"The women have historically served as a combination of brood mares and mannequins. Their job is to stay thin, say little..."

"... look good in clothes, and produce heirs who will stay thin, say little and look good in clothes. (Prince Philip was said to have approved of Diana’s entry into the family because she would 'breed in some height.') When something threatens the reputation of a more senior, male Windsor, the women have another essential role: human shield. Has King Edward VIII abdicated and run off to France to be with Wallis Simpson? Let’s be sure to blame the American divorcée. Has Prince Charles taken a mistress? Blame his mom for not letting her son marry his true love; blame his wife for not keeping him faithful — oh, and call the mistress ugly. Has Prince Harry declined to perform his family duties and decamped for sunny California? Let’s blame his 'narcissistic' wife for ensorcelling him!"

Writes Jennifer Weiner, in "How the Windsor Women Became Human Shields" (NYT).

It had seemed, until recently, that "Catherine might become the rule-proving exception, the single privileged Windsor wife allowed to float above the fray." But then something popped in her abdomen.

"You see the Earth from space and it changes you. It changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity. It’s one Earth."

Said Jeff Bezos before taking a trip into space, quoted in "Jeff Bezos will fly to space with his brother on Blue Origin rocket" (London Times).

Why go to get the insight if you've already got it? Have we forgotten how to live?

I want to do X so I can think a thought I am already saying. 

But you're already saying it. So it must be... I want to do X so that when I say the conventional thing that people who do X say, I will somehow really mean it, in a way that I don't mean yet.

But Jeff Bezos isn't going to have a changed relationship with Planet Earth and humanity! And I think he knows that. He's planning not to change, as shown by his recitation of the stock trip-to-space insight, spoken by endless astronauts through the ages. If he really believed in going to space to acquire insight, he'd wait until he'd gone to space and then tell us what wisdom seeped into his skull while he was up there floating in the tin can.

I suspect all those astronauts talking about their relationship to the planet have been bullshitting. I'm buying into the verisimilitude of the scene in "The Crown" where Prince Philip believed he would learn something profound from the astronauts, and the astronauts, it turned out...

... had nothing.