rigorousintuition.ca

[sunny]

Stuff like this:



African Students Call Oprah's New School a "Prison"
By Ayanna Guyhto
Published Mar 12, 2007
"Billionairess", global philanthropist, and talk-show queen, Oprah Winfrey is receiving criticism for the way her new school for girls near Johannesburg is being run. According to reports from some of the students' parents, the school is making it nearly impossible for them to remain in touch with their children.

THE RULES

Per the school, the girls are only allowed to call their families on the weekends. Additionally, cell phones and e-mail correspondence is off limits all throughout the week.

Foster mother, Frances Mans indicated that she was made to wait at the security gate for thirty minutes, while she was approved by school officials for a visit with her child.

"We had only two hours to see my child. Surely this isn't a prison or an institution?", Mans remarked about her experience.

There are also some other restrictions. For example, all visitors' names must be cleared by the security guard's list prior to any guests being permitted inside. Currently, the maximum number of visitors a child may have is four. But even these visits must be approved---and even then, the approval must be obtained a minimum of two weeks in advance.

According to the school's head master, John Samuels, only one visit per month will be allowed per student in the future. In essence, the students may visit with their family members only one at a time. Under this plan, families with multiple siblings could eventually spend up to three months just spreading out the allowed number of visits.

SCHOOL OR PRISON

The children also have had some complaints about the school. One student, Michelle Conradie has called her mother in tears regarding the stringent visiting conditions. Other complaints center around the lack of "treats" provided to the girls. No parent is allowed to smuggle in junk food. If a child is caught with the snacks, the girls lose points in the system. However, they do earn points for their good behavior. These points can be exchanged for goods (often clothing) at the school's shop.

© 2007 Associated Content, Inc.

Can lead to stuff like this:

Oprah Flies to South Africa Amid Allegations of Sexual Misconduct at Her School

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Oprah Winfrey flew to South Africa over the weekend for crisis meetings over allegations of sexual misconduct at her exclusive girls’ school south of Johannesburg.

The visit, her second in less than 10 days, followed an admission last week that serious claims of misconduct had been leveled against a matron at the school for underprivileged girls, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls.

John Samuel, the Chief Executive of the academy, said in a brief statement that the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit (FCS) of the South African Police Service had been informed of the internal investigation.

“The inquiry is being conducted in a manner that supports the safe and nurturing environment of the academy, with minimal disruption to campus life. In addition, the academy is providing psychological support and counseling services to our learners,” Samuel said in an official statement, the only comment that the school has made on the affair.

The alleged perpetrator had been removed from the campus and other measures taken to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the pupils, he added.

Rapport, the Afrikaans-language newspaper, reported that the matron is alleged to have grabbed a girl by the throat and thrown her against a wall. The newspaper said that other alleged charges were that the “dorm parent” swore and screamed at the girls, assaulted them and had sexually fondled at least one of them.

The alleged incidents came to light when one of the pupils ran away from the school because the abuse had become intolerable. Her parents informed the school immediately.

Winfrey, who herself was abused as a child, is said to have arrived in South Africa just over a week ago, missing an important Hollywood engagement. She then returned unexpectedly on Friday and left again on Sunday.

She met the school’s executive and private investigators and held a two-hour meeting with the schoolgirls’ parents, who were flown to Johannesburg from all over the country. A report by a private investigator flown in from the United States to conduct an inquiry with a South African counterpart has been handed to the police.

Winfrey issued a terse statement saying she that was taking the incident extremely seriously. “Nothing is more serious or devastating to me than an allegation of misconduct by an adult against any girl at the academy,” she said in her only comment so far on the incident.

The school, at Henley-on-Klip, south of Johannesburg, has been beset by squabbles and sniping since it opened its doors to 150 of the country’s poorest but brightest girls last January.

Local people have complained that they have been excluded from cleaning and kitchen jobs at the school, the local police resent private companies taking care of security and neighbors say that the imposing brick building, which is surrounded by an electric fence, is an eyesore. Parents have complained about over-stringent security interfering with family visits.

