from the hip

Princess Diana is one of the biggest mythical figures of recent times. From the day it became public knowledge that she was dating Charles, Prince of Wales, everything she did or said was major news more or less all over the world.

People loved her. She was royal, she was a kind person, she was engaged in social problems and health problems, and she was beautiful. So, of course, the media loved her as well. Hardly anything or anybody sold stories like Princess Diana. Nothing or nobody could outshine her as a media story seller.

And the paparazzi loved her as well. A picture of Diana, at just the right time and from the right angle, was literally gold. It could be sold all over the world in no time. And so they followed her. Everywhere, always. In huge packs, like hungry wolves chasing for food.

There was a whole industry around Diana. Paparazzi, journalists, newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV-stations, journals, charities, celebrities - they all wanted her and fed off her immense popularity. Naturally. That’s how the world works in our day and age. And all because people all over the world were interested in her, liked her, sympathized with her, wanted to learn more and more about her.

Any problem she had - in the relationship to Charles, with the emergence of Camilla, with men she met, lovers - also fed into the media madness that was the modern myth of Diana. And made it grow even bigger.

She was a myth. She to some extent became the myth. She was consumed by the myth, in the end. That’s what the jury in London, and the judge, really said.

And now the new inquest about how Princess Diana died is over. It has been huge. Here are some figures highlighting the scale of the Diana inquest:

2,931,300 - estimated number of words spoken in open court during the inquest - almost four times as many as there are in the Bible.

£10 million - the likely combined cost to the taxpayer of the inquest and the preceding Scotland Yard investigation.

20,000 to 66,000 - the number of landmines which could potentially have been cleared for £10 million. (Based on an estimate of between 300 US dollars and 1,000 US dollars per device used by the Mines Advisory Group).

This whole thing reminds me a lot about another powerful myth, that of President John F. Kennedy. That too is a myth still alive and going strong.

As with John F. Kennedy, I suspect Princess Diana will be a mythical figure for a long time to come. It doesn’t really matter what the inquiry concluded. There are still more conspiracy theories to be constructed, I am sure. More elements in the myth to be spun. More articles that will be written, about her, her relationships, what she did, and so on. And more books, more TV-shows, more movies.

Princess Diana is, for good or bad, a powerful modern myth that will be with us for a long, long time to come.

I think.

More stuff about Princess Diana:
An article from The Guardian on the multiple conspiracy theories.

I have always admired the fact that Americans devote so much time, energy, effort and money to charities. To me, this is one of many great things about American society.

However, I have often found myself to be pretty naive, too. And I may have been just that in this case as well.

While it is true that Americans do give, and some quite heavily, to charities, American charities may not be any better than charities in other parts of the world. I’ve seen many analyses of charities where 80 per cent, 90 per cent of the money, and in some cases even more, never reach the targeted group or purpose.

Lavish spending, bad subcontracting, high salaries, lawyers fees, and lots of other things have, in the bad cases, explained how the money have simply disappeared.

In a report by four professors who specialize in nonprofit accounting, the amount of loss as a result of fraud in non-profit organizations was estimated to be 40 billion dollars.

the typical theft from a charity was committed by a female employee with no criminal record who earned less than $50,000 a year and had worked for the nonprofit at least three years. The amount she stole was less than $40,000.

The most costly cases, the study found, involved male executives earning $100,000 to $149,000 a year. The thieves in such cases had typically been with the organization the longest.

..

If the $40 billion figure is accurate, then the money lost to fraud equaled the combined giving by corporations and foundations in 2006, said Diana Aviv, president and chief executive of the Independent Sector, which represents nonprofit groups.

But Ms. Aviv expressed skepticism about the report, noting that it relied on the fraud examiners association’s estimate of overall fraud across all sectors, including government and corporate.

“They’re lumping all those sectors together, and it could be that the for-profit sector experiences a higher level of fraud, while the nonprofit sector and government experience lower levels,” Ms. Aviv said.

Nonetheless, she said, “even if the figure is $20 billion, that’s still a huge amount and needs to be addressed.”

Now, 40 billion USD is approximately 13% of the money given to charities in 2006. That means, that on the average, 13 cents of every dollar you give disappears. That’s pretty bad!

So for the future, study your charity closely before you give. You may be paying for somebody’s retirement fund in a Swiss bank!