Happy Princess Diana Week, everybody! As you may have already heard—from the plethora of TV ads and magazine articles—Princess Diana is DEAD. And she remains dead, even after 10 years.

Now, before you jump down my throat for daring to insult "England's Rose," I have no problem with Princess Diana being dead. Nor did I have a problem with her being alive. She performed a sizable amount of charity work, got a raw deal from the Royal Family, and Elton John wrote a song about her. Okay... not really. He actually just "adapted" an old song by plopping in Princess Diana's name. (I was thinking about paying a similar tribute to the late Charles Nelson Reilly by working his name into the theme for Ghostbusters II.)

Anyhoo, even though she was British, there are a bunch of shows about Princess Diana this week on the American "telly." On Sunday, July 1, at 7:00 p.m., Dateline NBC will skip catching sexual predators to air an exclusive Matt Lauer interview with Princes William and Harry. Lauer is the guy who did that heee-larious interview with Britney Spears where she chewed gum the entire time and her fake eyelash fell off. Something tells me this isn't going to be as funny.

Also VH1 will be broadcasting the "Concert for Diana" starting at 11:00 a.m. on July 1, featuring six hours of live music with performances from Kanye West, Joss Stone, Nelly Furtado, Elton John (the list gets progressively worse from here), Rod Stewart, Lily Allen (UGH!), Andrew Lloyd Webber (huh?), and Fergie (BLEECHH! Puh-tooey! Puh-tooey!!). Excuse me... where is the real Fergie—aka the former Duchess of York? (Maybe she's busy filming Weight Watchers commercials.)

But, again, I must stress: I have nothing against anyone throwing concerts for a dead princess. It's a nice thing to do and charity is a wonderful thing. HOWEVER! Would it be such a horrible crime to ALSO pay tribute to an AMERICAN princess? That's still very much ALIVE?? And of course, I'm talking about her royal majesty, Princess Paula Abdul. I know it's not a competition, but deep in your heart of hearts, you like Princess Paula Abdul a lot more than Princess Diana—and not only because Paula is alive. You like Paula better than Diana because Diana never wrote "Straight Up." You like Paula better because Diana never dated Arsenio Hall. You like Paula better because she clawed herself out of the metaphorical grave to be a judge on the world's most popular show, American Idol. And you like Paula better because she always looks and acts like a poop-face drunk.

So while you're listening to that butt-ugly Fergie yowling at the "Concert for Diana," make sure to also give props to Princess Paula by watching her new reality show on the Bravo network entitled Hey, Paula (Thurs 10 pm, starting June 28). On the show, cameras follow Paula around as she prepares for Idol, sells jewelry on QVC, bumps her head on things, and tries to convince us the reason she acts so drunk during interviews is because she took too much cold medicine. Whatever you say, my queen! recommended

steve@thestranger.com