Winfrey, who has no children and is known to the girls as “Mama Oprah,” endured an impoverished childhood in America after she was kicked out of her home by her mother at the age of 6. She went on to become the most powerful and richest African-American in U.S. television.

She described the opening of the school, in which she has invested about $45 million of her charitable foundation’s money, as “the proudest, greatest day of my life."

“I know when you educate a girl, you educate a family, a community — you change the face of a nation,” she said. “This is everything I have ever worked for. Education is the best gift you can ever have as a kid.”

Winfrey, who helped to choose the first entrants from about 5,000 applicants, has built a house in the school grounds and pledged to spend as much time as possible alongside her charges. To qualify the girls had to show academic and leadership potential and come from families with household incomes of less than about $711 a month.

The 28-building campus, built over 52 acres, resembles a luxury retreat rather than a school. It contains state-of-the-art classrooms, computers and science laboratories, a library, a theatre and a wellness center.


http://www.caica.org/Oprah_Winfrey_flies_to_South_Africa_10-22-07.htm

to be continued....
_________________
QUESTION EVERYTHING, for fucks sake

[sunny]

OPRAH'S thyroid problem:

Oprah Thyroid Awareness Campaign
March 13, 2001 -- In recent programs, talk show host Oprah Winfrey has focused on issues related to menopause (which featured Dr. Christiane Northrup), low sex drive (which featured the sister team of Jennifer Berman, M.D. and Laura Berman, Ph.D.),and a multi-part series on weight loss, (which featured her regular contributor, Dr. Phil McGraw).

Time and again, these programs have shown women describing symptoms such as:

fatigue, exhaustion
difficulty losing weight, or problems with inappropriate weight gain
depression, anxiety
body aches and pains
hair loss
feeling cold
low or no sex drive
And yet thyroid was never mentioned, except in one statement from Dr. Phil, in response to a woman who said that she had a thyroid test after she gained quite a bit of weight, and he said something along the lines of, and I paraphrase here, "You're not overweight because of your thyroid.
That's just an excuse."

Some of Oprah's programs have actually offered detailed lists of symptoms related to a program's subject matter. For example, read this list of Early Warning Signs that indicate that "your lifestyle might be endangering your health" which was covered in the show titled "Is Your Lifestyle Ruining Your Health," a program that focused on stress and its effects on the body.

Cold hands and feet
Hair loss
Headaches or migraines
Heart-burn
Muscle aches and pains
Insomnia
Lack of "restful" sleep
No sex drive
New allergies
Skin problems
Constant flu and colds
Irritability
Low energy

Obviously, to any of us familiar with thyroid disease, this list of symptoms reads like an Endocrinology 101 list of common hypothyroidism symptoms. Yet thyroid disease was never mentioned once in the entire hour-long program.

Some of you may be Oprah fans, some not. I personally like Oprah's show for the most part, and admire her effort to offer the public greater information about self-improvement efforts, spiritual awareness, books and literature, and health, diet and fitness issues -- in what is usually an informative, enjoyable manner. There have been programs that I've felt have genuinely offered information that is helpful to me in my own life.

Certainly, Oprah's show can't devote the needed time and attention to many topics that warrant discussion, and many issues we feel are important will be overlooked. But there's no question that when Oprah turns her attention to a subject, she has the considerable and formidable power to reach millions of people, and change many lives for the better.

Several years back, Oprah did do a show that featured Olympic gold medal winning runner Gail Devers, who suffered from undiagnosed Graves' disease for two years, and nearly lost her leg, health, and Olympic hopes due to the lack of diagnosis. Gail appeared on the show to discuss her triumph over adversity, and thyroid disease was mentioned briefly. At the time, Gail was a paid spokesperson for the Synthroid-sponsored "GlandCentral" campaign. While Gail's struggle to get diagnosed was common, her post-treatment experiences were not. As an extraordinary athlete, and at 5'5" and 115 pounds, in serious athletic training every day for years, Gail's discussion of how she just takes her pill every day and usually feels great was clearly not representative of the experiences of the majority of thyroid patients.

