases for sympathy, but she definately is not anywhere near the top of my list.
She was famous for being famous, I don’t care if she cost me one penny a year, I really do not see why she should have even that without my consent.
Even in taxation I have a vote, but I don’t get to vote over the royal income.
In what way should the status and deferantial treatment of the royals take precedence over any other citizen ?
I imagine a lot of people would just lie around and get fat.
In my attempt to be both humorous and informative, I placed two pieces of information in my post. You probably saw just one of them.
I supported the parasitical wastes of space with my taxes for many a year. I’d despise the monarchy even if it was ‘cost effective.’ But I am not sure young Di had anything to do with being head of state.
I don’t have it backwards at all. I do as much charitable work as I feel I can. I would do more if I had more time to do so. Having to work gets in the way. I think she probably did a lot of good work, though I disagree with some of the causes with which she got herself involved. My point was that it is easy to do all these things when you have the time to do them without wondering who is going to pay for camp for your kids.
Ah, so it is a non sequitur …
Parasitical? Hmmm, I suppose that one must make allowances for our misguided friends.