i know this is gonna sound stupid

but i can't seem to figure out why it is when someone famous is murdered - it's called an assassination. but when joe blow down the street is killed because someone doesn't like him - it's just called murder.

i looked on wikipedia - cause if it's on wikipedia it must be true. hence wikiality. but that's not important.

wikipedia says that assassination is "the murder of a public figure. An added distinction, among assassination and other forms of killing is that the assassin has an ideological or political motivation, though many assassins (especially those not part of an organization) also demonstrate insanity; other motivations are money (contract killing), revenge, or a military operation."

i know that defines the word specifically as the murder of a public figure. i kinda wonder about the etymology of the word - but not enough to research it. but i don't get why we need a word to distinguish between the two.

it seems to me that when joe blow down the road was shot and killed for the $50 in his back pocket or because he was getting it on with someone else's woman - that he's just as dead as mr. super joe blow in hollywood, new york, or d.c. i don't think mr. super joe blow's murder is any more special than regular joe blow's murder. they're both dead at the hands of someone else.

to me it would seem that to call some one's murder an "assassination" makes it sound like it is more important, special, notable, and tragic than anyone else's murder. and something about that just doesn't seem right to me.

and now i'm thinking in circles. it's quite dizzying.

i should go back to writing about celebrities and reality tv. lucky for me that idol starts in a couple of weeks!