I'm certainly not the only thyroid patient who is a regular Oprah viewer, or who has thought to herself that Oprah really should touch upon thyroid disease. In the past two years, there have been several concerted efforts to contact Oprah that were initiated by regulars at my Thyroid Forums. So far, no one has had any luck in getting hypothyroidism covered by Oprah in any way.

A year ago, when my book, Living Well With Hypothyroidism: What Your Doctor Doesn't Tell You...That You Need to Know, was published, HarperCollins, the publishers, also sent an extensive media package to the Oprah staff. I wrote a personal note to Oprah myself at the time, describing my mission.

So far, there's been no mention of hypothyroidism, and no response to my readers, my publisher, or me.
more..
http://thyroid.about.com/cs/publicawareness/a/oprah.htm

An Open Letter to Oprah's Viewers About Thyroid Disease: Your Thyroid Condition is NOT Your Own Fault

Dear Oprah Viewer:
I have important information for you if you watched Oprah and her guest Dr. Christiane Northrup, talk about health problems, including a condition that both Dr. Northrup and Oprah suffer from: thyroid disease. (A recap of the show, "The Big Wake-Up Call," is online.)

If you have not yet been diagnosed with a thyroid condition, but heard Oprah and Dr. Northrup mention various symptoms -- including weight gain, insomnia, inability to lose weight, fatigue and exhaustion, anxiety, hot flashes, heart palpitations, depression, hair loss, and changes in sex drive -- you may be thinking, "That's me!" And while I don't wish thyroid problems on anyone -- I'm hypothyroid myself, so I know -- if you recognized yourself in these symptoms, and that inspires you to go see your doctor for diagnosis and treatment, then that is a truly positive outcome from today's show. You deserve to feel and live well. And to that end, I welcome you here to my site for information, and am happy to be of help to you in your journey toward wellness.

But if you do end up getting diagnosed -- or, if you already have a diagnosed thyroid condition -- and you also heard Dr. Northrup say that "your symptoms are actually your soul's way of bringing deeper issues to your attention," then I'm here, as a thyroid patient advocate, to tell you that your thyroid disease is NOT your fault, despite what Dr. Northrup says. And while good nutrition, exercise, and self-care are certainly part of overall good health, they are not likely to cure your thyroid condition. (It may have worked for Oprah, but then, she was able to take a month-long vacation at her tropical Hawaiian estate, stop working entirely during that time so she could, as she put it, "actively do nothing," while eating only fresh foods. I doubt most of us could ever aspire to such a luxurious recuperation.)

Ultimately, in claiming to advocate for women's health, Dr. Northrup and Oprah both have inexplicably embraced an extreme -- and, frankly, quite unsympathetic -- view that blames women's lifestyle and emotional life for our health problems, hormonal imbalances, and symptoms.

Here's what else Dr. Northrup has to say about thyroid disease:

"In many women thyroid dysfunction develops because of an energy blockage in the throat region, the result of a lifetime of 'swallowing' words one is aching to say. In the name of preserving harmony, or because these women have learned to live as relatively helpless members of their families or social groups, they have learned to stifle their self-expression....It's no coincidence that so many more women than men have thyroid problems. Thyroid disease is related to expressing your feelings..."Why Christiane Northrup Needs a Wake-Up Call About Thyroid Disease

While Christiane Northrup may be, as the Oprah.com site says, "the woman Oprah calls for help," Northrup is the one who clearly needs a wake-up call. It is irresponsible of her to suggest that an inability to express yourself is somehow responsible for a woman's thyroid condition. Christiane Northrup is doing a serious disservice to women's health by trying to blame women for an already misunderstood health problem.
Is it any wonder that doctors across America fail to take women's thyroid conditions seriously? Because on one end of the spectrum, we have dogmatic doctors claiming that we women are just stressed, depressed and PMSing, in need of an antidepressant or tranquilizer to solve all our problems. On the other end, we have Dr. Northrup -- with Oprah's glowing endorsement -- telling us our lives and emotions have run amok, we're unable to speak out, we're stifling our self-expression, and therefore we're developing thyroid problems as a result.

