From: Sandie 

It is with great sadness that I record the death of a princess, although I am not a great royal follower I am English. I now live here in the states and had forgotten how the British gutter press hound people, the greater the person the worse the treatment. It is a terible tradgedy that Di died this way. Words cannot express the sadness I feel. Words cannot be found that express my hatred of the british gutter press. Unless you've lived in England you cannot grasp the enorminty with which these despicable animals chase celebrities around waiting for any split second to photograph someone doing the smallest thing that may not be befitting to a princess, the day she married Charles was the day she gave up her life and she did a very very admirable job of ambassador to our country. I will always remember her for her stand in the fight against aids when she openly in the public eye kissed an aids victim. What a woman

From: paperwat@gridley.org (PAT WATSON)

TERRIBLE CIRCUMSTANCES. ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS. LIVE TODAY AS IF IT WERE YOUR LAST DAY. BE COMPASSIONATE AND CARING. BEAUTIFUL TRIBUTE.

From: mapathy@apaynet.com (Mary Apathy)

She met with a very sad and untimely death, but other life does go on... she was a beautiful person with beautiful ideas on helping others and it's nice to see the contributions still coming in, but she was no JFK. They should just let her rest in peace, I'm sure that would be what she wanted...not carring on and trying to stir up more and more circumstances that lead to her death. I feel that can only make it harder on her children. I'm sorry if that disturbs others, and may seem that I do not care at all, but that is wrong. And what about her fiancee? Wasn't he important to others too? I hope they don't keep up, after all who could have been on that grassy knoll, or is the "King" still seen today?!

From: kaci@frii.com (kaci dunham)

I feel I just have to say something now. Yes Princess Diana was a great person. She did alot of wonderful things for alot of people. She was hounded by the press and all of her fans for several years. Maybe it's time that she rest in peace. It's seems as if she can't get away from the press even in death and I personally find that the sadest part.

From: "Joan Elmore" 

I am deeply saddened by the death of Princess Diana and my heart goes out to her children. To me if I could choose a symbol of my femininity it would be her. She was graceful but strong and just finding her way in life on her own. Choosing her own path and sticking to her convictions despite the horrendous way she was treated by the less than royal family. I hope she was happy in her new life and finally found the love that she was searching for so desperately.

At 12:47 PM 31/08/97 -0700, Vada wrote: I hope there's some way we can honor her worthy causes. What about an addition to our email signatures? Something like "In memory of Princess Diana - Support the ban on land mines!" Perhaps some of you can suggest some good ideas.

From: Pat May 

I heard a suggestion this am that instead of reaching for a tabloid paper at the supermarket, send the cost of the paper to one of the charities that Diana supported. Sort of a boycott with measurable results. And of course, those of us who normally ignore the tabloids, nothing to stop us sending our $1.50 or so. 

I've been following this all night and into this morning. As a Canadian, Princess Diana, was the mum of our future King.. the Commonwealth and the world has lost a true humanitarian. She was a woman who brought a breath of fresh air into the royal traditions, who reached out and brought focus to the underdogs of the world. Her devotion to her children and their wellbeing can do nothing but have a positive impact on Princes William and Harry. Even in her death, she has brought focus to the question of where does the line between public and private life come? 

From: "Elaine W.Murray" 

I am just as appalled by the tragedy as the next person, but get real... 

1. Not every photgrapher is as cut throat as those chasing the car
2. No one told the driver to drive 100 miles an hour instead of calling the police
3. No one told Diana and Dodi to have someone who had been drinking drive their car
4. There is really several people to blame - and not just the scandal tabloids
5. I happen to enjoy Hard Copy and the rest of that gossip nonsense and hardy think that by me paying for the Enquirere instaed of reading it in line is going to change the things people do for money or the way that celebrities want it both ways - fame and privacy don't go together well.

The causes that Diana chose to support and call attention to, Ban on Land Mines, Aids, Hunger and others are worthy of support, I just can't get behind some sort of "punishment boycott" aimed at the most visible target because everyone wants someone or something to blame. The only one to blame is everyone associated with the accident: the driver, the passengers who did not object to the speed, the body guard who didn't demand slower speeds, the photographers chasing and harassing the vehicle and the lack of common sense lacking from all of the above.

From: "Ms. Aikya Param" 

I appreciate that the late Princess Diana was a woman who chose to speak the truth about herself and her life when she had the money and position to hide. No one seems to have mentioned that the driver of the Benz in which she and her companion were riding was apparently rather drunk. Early in the press proclaiming their hatred for (and, of course, difference from) the less steadily employed press photographers trying to photograph Diana, some commentator quietly wondered what was wrong with the chauffeur that he was driving so fast. I don't know whether he was driving fast. This morning's radio reports said that he was not, in fact, a chauffeur but an employee of the hotel where the princess and her companion had had dinner. Also, he was quite inebriated. Then you have to wonder who else's poor judgment was involved to have this lubricated gentleman drive the car. Dodi? The princess? Someone else perhaps at the hotel or whatever it was? Couldn't they have waited a few minutes for a regular (and sober) chauffeur to become available? 

