The Mind-numbing Coverage of the Royal Wedding Played into Our Collective Serf Mentality

The Mind-numbing Stupidity of the Royal Wedding

The crowds who gathered outside Buckingham Palace on Friday to watch the newlyweds kiss on a balcony were good-natured. But London has also seen large protests recently against the Conservative-led government's austerity plans, which aim to cut 310,000 government jobs and raise university tuition fees. Some of the anger at the plans have been directed at the royals — Prince Charles and his wife Camilla were shaken up when their Rolls-Royce was attacked in December when a student protest turned violent. - William, Kate praised for being serious, Associated Press, May 1, 2011

April 29, 2011

Salon.com - So Prince William and Kate Middleton, now Duchess of Cambridge, are married. They exchanged vows before the Archbishop of Canterbury at Westminster Abbey on the morning of April 29, 2011, with planes roaring overhead and Union Jacks waving and hundreds of thousands of people in the London streets and millions upon millions upon millions of people watching on international television.

"It really is something special," anchor Diane Sawyer said on ABC a few minutes after their first public kiss. Then she added a few minutes later, in a rundown of factoids, "He knows how to line dance!"

The moment capped hours of continuous coverage on every major broadcast network and cable news channel. The news organizations never cut away except for commercials. And they managed to forgo those breaks when it seemed as if something exciting, or "exciting," was about to happen -- such as the newly-hitched royal couple's first kiss, which was so brief that the TV organizations played it back in slow motion, and their second kiss, which presumably was an attempt to improve on the first one.

"I'm a hard-hearted old cynic, but I must admit I did shed a tear," said ABC's Buckingham Palace correspondent Nick Watt, who then stopped just short of taking credit for the chant in the crowd that pushed William and Kate to kiss a second time. "I'd like to think I played a small part in that," Watt said, beaming.

I wish the royal couple the very best. They seem like nice people, truly. Fellow human beings, at the very least. And that's why I hope that when in the unlikely event that they ever read this, that they won't take it personally when I say that the coverage of this whole ceremony and its run-up was revoltingly obsequious and almost entirely devoid of news value, and so altogether bubble-brained that it makes me think that if there is such a thing as karmic payback for wrong priorities, we're due for some major trauma.

As you read this, the big three morning shows -- "Good Morning America," "Today" and "The CBS Morning News" -- are continuing to re-hash, analyze and replay the ceremony on tape while going live to various correspondents and experts in England and elsewhere. The morning shows usually run two hours -- more if an affiliate takes their built-in spillover, but for the sake of argument let's just say they did two hours' worth, and add that to the overnight coverage, which ran four hours in some cases, bringing the total to six. And then let's ask ourselves this question: When's the last time the top guns of the American electronic media covered an event, any event, for six hours straight without any significant interruption, at any hour of the day or night?

It's been so long I can't remember offhand. The countdown to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, maybe....though I was a TV critic then, too, and I don't recall the medium's biggest and most important outlets spending so much time on that one gravely important topic to the exclusion of other news. They certainly don't do that kind of thing for the State of the Union Address, or for the president's meeting with any significant head of state, or for Congressional debates about urgent issues of foreign or domestic policy, even for the funerals of our most significant and beloved (or despised) leaders. American presidential inaugurations don't rate that many nonstop, laser-focused hours. Even the run-up to our own annual homegrown orgies of celebrity worship, the SuperBowl and the Oscars, don't go on for four to six hours on every major broadcast network and cable news outlet simultaneously, to the exclusion of everything else. This sort of thing is mostly just not done -- except when the royal family of the United Kingdom, our onetime estranged national parent, adds a new member via nuptials.

This, apparently, is what it takes to get the media's undivided attention: the marriage between two people who are politically powerless, and who spend their waking lives as designated fetish objects for the United Kingdom's interested citizenry, for Anglophiles the world over, and for the celebrity-fixated media. Our collective Ken and Barbie dolls.

We love looking at their clothes and shoes and cars and security details and following tabloid reports of their social events and private miseries and misadventures. We comb newsstands and Google for photos of the latest royal baby.

This, according to TV news, is what we really, really, really, really, really care about.

"Maybe this is the year of the commoner," Walters said, sometime around 6 AM Eastern, as the Bentleys were pulling up to Westminster Abbey and the wedding party was filing in.

The remark capped a list of royals from different countries who had married non-royals, but it seemed like an apt designation any way you parsed it. The royal wedding appeals to romantics, to fans of all things English, to people-watchers and to aficionados of fine clothes and uniforms, yes.