And Northrup's theory on thyroid problems also overlooks very real, and very serious cause-effect relationships. Thousands of women, for example, developed thyroid problems because they lived downwind of the Chernobyl nuclear plant after its accidental release of radiation. Were those women stifling their self-expression? What about women exposed to thyroid-damaging perchlorate by drinking contaminated water here in the U.S. Are they swallowing their words, or swallowing contaminated water? Many women develop thyroid conditions after having a baby. Are those new mothers unable to express themselves, or are their out-of-whack post-partum hormones expressing themselves? What about women with thyroid cancer? Will exercise, nutrition and sex fix their thyroid problem?

Here's my wake-up call to women everywhere: Thyroid disease is NOT your fault. Thyroid disease results when heredity and genetics, autoimmunity, environmental exposures, viral infections, and hormonal shifts come together in a perfect storm to trigger a dysfunction. And while emotional and physical stress, as well as nutrition and lifestyle, can play a role creating a climate receptive for -- or fighting against -- most diseases including thyroid conditions, these factors are only part of a larger, complicated puzzle.

Women are more susceptible to thyroid disease, as well as most of the more than 80 autoimmune diseases, for a variety of reasons, including the balance of our hormones. Times of hormonal change -- i.e., pregnancy, post-partum, perimenopause and menopause -- are key trigger points for the development of thyroid disease.

Another factor that can affect your thyroid is overconsumption of soy. In an official letter of protest to the FDA, Drs. Daniel Doerge and Daniel Sheehan, formerly the FDA's two key experts on soy, contradicted soy's health claims -- which were approved by the FDA -- saying:

"...there is abundant evidence that some of the isoflavones found in soy, including genistein and equol, a metabolize of daidzen, demonstrate toxicity in estrogen sensitive tissues and in the thyroid....Additionally, isoflavones are inhibitors of the thyroid peroxidase which makes T3 and T4. Inhibition can be expected to generate thyroid abnormalities, including goiter and autoimmune thyroiditis. There exists a significant body of animal data that demonstrates goitrogenic and even carcinogenic effects of soy products. Moreover, there are significant reports of goitrogenic effects from soy consumption in human infants and adults."Dr. Northrup, however, dismisses the opinions of these experts, as well as the many journal articles on the issue, and instead points to the soy industry's own studies as evidence of soy's safety for women.

What's Really to Blame for Your Thyroid Problem?
Oprah has made it no secret that she's menopausal, as is Dr. Northrup. And the shift in hormones that occurs at menopause is thought to be a key trigger for thyroid problems in women. By the time we're 60 -- Oprah's 53 -- an estimated 20% of all women have a thyroid condition. What do you think? Are Oprah, Dr. Northrup, and the millions of other aging women somehow becoming unable to speak up for themselves? Or is it more likely that the hormonal shifts of perimenopause and menopause are responsible for triggering many thyroid conditions?
Oprah is the richest and most powerful women in television, one of the richest women in the world, and has a humanitarian and media platform that reaches billions. She is, to many, the ultimate example of an empowered woman. And Dr. Northrup is a best-selling author and "celebrity" doctor on television. What do you think? Did Oprah and Dr. Northrup each develop thyroid disease because they have spent "a lifetime of swallowing words" and stifling "self-expression?" Or are millions of talented, successful and outspoken women like Oprah and Dr. Northrup developing thyroid conditions because of imbalances and fluctuations in hormones, and a likely tendency toward autoimmune disease?

Oprah also has adopted Dr. Northrup's recommendations, and become, like Dr. Northrup, a regular user of soy. Both women are now hypothyroid. What do you think? Is soy helping Oprah's health and is it just pure coincidence that she has developed a thyroid condition, just like Dr. Northrup? Or did Oprah -- as well as Dr. Northrup, and other women who add a heavy dose of soy to their diet -- develop a thyroid condition because too much soy had a negative effect on her thyroid function?

