Dead or alive Diana sells

I was never a friend of the late Diana, Princess of Wales. Something about her rubbed me the wrong way from the get-go. During her life, Diana did nothing more, and considerably less, than the family into which she married. And yet the public continues to see her as a lady bountiful rather than the well dressed grasping media hound that she was.

Okay, that last statement was probably over the top. But I really believe she did what she did because she liked the publicity and the public love that she missed in life. Diana profited from her bad marriage although she never seemed to understand that her children should have made it impossible to regret her matrimonial choice. I believe that she believed that her marriage was a forever thing. Not just because that's what all brides think but because she married into a family for whom at the time divorce was anathema. But to give Diana her due, when she was fed up with her role as one-half of an unhappy union, she determined to obtain that divorce, although she seemed ambivalent about it until the end. Maybe she thought that the Queen would intercede and demand that the Prince of Wales love his wife.

I don't know and that really is not the reason I am writing about Diana.

A new book by Australian journalist John Morgan charges that Diana and Dodi Fayed were murdered. Not new charges. Not new evidence.

I do not know if driver Heni Paul was drunk. But I do know that while driving at an unsafe speed, Paul lost control of the car. I believe that might have saved Diana's life. I suspect that her condition worsened because of the poor roadside assistance she received from the French ambulance service, but I am not convinced that Diana would have survived even with the best medical care in the world.

I am convinced that the controversy continues because Diana sells books, magazines, and made-for-TV movies. Morgan may be the latest in a long line of men who used Diana for their own purposes, including Tony Blair who first proclaimed her the "People's Princess."

The French may well have bungled the medical care Diana received and Henri Paul's autopsy but that doesn't mean they were in the pay of British secret service or that the Royal Family launched an assassination plot to rid themselves of a woman who wanted out and then refused to go quietly.

Two things were shaken when Diana died: A good part of the dignity that has for so long surrounded the Royal Family and the world's belief in happy endings.

No doubt had Diana survived into middle age, she would have done herself in. She may even have appeared on Dancing with the Stars. But she didn't, so, she remains in our memories as a beautifully dressed, attractive young woman who occasionally did photo calls with small but needy children. That she emphasized with the disenfranchised may have said more about her own inner needs than her desire to improve the lives of others. Her former sister-in-law, the Princess Royal, has devoted her life to a number of charities and causes that have real effect. But no one thinks of her as a "People's Princess."

And now more information about dead Diana

Ten years dead and Diana (no other identification needed) remains a staple of the tabloid press. For whatever reason, the British government has bowed to the demands of wealthy arms dealer turned store keeper Mohamed Al Fayed and Diana's own conspiracy minded followers and has mounted another expensive inquest. Unable to accept that accidents happen, even to the incredibly wealthy, a decade after the fatal car crash, people still insist Diana was murdered. Of all the conspiracy theories I have read, my favorite includes a stealth tank. Yes, you read that right. Some people posit that a British Army Tank, hidden in the tunnel, moved forward to crush the speeding Mercedes and then rushed away unseen and unheard.

I suppose to establish motive, the inquest seems unhealthily concerned with Diana's active and rather public sex life. To whit: Was he pregnant? Did she mean to marry Dodi Al Fayed? Did she want a quiet middle class life as the wife of Dr. Hasat Kahn? Did she invite the press to her public affair with Dodi to get back at Charles. None of this has anything to do with the accident, but it feeds the unending public appetite for intimate information about a very public person.

Of all the things revealed by this side show, my favorite is the contributions of Raine, Countess Spencer, Diana's publicly hated step-mother. We are now to believe that cast out by the cold hearted Royal Family, Diana turned for comfort not to her own mother, with whom she was not on speaking terms, but to her step-mother, who she had nick-named "Acid Raine." Raine married Diana's father after his first wife, Diana's mother, decamped with another man, losing custody of her children. When she lived, Diana had not one good thing to say about Raine, but now that she's dead, Raine, who is on the board of the al Fayed owned Harrod's Department Store, has decided to rewrite history. When her father died, Diana, then Princess of Wales, instructed her servants to place all of Raine's in plastic trash bags, which were then kicked down the palatial family home steps, reportedly by Diana's brother. This is the same brother who refused Diana's request to live on the family estate but who castigated the Royal Family for their callous ways at Diana's public funeral. And he was living in South Africa at the time. But Raine publicly stated that since Diana's divorce, they had grown close and that Diana confided to her that she planned to marry Dodi Al Fayed.

So, what does this have to do with the car accident? Well, apparently, the Royal Family targeted Diana because she was about to marry Dodi, even though people who knew Diana say that no such marriage was in the works.

From previous inquests, we know that Diana died from injuries she incurred when the speeding car in which she was riding came to an abrupt stop against a pole in a Paris tunnel. American physicians, who were not there and who did not examine Diana, claim that had the accident happened in the US, they could have saved her life. And while I question French emergency methods in this instance, I think second guessing what was done from a distance is both unfair and unimportant. All I know is that if Diana had worn a seat belt, she might have walked away with a few bruises and even more publicity.

In the end, Diana may have been the victim of her own publicity machine. She was fighting for the public heart, using her considerable weapons of physical attractiveness and her connection with various charities, some of which had grown tired of her act. Diana wanted to ruin the Prince of Wales, and she did. If she couldn't be queen, he couldn't be king.

