Cross-posted at
The Stinging Nettle
I don't have much time to post about this, but I wanted to get something down before I forgot it. I just had lunch in a restaurant here in Raleigh, and I had the rather surreal experience of watching the funeral procession in Southern California on the TV over the bar.
Almost exactly 10 years ago, during another NBA Finals in another hot June, I had a similar experience, as I sat in a restaurant in DC and listened to Tom Brokaw discuss the "Shakespearean tragedy" of O.J. Simpson's long slow run from the LAPD.
Have we come to this in America? Will the iconic image of the death of a beloved (by many) figure become not the pomp and ceremony of a State Funeral, but a slow-speed chase through the freeways of Los Angeles? I half expected to have CNN break in with a cell-phone call and hear "this is A.C. - I have Nancy in the limo..."
The similarity is eerie: the hearse is accompanied by sirens and flashing lights and motorcycle cops zoom by on the emptied freeway, as traffic in the opposing lane stops dead, and CNN anchors drone on endlessly without actually adding any facts to the discussion. The same helicopters hover overhead like bees, while Southern Californians who evidently are drawn like flies to televised events on the freeways, crowd the bridges and sell Tshirts to commemorate the occasion.
It's quite sad.
Am I the only one to have noticed the parallels?