And these are excerpts from a Washington Post article published in the wake of JFK Jr & his wife & sister-in-law's deaths in 1999:

Public death has become one of the binding American experiences, giving strangers something to talk about in a culture in which individuals are increasingly distanced.

"We are not a communal society in the way that we used to be," says Wanda Ruffin, an assistant professor of psychology at Hood College in Frederick, Md., who is working on a book on New Orleans jazz funerals and mourning. "We may not know our neighbor, but we know JFK Jr., so when he dies we want to be a part of that."

Now, more than ever before, society's mediators are the media. The 20th century brought television, which broke new ground in 1963 with the exhaustive chronicling of the assassination of President Kennedy. Now there is 24-hour cable news and the Internet and more ways for Americans to absorb the deaths of the notable and plug into the ritual.

It begins with news anchors coming in on their off-days or flying to the scene to take command of the story for their networks, the first sign that the story is really important.

Saturation TV coverage follows, and when there are no new facts to report, "experts" fill the void. The experts are pushed to push the envelope. They offer theories on the circumstances and causes of death. They perform pop psychology on the victims. They explore the "larger lessons" for society. The search for metaphors is constant: It's like something out of "Macbeth" or "Richard III."

The public feeds off this commentary, and spontaneous debates erupt in office buildings and health clubs and living rooms, where people are keeping track of the latest developments and forming their own opinions. Did Kennedy's reckless urges finally do him in? Was the plane defective? What if he had left earlier in the evening, leaving more daylight for the flight?

Citizens rush to designated mourning sites – in this case so many sites: the John F. Kennedy Memorial on Cape Cod, the Kennedy Library in Boston, the Kennedy grave site at Arlington National Cemetery, the TriBeCa apartment building where John Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy lived. They toss bouquets and cards, and they stare or they cry.

Ministers incorporate messages of healing in their church services. The tributes – and not particularly from the ministers – quickly turn to deification because that is also part of the American ritual, to go way, way over the top. As television critic Howard Rosenberg wrote in the Los Angeles Times, young Kennedy, like Princess Diana, "appears destined to be closely scrutinized, glorified and celebrated far more in death than in life when to most Americans he was less a widely beloved national figure – regardless of what you're hearing now – than a good-looking celebrity with a famous name."

Then come the funerals and memorial services and the televised shots of solemnity – family members dressed in black, wearing dark glasses, dabbing their eyes. The TV narrators speak in hushed tones . In the case of Kennedy and his wife, Carolyn, whose body also was recovered yesterday, a private Mass is being planned for tomorrow morning at the Manhattan church where his late mother worshiped.

For those not invited to the services, modern technology is marvelous. It heightens the ability to grieve en masse. The Internet has become a giant Hallmark card. As of yesterday evening, more than 20,000 prayers and condolences for the Kennedys and the Bessettes had been posted on American Online message boards. And that is not the first time for this kind of thing. "In the case of Princess Di," says AOL spokeswoman Regina Lewis, "we printed them out and gave them to the family."