Deeper still, it was have been galling for a young, attractive woman to lose out in the love sweepstakes to a middle age hausfrau who is more at home in riding cloths than haut couture. All women have been there and we understand the sting. On the other, when a woman of no obvious physical appeal beats out a beautiful blond, I find myself muttering, "You go, girl."

In her ire, Diana did her level best to bring down the British Monarchy, and she may have succeeded. But I think the problem was that in doing so, Diana began to believe her own press and that is a dangerous thing. Dead now for 10 years, Diana continues to haunt the Royal Family, which I am sure now looks back with horror on its plan to find a suitable bride for their unmarried heir. Oddly, I think the smoke was clearing when Diana died and she had come to some civilized understanding with her former husband. She was out of the Royal Family, because she wanted a divorce. She dragged them through the mud in print and on television, so clearly she was willing to burn her bridges. She was stripped of her HRH because she said, perhaps in a moment of piqué, that she didn't want it. Had she lived, Charles probably would have remained unmarried, and maybe miserable, which is what she may have wanted. But who really knows. And although we now know that Diana may have accepted Dodi's advances for any number of reasons, she apparently did not consider theirs a serious relationship. Diana loved the limelight--who couldn't do without public adulation, but in the end that's what did her in. She thought she could control the press, and she was wrong.

The thing is Diana is dead and her bones are being picked over for no other reason that it makes good press. I find that sad and ugly. She lies alone on a island, finally achieving the quiet of the family estate denied her during her life. Her brother, who so vociferously opposed his step-mother's plan to turn the family seat Althrop into a tourist attraction, opened the estate to the public, selling trinkets decorated with his dead sister's image. And while some of the profits go to charity, some of the profits go into Althrop's pockets. Diana is now a cottage industry, feeding those who refused to help or who haunted her in her lifetime. I add to that sorry list of greedy relatives and press and avaricious former butlers, the public harpies who keep the myth and the ire alive.

Diana's dead. It's over. Move on.

Johnny Fairplay cries foul and other unreal stories

The things you find on Youtube.com: I don't watch Fox TV, so I had no idea they have their own awards show, honoring Reality TV competitors and participants (they call them "stars," but then they also call their opinion reports "news"). However, I did watch Survivor the season that contestant Johnny Fairplay lied about his grandmother's death to gain immunity and sympathy from his too trusting team members. At the time, I suspected the guy was lying. Fairplay is a real creep who has, apparently, spun his 15 minutes of fame by appearing on whatever low budget reality fest will have him and as a professional wrestler. For his stint on Survivor, Fairplay in October received the trophy as the Most Memorable Reality Performer (talk about an oxymoron). Fairplay was booed by the audience, which included the prostitutes who work at the Bunny Ranch and their pimp (Cathouse, HBO), Mike "Boogie" Malin ( Big Brother), and Janice Dickinson (True Life).

Perhaps trying to be helpful, former child star and world class train wreck, Danny Bonaduce, ambled on stage to inform Fairplay that booing means the audience "hates you." And then he begins to amble off. Fairplay, who is a living example to dumb blonds everywhere, calls to Danny and proceeds to run at him, jumping into Bonaduce's non-waiting arms, wrapping his legs around Bonaduce's waist and begins to dry hump. With the greatest of ease, Bonaduce throws Fairplay over his shoulders. Here's the link, because seeing is believing: Bonaduce flips Fairplay

Anyway, Fairplay goes to the emergency room to deal with his broken teeth and Danny goes home. Naturally, Fairplay files a police report, claiming assault. But the charges are dropped when the Los Angeles DA found that Bonaduce did not intentionally injure Fairplay and his "actions fell within the realm of self-defense.’”

The saga does not end there because now Fairplay is suing everybody: Bonaduce, FOX Reality Channel, producer Natural 9 Entertainment and Boulevard3, the venue at which the event took place. Having done a little research, I find that the suit does not mention Fairplay's drunken state, apparently he'd been hitting the bottle before the event and backstage during the event and that he broke the camera of some woman who dared to take his picture when he left the event under his own power, but in an ambulance. I also found that Fairplay was kicked off Kill Reality in 2006, for defecating on another contestant's bed. Class act meet class act.

In other news, the personal letters of the late Diana, Princess of Wales have been made public in yet another inquest into her death. The inquest is being held, at taxpayer's expense, to quell the rumors instigated by Mohamed Al Fayed that Diana was the target of an assassination plot hatched by Prince Philip. To add insult to injury, correspondence from Diana to the Prince has been introduced to prove that they were on good terms (take that, Paul Burrell). When does too much information become way too much information?

Michael Vick has already been sentenced for perjury and dog fighting,but letters from his family pleading for leniency have appeared on the Internet this week. Leniency in this case means that Vick should pay a fine, that he can easily afford, but not serve time, which inconvenient. This isn't Vick's first run-in with the law, but it may be his most lasting. I can think of no other reason for these letters to be made public, other than to drum up public support for Vick and achieve an early release. His mother explained away Vick's failure of a drug test in September by saying he was distraught by comments made by his father, which indicated that Vick had a long history of dog fighting. I do not believe that Vick's football career is over. That's not how in works in the US. As long as he appears contrite, as long as he is seen to have paid for his crime, and as long as he plays winning ball, the Atlanta Falcons will have him back, and if they won't somebody else will. Vick knew what he was doing, he was not coerced, or forced, perhaps he thought he was above the law. Perhaps he believed that because of his athletic prowess he could get away with breaking the law.