But there's something deeper at play, and it's a bit frightening: a marrow-deep urge to put down the plow, wash the muck from under our fingernails and go worship our designated social superiors; to queue up on the streets or gather in our living rooms in the wee, small hours for a glimpse of a passing motorcade or a flash of a white gown or a white glove or a red uniform tunic, then breathlessly tell others,

"I saw them! I saw the prince and duchess! I, a humble serf, saw them and was ennobled by their presence, by the grace of almighty God!"

Queen Elizabeth II, the Largest Individual Landowner on Earth

Originally Published on February 27, 2007

Who Owns the World - Queen Elizabeth II, head of state of the United Kingdom and of 31 other states and territories, is the legal owner of about 6,600 million acres of land, one sixth of the earth’s non ocean surface. She is the only person on earth who owns whole countries, and who owns countries that are not her own domestic territory.

This land ownership is separate from her role as head of state and is different from other monarchies where no such claim is made – Norway, Belgium, Denmark etc...

Her main holdings are 2,467 million acres in Canada (the 2nd largest country on earth), 1,900 million acres in Australia (the 7th largest country on earth), 114 million acres in the Papua New Guinea, 66 million acres in New Zealand, and 60 million acres in the UK. She is the world’s largest landowner by a significant margin.

Largest Five Personal Landowners on Earth:
Queen Elizabeth II (6,600 million acres)
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (553 million acres)
King Bhumibol of Thailand (126 million acres)
King Mohammed IV of Morocco (113 million acres)
Sultan Quaboos of Oman (76 million acres)

The next largest landowner is the Russian state, with an overall ownership of 4,219 million acres, and a direct ownership comparable with the Queen’s land holding of 2,447 million acres. The 3rd largest landowner is the Chinese state, which claims all of Chinese land, about 2,365 million acres. The 4th largest landowner on earth is the Federal Government of the United States, which owns about one third of the land of the USA, 760 million acres. The fifth largest landowner on earth is the King of Saudi Arabia with 553 million acres.

Largest Government Landowners on Earth:
Russian State (4,219 million acres)
Chinese State (2,365 million acres)
U.S. Federal Government (760 million acres)

The Royal Wedding Farce

April 30, 2011

levi-tarot.co.uk - Come on people! Did you really think I would pass this opportunity up?

Tomorrow, is a day of national embarrassment for the UK as the rest of the world looks on and laughs at the many British flag waving Idiots and Morons who think they are being Patriotic.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry for the flag wavers. I am torn between pity and scorn for them.

Queen of England and her dysfunctional brood of weirdos should be tried for treason and betrayal of the British People.

Here we are in a state of hardship. Governments screwing families into the ground with Austerity Measures yet can conjure up billions to drop "Bombs" on Libya [maybe a hidden clue there].

Then along comes the so called Royal Family who make the Addams Family and the Munsters look normal.

There they will be, ramming their absolute wealth down the throats of the poor and downtrodden. Many of which will be flag waving and cheering the Royal Brats. Dumb is not the word. Imbeciles maybe?

Have you seen the unwashed camping out already? They have their little toy crowns on their heads too! Must be dole day on Friday. Lazy bastards. Get a life!

The public are paying for it. Not one penny will come out of skinflint Queen Lizzies bottomless pockets because she has very short arms. Richest female entity on the planet too!

Yet the very public who she has betrayed on many occasions will be out in their droves.

Poor dumb little feckers is what they are. If they only knew about this brood of Satanic spawn of freeloaders.

Patriotic? What a bleeding joke. Even tradition is being broken because the Royal parasites have moved the goal posts. Apparently, if the first born is a girl, she is entitled to the throne. Something going on there then. Maybe its because the male Windsors are all mental cases like old Dumbo ears Prince Charles who preaches eco values while traveling by private jet and train to spread his message and polluting the world in the progress.

Let's not forget the darling Queen Mother. The nation's favourite horse-gambling junkie who kept her vast properties heated all year round even though she was not in residence. At the expense of the taxpayer of course. May she rot in Hell! Amen!

Queen Liz is just as frugal. As I reminded recently, she applied to the poor fund for help with the electricity bill for the Palace. Cheeky tight-fisted cow! "Poor Fund" set up for the section of the public who struggle to pay utility bills like old age pensioners and such. The biggest land owner in the world with vast riches! Penny pinching bitch is what she is.

Let's face it folks. I am only writing the truth here, not making it up. There are many things I am not allowed to say in public but, trust me, those in the PB or those who have done their own research will know what the Royals really are.

Furthermore I can guarantee that they and myself will not be flag-waving like demented morons.

The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy

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