Christopher Hitchens on the Royal Family/wedding

[cmac2012]

Oh ouch. Dude pulls no punches. I know I'm worn out on the goofy spectacle. The young lady seems nice enough, but I'm weary of seeing her oddly chipper gleam every time I look up.

http://www.slate.com/id/2291497

[kerry]

Finally, some sense about the royal marriage.

[Joseph_Conrad]

yup, good article, good perspective.

[cmac2012]

Stand by for the usual accusations about telepathy, but the young prince looks a lot goofier than he used to. And she has this attitude like she has just won the English schoolgirl lottery, ya'all!!

The whole thing hurts to look at.

[LaRondo]

It's the level of pain most everybody is accustomed to. Give me more, please!
Once again it is a perfect example of how those distractions work so flawlessly.

[Hatterasguy]

Meh don't really care, we kicked the royals out of here a long time ago.

I don't understand the obsession with them here, the US should be about as anti British monarchy as it gets. They burned the White House for one, I don't care if it was 200 years ago, it still was burned to the ground.

[MS Fowler]

I agree w/ Hattie; unable to comprehend the obsession.

[cmac2012]

It is an odd relationship between us and them. On the one hand, the vast bulk of our original culture came from there. OTOH, they were pure bastards up to least 1813 or so.

I'm a little embarrassed for their sake that their prince all of sudden looks about as goofy as his dad ever did. I had high hopes for him compared to the old man, but he just does not put across the real man vibe that is needed to lead even a platoon, let alone a great nation. I suspect the oddness of his romance has sapped whatever manhood he had. Happens sometimes.

I know the king in waiting thing is only symbolic but it's lousy symbolism.

IMHO

[crs82]

"Living life in quiet desperation is the English way." - Waters

[crs82]

Actually, Kate Middleton now reminds me of Katie Holmes soon after meeting Tom Cruise. I keep expecting her to mouth "Help Me" to the camera.

[The Swede]

For me, anything related to the Royals is like my wife dragging me into a craft store. Nothing of interest and painfully boring.

[pj67coll]

Hitchens is brilliant as always. I've never understood the fascination with that whole thing. I guess theres some kind of psychological desire in people for primitivism and links to the past or something. Or maybe just a real need for soap operas and reality TV which is about what they amount to these days. Absent Hollywood, britain has the house of Windsor.

- Peter.

[SwampYankee]

While I don't even remotely understand the fascination, I think with the lady-folk it's their real world version of the princess fairytales they remember from their youth. While my wife isn't stocking up on Royal Wedding bric-a-brac, she's got the DVR set up to record it.

[WVOtoGO]

If I had a dime from everyone who, because of my accent, has stated: “oh! You must be getting very excited over the up-coming wedding !!". . . .

Then there’s the priceless look on their faces when I reply: “Actually, I couldn’t tell you how little I really care.”


Cheers -
Darby Jane

[kerry]

I'm in almost complete agreement with Hitchens on these issues. The Royals are no more than worthless parasites on society. However, they do perform an important function: they serve to distract British fantasies and romances from politicians and to themselves. This leaves politicians time to focus on the real business of running a country. In the USA, those kinds of fantasies and dreams are easily focused on political figures (witness Palin--she's roughly the equivalent of Fergie. It would be better if she were a royal and outside the serious political process).