The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The weekend of course has been full of the Kennedys. All of the TV networks and all the newspapers chockablock with the 40th anniversary of the death of JFK in Dallas. And all the reminders of the endlessly-repeated myth about the "curse" that has followed the Kennedy family with all the tragic deaths and so on. The only problem with a myth is that when it gains currency, there's no stopping it. There is no Kennedy family "curse." There is simply another example of what happens to people who become rich and powerful. They think they can play life by other rules than those that run the lives of the rest of us. The Secret Service pleaded with Jack Kennedy not to go into Dallas in an open car. Especially since Texas has more guns than most small countries, Britain included. His guardians argued that he should be in a bullet-proof limousine, the regular practice for American presidents. But Jack Kennedy had a young and beautiful new wife and wanted to show her off to hostile southerners who didn't like him. That's what powerful and rich people doÑhe would set the rules. And he died. The Secret Service pleaded with Bobby Kennedy, when he was making his late run for the presidency, not to plunge into crowds where they could not guard him. But Bobby, who had a reputation as Attorney-General as the mean and vindictive member of the charming Kennedy clan, wanted to demonstrate that he really loved people. And so ignored the frustrated fuzz around him who feared for his safety. And so, that tragic night in that Los Angeles hotel after winning the final Democratic primary, he ignored their warnings for one last time, walked through a pack of supposedly-adoring total strangers and was gunned down. The ski patrol guys at the plush Aspen ski resort in Colorado pleaded every Christmas to the Kennedy clan to stop their hilarious touch football games on skis that had become the family tradition. They warned that someone could get hurt. See 'What' P.# Con't from P.# The Kennedys, being the Kennedys, ignored the warnings. Since that is what rich and powerful people do, assuming that they play by different rules. (Hello there, Conrad.) And so, as inevitable, one of the young men of the Kennedy clan, Michael Kennedy kissed a tree, going full tilt in pursuit of the footballÑand died. And the Kennedy "curse" myth gathered further steam. John F. Kennedy Jr. had one hour's training in night flying in his own plane. And so, one evening as dusk was closing in, he took off from New York headed for yet another Kennedy clan gathering in Hyannisport. As darkness descended, heÑas any amateur pilotÑgrew disoriented, and plunged into the ocean, along with his beautiful wife and her sister. There's no "curse." It's the simple rule of lifeÑthat rich and powerful people are so nave that they think they run by other rules, denied to the peasants. X x x AND ANOTHER THING. We are glad to see that the confused Unite-the-Right conflab may be enlightened by a new candidate as to its leadership. One Larry Smith, a very good Canadian fullback for the Montreal Alouettes, later the Commissioner of the Canadian Football League, fluently bilingual, and now publisher of the Montreal Gazette. And allowing that he is being strongly urged to become the new leader of the new Conservative Party of the land. They still giggle, in the Montreal pubs, about the day Larry took over the Gazette post and wandered into the newsroom and spotted Red Fisher, the dean of Canadian sportswriters, banging away on his computer. "Red," said Larry, "you know all those years with the Alouettes I had 12 concussions and none of you sportswriters ever found out." "Yes," said Red, never moving his eyes from his computer screen, "and that's why today you're the new Gazette publisher." X x x QUOTE OF THE WEEK. Following the four-day Dubya Bush visit to England with an entourage of 700 including 250 security guards, Conrad Black's Daily Telegraph had a letter from one Graham Ison, of Alton, Hampshire: "This is a timely moment to remind the United States Secret Service that the Metropolitan Police, since its foundation in 1829, has not lost a single head of state or head of government, whereas the American security equivalent has lost three out of the four presidents who have been assassinated."
