The Cult of Oprah

There are quite a few celebrities in this country that I am so sick and tired of seeing their mug plastered all over the places. They are the ones who make the nightly news for one cockamamie reason or another when in reality their actions have no profound effect on our daily lives whatsoever. But since they are celebrities after all, they are automatically newsworthy, relevant or not. One of those people who is high on my list is Oprah Winfrey who the media lends you to believe owns the world. She recently tapes an episode for her lucrative neo-feminist convention, also referred to as her talk show, in which underprivileged children were given the opportunity to visit the Disneyland resort for an entire week. I will admit that is a charitable act but they way she presented in her television program is what is manipulative about her. The way the segments for each attraction and performance it would appear as though she spent the entire week with these kids when in fact collectively she spent less then a few hours with them in one day. This is one celebrity, as charitable as she may seem, is one I am sure does these sorts of things simply for the publicity. Whether this was always the case or she was forced into this situation in order to maintain her vast media empire, from my point of view I see this as pretty low. Her cult following is almost Nazistic in loyalty to her. She said this is a great book and everyone immediately jumps onto Amazon.com to order it up simply because Oprah Winfrey says it’s good. It may be a classic or a flat-out stinker but since Oprah said to read it, we should. She orders them to jump and they ask ‘how high’. It is disturbing, truly disturbing.

With the cleanup of the Gulf Coast following the arrival of Hurricane Katrina now in full swing, the great and powerful Oprah has commanded that America apologize for the way in which victims were treated, as if it were entirely our fault. They knew for a week at least that this hurricane was coming and yet many residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were arrogant and stupid enough to stay put. The mayor of New Orleans has nearly a hundred school buses waiting in a parking lot to evacuate the city but he never used them and now they lie underwater. Who should apologize again? What makes me even more steamed about her is later in the interview she says, “I was sitting at home feeling frustrated and useless, like so many other people, so I came down to personally assess how I could best be of service”, because God knows nothing could have been if not under the oversight of Oprah Winfrey!