America's women watching Oprah are getting a mixed message -- yes, thyroid disease is common, and overlooked -- but, if you believe Oprah and Dr. Northrup, it's also your fault -- and by the way, don't forget to add soy to your diet!

My Message
I can't make it any clearer: Thyroid disease is NOT your fault. It is a result of autoimmunity, environmental exposures, genetics/heredity, and hormone shifts. Yes, stress and diet can play a part in disease-- in fact, thyroid problems are, as noted, sometimes triggered by overconsumption of soy. And there are a number of things you can do that will help prevent thyroid problems -- not smoking is one that comes to mind.
But here's a major wake-up call for Dr. Northrup: a woman can be flawless in her diet, stress management, and self-care, and STILL GET THYROID DISEASE. And it's still NOT her fault!

I don't care if Oprah herself has embraced Dr. Northrup's theory. That is still no reason for any woman to believe that she is to blame, much less that blowing kisses to herself in the mirror, and taking a hot bath before bed will resolve her hormonal imbalances, as Dr. Northrup suggested on the show.

Do NOT accept the blame, and don't think that serious medical problems can be treated by reading romance novels and eating protein at breakfast, as Dr. Northrup advised.

We've lived long enough with the myth that thyroid disease is just an excuse middle-aged women use for being overweight. (A myth, by the way, that is also espoused by another Oprah "expert," Phil "Dr. Phil" McGraw.) We've lived long enough with fatigue, weight gain, depression, hair loss, low sex drive -- all the while being told we're stressed, depressed, and menopausal -- and NEVER getting a thyroid test or treatment until we demand it.

Right now, as many as 59 million Americans -- the majority of them women -- have thyroid disease, and less than 20 million are actually diagnosed. Oprah was one of the undiagnosed -- and who knows who long that was going on before she actually was diagnosed. Yet Dr. Northrup proudly stated on Oprah, that "This show is real preventive medicine. It does far more than all those tests and screening."

Actually, explaining the symptoms of a thyroid condition, what women can do to reduce their risk of developing thyroid problems, explaining how women can get tested, giving them the confidence and courage to insist on testing even if their doctor, HMO or insurance says no, and then explaining how to interpret the confusing results -- THAT would be doing what America's women really need.

Thyroid disease is complicated, hard to diagnose, and no one except the sufferers ourselves seem interested to learn more. But one thing is certain: it's definitely not your fault, and you didn't develop thyroid problems because you failed to speak up or had your self expression stifled.

If you suspect you have a thyroid condition, or you've been diagnosed, the way to be empowered, speak out, and find your voice is to first, abandon any guilt. Then, learn everything you can about your thyroid, find a great doctor who truly understands thyroid disease, get properly treated, take good care of yourself, eat well, manage stress, and get support from people who understand what you're going through.

And remember, take the advice you get from doctors on television talk shows with a big grain of iodized salt...

Live well,

Mary

P.S. And Oprah, if you're reading -- my wish for you is that someday, you realize that your thyroid condition is truly not your fault. And please reconsider all that soy!
http://thyroid.about.com/b/a/257479.htm

to be continued....
_________________
QUESTION EVERYTHING, for fucks sake

[sunny]

The Oprah Winfrey Tapes
Did the daytime diva use the FBI to plug a leak at Harpo?
By John Cook

Last December, a 36-year-old retail-store manager named Keifer Bonvillain made headlines around the world when FBI agents arrested him in Atlanta on extortion charges. The case itself was a run-of-the-mill white-collar crime investigation: According to an FBI affidavit supporting his arrest warrant in Chicago, Bonvillain secretly taped embarrassing conversations with an employee of a "Chicago-based company" owned by "a public figure" and had threatened to release the contents of the recordings to the media. The representative of the "public figure" contacted the FBI, which set up a sting operation. The feds nabbed Bonvillain as he arrived at an Atlanta hotel to pick up the alleged hush money.