From: Mo 

The entire world will feel the Loss of A Truly "Exceptional Lady" A Loss of Life is alway a Saddening time, and although I as many others didn't know her personally, or even come in close contact with her. We will miss her.. My heart goes out to her Children and her Family. So Let's all take a moment, & pray for Diana, her Children & her Family.

From: "Rose Mary A. Lawrence" 

I am saddened by Princess Diana's death as I know all of you are... I have blackened the first page of my web site and used Mel's button to express my saddness....It is said that tradegy or death comes in threes...my daughter, Jennifer had a good friend of hers killed by a drunk driver yesterday morning...Moni was only 18...Jennifer had taken a picture of Moni in all her teenage glory for a photo contest sponsored by the Smithionian Institute...along with the picture students had to chose a poem that represented it... the poem is called "Daughters" by Nicole Blackman ...I will also place Moni on my web site to remember.... Please take a moment to remember both so young and full of life....

From: Suzanne Jan SJ2883@aol.com

Maybe we should all do something a little more concrete. Since Diana is no longer among us it is up to us who are left to try and fill in the gap. If each of us tries to do a little more--love our children more, help where help is needed more etc, that would truly "honor her worthy causes."

From: Karen - ILikeAlgae@aol.com

So----I took my weeks personal money and sent it to my favorite charity (leaving it blank as I don't want to get into any discussions on my beliefs). I did this expressly because I wanted to do more than just say support the causes of right-living,--------something that could make someones life a little better, someone's future a little brighter. I don't know all of Lady Di's causes, but I liked her activisim.

I hope that this tragedy will also make people realize that the only way to stop this senseless invasion of privacy is if no one buys the tabloids.

I think that if people really confronted why they pick up, read, or even buy these "things" they would see that it is a degraded thing to do. It's like listening to the neighborhood rumor-monger in secret-----you'd never do it intentionally------as that person was the destroyer of all in his/her world. They fell into----lead the list of those people who need to make others wrong, for whatever reason, so as to make themselves feel good. I realize that many of us do that and we probably do it more often than we would ever admit, but if we would just look at the destructiveness of it, we would probably be more able to change it around. Just something to think about.

From:

I believe we must be careful here. Prohibition didn't work... for a reason. We must understand the only way to address any controversial issue is through education and role models. We must learn that "we" can't change others...only ourselves.

From: sthearne@juno.com (Shannan T Hearne)

Tabloid Manslaughter - This story hit the tv while I was in the hospital and I was glued. Deb made a great point. We cannot convince everyone to stop buying tabloids - any more than the Enquirer (on its one good day) can convince other tabloids not to buy the blood and gore pictures of the accident taken by money hungry criminally minded photo hounds who couldn't see beyond their greed even long enough to help save any of the lives they had helped to snuff out. On my soap box.

From: Carolyn Nelson 

I sadly have to say she lost her battle with life and now has passed over to heaven and I truly believe an Ambassador Angel of Goodwill who knows in time she may reach to be a true Saint. Please take the time to love the ones your with as a cancer Mother we never know how long we have to share with each other. My prayers for Lady Di and all who have been called home lets hope that some good can come from all this sadness.

From: mysecretary@yours.com (Ada Meadors)

What an amazing Lady!! Diana, we will miss you more than you could have ever imagined. In some way, you have managed to touch the lives of everyone in this world. May your life in the next be everything your life in this world couldn't. Till we all meet again.

From: mclean@santalady.com (Juelie McLean)

Finally a "true heroine" gets the public support she deserves. Too bad for us that she had to die to receive it.

From: pennysue@ddc.net (PennySue Whitney)

We should stage a public protest towards the tabloids that hounded her to death. The press should leave her alone (at her funeral).

From: rrobbins@southwind.net (Robyn Suzanne Robbins)

I was saddened by her death...almost to the point of being speechless. I felt a great loss to womankind and the world. I plan to send what I can to my favorite charity, and I don't make much...but if I can help others in some way, and learn from Diana's life, then her life will not have been in vain. All of us should learn from her life's experiences and the trageties that she felt.

