How can the death of a 96-year-old dominate the news if we are facing multiple emergencies?

by philg

Here’s the front page of the New York Times right now:

Of course, it is sad that a 96-year-old has died, but this is the newspaper that has told us we’re facing a “climate emergency” (Biden will fix), a public health emergency (COVID-19), a second public health emergency (racism), a public health crisis (racism, again), a global health emergency (monkeypox), a domestic health emergency (monkeypox, again), a non-health emergency (homelessness), a kids’ mental health emergency (give them a computer while their school is closed for 1.5 years and then give them therapy), etc., etc.

If these emergencies are, in fact, emergencies, how is it possible for everyone’s attention to be directed toward the transition from an elderly monarch with purely ceremonial duties to a child of that monarch?

(Separately, what would Meghan Markle need to do in order to obtain the position of queen for herself?)

26 thoughts on “How can the death of a 96-year-old dominate the news if we are facing multiple emergencies?”

  1. Separately, what would Meghan Markle need to do in order to obtain the position of queen for herself? Easy Just kill Prince William and his kids. She would have to stay married to Harry though. Long Live the King! God Save the King.

  2. This just goes to show that in the minds of pro-equality liberals who dominate journalism sone people are more equal than millions of others.

  4. RIP the old lady. I still like Oliver Cromwell character in British history more.
    Real news is that UK socialized medicine failed to keep the queen alive to make her a centennial, something that is in reach of any non-abusing substances American elder. I now know two people in my extended family who broke 100 years barrier.

    • Men or women?

      My great-grandmother lived to 102 and outlived 3 husbands. The men in my family seem to die about 10-15 yrs earlier than the women.

      Time and spending power don’t seem to be part of the equity discussion though…

  5. If you ask David Icke, he’ll tell you it is because shape shifting lizard people are ruling the world. When I see news in southeast Europe dominated by the news of a death of an English monarch , I am starting to wonder.

    • Mata, may I suggest you reserve the box marked ‘Shape-shifting lizard stories’ for those of similar ilk. Meanwhile why not another box for news stories of stuff of import that happens to utterly escape you but has significance and interest at many levels for a large number of other folk whom one might consider it premature to label as credulous or perhaps idiots? Not your words but isn’t that the implication?

    • Miha, I am sorry if my idiocy has offended you. Your English is too complicated for my command of this language. I have tried to decipher your sentences, but I have failed. If you would like me to understand, could you please rephrase your sentences in somewhat simpler (and maybe less pompous (sorry, I could not resist)) language. From my current understanding, you consider me to be in best case credulous, in worst case idiot. Believe me or not, I suspect there may be some truth in what you are saying.

  7. I usually express my thoughts regarding the Royals in various shades of contemptuous sarcasm, but the Queen, I have to say, was an exception. She surely had a lot of ridiculous BS to deal with in THAT family; I salute her and mourn her death for the dignified and graceful way she conducted herself over the years. She’s being genuinely mourned, I think, because of her connection to more than four generations of people all around the world.

    So I did say a prayer for her and I hope her family can get its act together and follow her graceful example. I think she served Britain well and I just wish more of the youngsters had learned more from her example while she was alive. In some ways she reminded me of my own grandmother, who was one of the toughest and yet most imperturbable and graceful women I’ve ever known.

    Rest in peace, Elizabeth II. If anyone deserved to be the Queen, you did.

    • Addendum: She had a wonderful taste for hats. In that sense she reminded me of another very interesting woman from my early life, who taught me to sing A Capella Jazz as a middle school student. She was a little tiny 110 pound (?) Jewish woman maybe 5 feet tall, but loved teaching kids to sing, and wore a new hat every week. So much of our world has had all the style sucked out of it, which is a Shame. [sigh]

    • For example, here she is with Eisenhower in 1959 at Balmoral. Here they are surrounded by Royal Highland Fusiliers with swords, mounted bayonets and what look to be loaded rifles and she’s just strolling along with her hat, gloves and handbag while he inspects the troops. Sample dialogue:

      “Mr. President, I think that Khrushchev guy is quite the Communist killjoy, don’t you?”
      “Oh, we couldn’t agree more, Your Majesty.”

      https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-president-dwight-eisenhower-aug-1959-with-queen-elizabeth-as-he-inspects-20116649.html

  8. @Philg: In a nutshell, here’s the answer to the main question:

    “King Charles Greets South Carolina Couple Outside Buckingham Palace: ‘It Is a Dream'”

    https://people.com/royals/king-charles-greets-south-carolina-couple-outside-buckingham-palace/

    “Strickland explained that a few unfortunate events led to the unexpected meet up. “We flew over yesterday. I accidentally left my phone at Heathrow and had to get on a train to go back to the airport,” he explains, noting that he heard of Queen Elizabeth’s death on the train. “I had no idea until then,” he says.”

    “I have always absorbed anything I’ve ever seen about the Queen,” Gabbamonte says.

    I think you have your answer. This quasi-elderly woman from South Carolina has spent a significant part of her life “absorbing anything” about the Queen. The rest of the emergencies you list are only a wisp of an implication in terms of their significance when moments like this occur. People’s minds are simple: you turn one switch, and the rest shuts off, almost completely.

    We are monkeys with brains a tiny bit larger than the other monkeys.

    You have a “human nature” area here, and that’s where this should go.

    https://tinyurl.com/2p94y4d9

  9. I’ve always thought that you Americans seem to be more interested in the antics of the Royal Family than we here in Canada. We grow up with this system so there isn’t anything unusual or exotic about it. Of course the death of a monarch is huge news here and everywhere in the Commonwealth.

    I made a tribute to QE2 in terms of the postal history of British North America:
    https://www.facebook.com/randall.gasdf/posts/pfbid02PWj9eQzjq6ieQjkPVk88AFnLuQ6zonSZhGi71wuihSZtbGQBKKjUw7VuFyz33YoNl

    • Randall: Why “of course” if we’re in an “emergency” situation? Here’s the latest emergency, incidentally, just from yesterday:

      https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62857112

      “The governor of New York has declared a state of emergency over polio as evidence emerges that the virus is spreading across the state.”

      (Or maybe you’re saying that, thanks to the wise government of Justin Trudeau, Canada is NOT in a state of emergency and, therefore, people have the mental space to focus on the British monarchy.)

    • Philg: There is another difference. You guys are constantly declaring states of emergency at the dropping of various hats. Here in Canada the only official emergency I can remember happened when a bunch of guys parked their trucks in downtown Ottawa.

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