"I was able to get that interview that no one else was able to get"What made the story newsworthy was the alleged victim: Oprah Winfrey. Though the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago (run by Scooter Libby-prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald) declined to confirm Winfrey as the target, her name was leaked to the press. In subsequent coverage of the incident, most papers, including the Chicago Sun-Times, portrayed Bonvillain as a small-time huckster who demanded money and threatened to release "potentially damaging audio tapes he'd publicize if he wasn't paid off." But Bonvillain, who has come forward for the first time since his arrest to speak exclusively to Radar, tells a different story. He vigorously insists he was set up, and that he explicitly and repeatedly told his alleged victim that he didn't want to extort anybody. It was Winfrey's attorney, says Bonvillain, who browbeat him into accepting $1.5 million for his silence, despite Bonvillain's fears that the transaction might be illegal. Oprah, Bonvillain claims, used the FBI and U.S. attorney's office to plug an embarrassing leak in her notoriously airtight organization, Harpo. Now Bonvillain faces a grand jury investigation into his dealings with Winfrey and up to two years in prison and a $500 fine if he's indicted and convicted.

Keifer Bonvillain is no Boy Scout. There are plenty of reasons to doubt his credibility—he admits to secretly recording phone calls, he refuses to name some people who might corroborate his version of events, he speaks occasionally in grandiose terms, the only other principal who would speak to Radar on the record about this story disputes his account, and he did agree to sell his silence to Oprah. He has been accused in the past of secretly taping phone calls to a lawyer and selling the tapes to a firm the lawyer was suing (he denies the charge). Whether he is guilty of extortion or not, it is clear that his motives when it comes to Winfrey were to some extent mercenary: He hoped to profit from information that he had obtained through apparently dishonest means. Still, his case—and his treatment by Winfrey's attorneys—offers a window into the lengths to which Winfrey will go to squelch a potential attack on her reputation.

Bonvillain provided Radar with audiotapes of conversations that back up key elements of his account. At the very least, they're proof that this is not an open-and-shut case of blackmail but a muddy affair in which Winfrey's attorney deftly lured Bonvillain into a trap that the FBI had laid. At one point on the tapes, Winfrey's attorney unequivocally states that he doesn't feel he is being blackmailed. Bonvillain was arrested three days later.[/color]

NEXT PAGE >>
http://www.radarmagazine.com/features/2007/04/the_oprah_winfrey_tapes_1.php

[color=darkred]Oprah's Extortion Charge Withers

Keifer Bonvillain, the 36-year-old Georgia man who was nabbed by the FBI late last year for allegedly trying to extort Oprah Winfrey for $1.5 million, won't be facing charges after all. Last week, the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case agreed to dismiss the charge, and Bonvillain agreed to pay $3,000 restitution to the FBI, serve 50 hours of community service, and stay out of legal trouble for one year. He had faced up to two years in federal prison.

On Sunday, Bonvillain told Radar that he had been vindicated and that he intends to publish an "explosive" book about Winfrey based on information from illegally recorded telephone conversations he conducted with a former employee of Winfrey's production company, Harpo.

"Basically, it was as if the prosecution wanted out of this mess before it got crazy," Bonvillain said. "My plan right now is to release an e-book within the next week."

It's unclear what will happen to the more than 15-hours' worth of taped phone calls that the FBI seized from Bonvillain when he was arrested, and later during a search of his home. But in the end it doesn't matter: Bonvillain says he has his own copies of the tapes that the FBI never found during its search. While the deal requires Bonvillain to return all of the discovery material that the U.S. attorney turned over to him, including audio and transcripts of the phone calls, it doesn't forbid him from publicizing his own copies of those calls.

Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Chicago, confirmed the agreement with the would-be author. "The U.S. attorney has entered into a formal agreement with Mr. Bonvillain," he said. "It is not an outright dismissal of the charges, but rather a deferral." Sanborn said the charges would be reinstated if Bonvillain doesn't comply with the agreement.