From: rashana@unix.asb.com (Carol Gino)

Diana found a way to make "peace, love and compassion" sexy. My heart hurts that she's no longer here but two things give me great joy. One is the idea that as she looks back on her life from the heavens, she can see all the people who loved her, that she had all the love she never thought she had, that her life was important, that her sacrifice was worth it. I don't remember ever (except for JFK...because of his idealism) seeing so many people gathering together "in love," so many people crying at the loss of love and compassion, so many people touched by that intangible "light" that one person can bring into the world. I believe that she helped changed the world. It changes the vibration of the earth, that it infuses it with an energy of light and love that it sorely needs if we are to save ourselves. All those people saw the "truth" of her love for them, her need for them, her value. And those who still don't, will be left to wonder what happened that they missed. All! and all, it makes me feel hopeful. As though the break in the heart of the world will give it room to expand and fill with what they now know is of so much value. As an aside, it fixes forever that crazy "happily ever after" ending that princesses are supposed to attain....and that makes them feel there's something wrong with them when they don't. The fairy tale can go either way now, and each young woman can adapt to her own script. The boys? Her sons? Wasn't it St. Thomas Aquinas who said, "Give me a child for the first seven years and then do what him what you will..." They too have touched "untouchables," and have as an example humanitarian values. With their mother's death, they will surely be wounded....but wounded leaders can become wounded healers and that too is a gift. God's plan makes sense to me today.....though sometimes I don't like it. For that I thank Diana for her life and her gifts to all of us. Love and Hope, Carol Gino

From: boots@aloha.net (Evelyn Hunter)

I have found myself in tears at least three or four times in the last week and I still cannot figure out why. My heart goes out to William & Harry and I hope their father will try to continue what their mother started. It is also my hope that England will show more love to Prince Charles now as he embarks on the road of a single parent, and keep in mind that he too is the product of what Princess Diana was trying to protect her sons from -- the sheltered, guarded and rigid life of royalty. Prince Charles needs to be taken to amusement parks too! If anyone needs a warm fuzzy, it's the Prince of Wales. God Bless those three young men as they try to move on with their lives. 

From: solutions@internord.net (Sarah Moore)

Diana the feminist icon ? Not really I hear you say, but Lesley White writing in the Sunday Times on Sunday 7 September says : 

"But does the chequered history of a daughter of the landed aristocracy really reflect the hopes and aspirations of the modern woman?

Well, she took on a family of rich bullies and won, put her in-laws in their place, quit her marriage with no loss of power and a huge settlement. She helped persuade South Africa, Mozambique and Angola to abolish land mines; was adored by a handsome millionaire; and revelled in the luxuries of privilege while coming across as the people's princess. 

From powerlessness and wretchedness she extracted a steely control over her destiny that was not blighted by a desperate Monroe-style suicide, but a wholly avoidable car crash. "

Another *feminist* writer, Julie Burchill in the Guardian : 

"If Diana had lived she might well have become - thanks to the incessant whispering campaigns of the Windsors and their media lackeys - a joke : Lady Diana Fayed, an Arab merchant's bit of posh, endlessly sunning herself on the deck of some gin palace hooked up in the Med ... But her death has preserved her forever at the height of her beauty, compassion and power. She will be the mourner at every royal wedding and the bride at every coronation. Her brave, bright, brash life will forever cast a giant shadow over the sickly bunch of bullies who call them selves Great Britain's ruling house ... We'll never forget her. And neither will they."

And what do I think ? That her death will probably be the start of a slow but inexorable process which signals the end of the British monarchy; sad but true, her antics and those of the other members of the House of Windsor over the last ten years have destroyed any respect I and many others ever had for the monarchy.

But for the moment, I can only feel terribly, terribly sad for her two sons who must come to terms with the most appalling grief anyone could face, and all in the public eye.

From: murderus@mindspring.com (Sally Atman)

So many of us vicariously did, through both Mother Theresa and Princess Diana, what we'd like to do if we had the money/support/time/connections. Sure, we do what we can, but these people made obvious changes to entire countries. 

I trust their deaths will, once the grieving is done, spark all of us to pick up where Mother Theresa and Princess Diana left off: To stay aware of compassion, to do whatever we do with love, and to remain available to our own people, including our often-overlooked families. 

I have heart disease. Once day, in a major L.A. department store, I went into V-tach very suddenly. I was near a phone, but couldn't stand. With my vision blurred, I couldn't tell a Susan B. Anthony dollar from a quarter. All my Acute Cardiac Care information spilled from my purse. Not one single solitary soul stopped to help. No one. Not one word. The most I got was what I believe was a look of annoyance that I was in the way. I gave up on humanity that day, but looking at Princess Diana and Mother Theresa on TV yesterday, I thought " THEY would have stopped. Somebody in the world cared." 

There's a lesson, a painful one, in their deaths.

From: clbaker@webtv.net (Carol L. Baker)

Common words cannot express the tremdous loss this world has suffered. Perhaps all of us can learn a lesson from one so giving & compassionate to all who were priviledge to meet her. 

From: ssammis@coll.pair.com (Sarah Sammis)

I feel most sorry for Princes William and Harry. They are so young to lose a mother. 

Secondly I worry about Prince Charles. It can be so difficult for parents to help their children grieve especially if the parents were already divorced. In general :(

From: Lollie McLain