A Sense of Celebrity (by Duc Luu, Jul. 30, 1999.)

It is once again, about Kennedy Jr.!
You have heard enough. You have seen enough. It has been almost two weeks and I did not mean to ring another bell again but the media's coverage has been criticized lately. I could not help but share a few thoughts to those who "have had enough" with John Jr.'s death and named him with all sort of things. A tragic death of a "celebrity" was one of those. The Dallas Morning News last week called him "the media's child." The Fort-Worth Star Telegram, on Monday July 26th, had a big headline on its 'Life and Arts' section, "Media's excessive coverage of Kennedy death cheapened story", in which it criticized all the "big" guys around the news network's business: from ABC news anchor Connie Chung to Dateline's Dianne Sawyer; from CBS's 60 Minutes' Mike Wallace to the CNN corespondent's Christiane Amanpour; you name it.
Two weeks have passed and the media has calmed down. Any other thoughts of why such mourning reaction took place and shook the nation so much that it almost caused us drained out?
To me, the media's enormous reaction to his death was much more of a shocking, mourning, and being sorrowed rather than what have had been called the tragic death of a "celebrity" as critics tried to sound.
Growing up as a Buddhist, believing that nothing happens coincidentally is part of the phylosophical thinking process (that there is a cause and an effect for every action/thing one does in life.) Whether this is true or not, one can legally argue; however, at least this way of seeing thing allows one to overcome any tragic or unexpected thing should it did not turn out the way one plans.
Nevertheless, as a human being, one always has his own way of wishing, hoping, and wondering, or even speculating how things could have been with a big "if".
The entire nation's enormous reaction to his death was just simply part of what has always been in human curiosity characteristics that were mentioned above.
Yes! I once wondered if he could possibly be a candidate who one day would be a President of the United States should he chose politics.
And yes! I did wonder what might have been if he had survived as well as the older generation had been wondering what the country could have been had his dad and his uncle had not been assassinated.
As much as his mom, Kenedy Jr. tried to live his life as normally as possible as someone said: serving the public as a local prosecutor, driving his own bike around town, walking his dog, "eating hot oatmeal and latte at least once a week and sometime came back for a spaghetti dinner." a local deli owner disclosed while being interviewed, and so on.

With the "Kennedy" last name, one would think that he could have lived his life in a much more different life style but his seemed to be "normal" like amost everyone else's.
Dateline NBC last week also revealed that when the Kennedys moved to New York, they did not want to bring their secret agents, who guarded their kids, with them because they simply did not want those secret agents to leave their own family and their loved ones back in Washington, D.C., that was just an additional thoughtful act if one might wonder!
To me, America's reaction to Kenedy Jr.'s death was simply to express the sadness, the regret, and the sorrow toward such a decent being. Sadness and regret for the loss of a possible politician who knew well the meaning of "public service" and could well bring the dignity in the politics. And sorrow for the loss of a well known being who, on the other hand, projected his life as normal as possible.
The Kennedys legacy have had impressed me in certain ways; They have impressed me not because of the wealth they possessed, they impressed me just simply by the way they have always been. Being famous but would not acting as the one who knows so.
Paying some respect, feeling touch, and putting all emotional thoughts together in a formal way to commemorate this type of elegant "celebrity" shouldn't be too hard to understand and comprehend at some level. Beside, transforming public's thoughts and opinions into a formal effective way to appeal to the audiences is one of the media's job. That shouldn't be too hard to figure it out.

Duc Luu