|
|
|
Jewish World Review March 31, 2011 / 25 Adar II, 5771 The royal wedding: I don't get it By Barry Koltnow
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It is with great trepidation and regret that I begin this column by breaking the most important rule of column-writing. I'm asking for your advice. Columnists never need anyone's advice. By his or her very nature, a columnist is a smarty-pants know-it-all who gives unsolicited advice to strangers. No one ever asks for our advice, but we offer it anyway because we think we know everything. No, we know that we know everything. Well, I'm stumped on something, and I'm asking for your help. I really am perplexed about this, and I certainly am capable of wasting 800 snarky words on the subject. But my curiosity has gotten the best of me, and I truly would like for you to help me. Please explain why I should care about the wedding of Seriously, I want to understand the fuss that is being made over this royal wedding, not just by the media but by the American public. From the moment the engagement was announced at a well-manicured press conference on But that doesn't explain why regular people care. There is no good reason why people would follow the media's lead on this matter, unless they genuinely care about this wedding. And that's what boggles my little brain. One can grasp the concept of a popular royal wedding in However, he's not my future king. Believe me, I understand that a royal wedding is seen as a diversion from the difficulties we face in the real world, but don't we have diversions of our own? Why was "Dancing with the Stars" created, if not as a diversion from a bad economy, lost jobs, three wars and nuclear meltdowns? Imagine that I am lying prone metaphorically in a position of humility when I ask for your help. It fills me with pain — not quite kidney-stone pain, but perhaps a good headache pain — to ask for your help because it signals weakness in the columnist world. I realize that the son of the beloved The only number I believe is the burgers served by This obsession and fascination with royal weddings didn't start with Charles and Diana. The marriage of Charles' parents, All the British crown weddings are a big deal, and that's the part I don't get. And I must tell you that I am not a royal-hater. I have nothing against the royal family. I like movies about the royal family. I just want to know why when the engagement was announced, the entire world stopped long enough to care? Believe me, if I had a funny answer, I would be writing it right now. But I am so mystified that I am breaking column-writing rule number one. Please help me. Send your answers to the email address included at the bottom of this column. I will try to pass along your answers to readers and other confused columnists in a subsequent column because I certainly can't be the only person stumped by this one. One more thing — I don't want anyone to think that this column is in any way an underhanded way to get invited to the wedding. I have no hidden agenda. I wouldn't go if I were invited. But maybe you could include in your responses why I would want to go to this wedding.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Readers reach verdict on lawyer column
© 2010, The Orange County Register; Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||||