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2007/05/oprah-winfrey-harpo-keifer-bonvillain-extortion-the-oprah-tapes.php

to be continued....
_________________
QUESTION EVERYTHING, for fucks sake

[sunny]

Oprah Winfrey's father, Vernon, will probably never get his tell-all book on his daughter's must-read book club list. At the moment, "Things Unspoken," is not in bookstores; it's being shopped to agents. But a couple of excerpts are already circulating, and they paint a less-than-flattering picture of the media superstar.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=3202785&page=1


Despite what you may have heard, Oprah's father is not writing a tell-all...

http://community.tvguide.com/blog-entry/TVGuide-Editors-Blog/Tv-Guide-News/Oprahs-Father-Says/800015692

to be continued....
_________________
QUESTION EVERYTHING, for fucks sake

[sunny]

Oprah's ugly secret
By continuing to hawk "The Secret," a mishmash of offensive self-help cliches, Oprah Winfrey is squandering her goodwill and influence, and preaching to the world that mammon is queen.

~snip~

The main idea of "The Secret" is that people need only visualize what they want in order to get it -- and the book certainly has created instant wealth, at least for Rhonda Byrne and her partners-in-con. And the marketing idea behind it -- the enlisting of that dream team, in what is essentially a massive, cross-promotional pyramid scheme -- is brilliant. But what really makes "The Secret" more than a variation on an old theme is the involvement of Oprah Winfrey, who lends the whole enterprise more prestige, and, because of that prestige, more venality, than any previous self-help scam. Oprah hasn't just endorsed "The Secret"; she's championed it, put herself at the apex of its pyramid, and helped create a symbiotic economy of New Age quacks that almost puts OPEC to shame.

Why "venality"? Because, with survivors of Auschwitz still alive, Oprah writes this about "The Secret" on her Web site, "the energy you put into the world -- both good and bad -- is exactly what comes back to you. This means you create the circumstances of your life with the choices you make every day." "Venality," because Oprah, in the age of AIDS, is advertising a book that says, "You cannot 'catch' anything unless you think you can, and thinking you can is inviting it to you with your thought." "Venality," because Oprah, from a studio within walking distance of Chicago's notorious Cabrini Green Projects, pitches a book that says, "The only reason any person does not have enough money is because they are blocking money from coming to them with their thoughts."

Worse than "The Secret's" blame-the-victimidiocy...

~snip~

Oprah recently opened, with much fanfare, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy in South Africa, and as I watched the network news stories about it, I couldn't get "The Secret" out of my mind. I kept wondering what would happen if professor Sam Mhlongo, South Africa's chief family practitioner who famously said that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, read about Oprah's connection to "The Secret" and found support there for his claim. I wondered if the students of the academy would read "The Secret" and start to believe that their parents deserved to be poor, or that the people of Darfur summoned the Janjaweed with "bad thoughts." Will the heavier girls be told, as readers of "The Secret" are, that food doesn't cause weight gain -- thinking about weight gain does? Will they be told to not even look at fat people, as "The Secret" advises? Oprah is already promoting these ideas to her television audience. Why wouldn't she espouse them to her students?

In many ways the Leadership Academy is a wonderful project, a school that will provide impoverished girls an education they otherwise might not have gotten. But it also seems to be the product, unavoidably, of the faux-spiritual, anti-intellectual, hyper-materialistic worldview expressed in "The Secret," the book that the school's founder has called "life changing."

more of article to come....
_________________
QUESTION EVERYTHING, for fucks sake

[chillin]

[IanEye]

hi Sunny -

do you have a link to that "Secret" Oprah article.

I used to have a pretty benign view of Ms. Winfrey. But then in 2000 leading up to the election I happened to catch the episode where she had Governor George W Bush on for the whole episode. This was right after the whole incident where she "took on" the Beef industry was winding down.

Then a few months later in January 2001, right before Inauguration Day i learned about what really went down in Florida in terms of ChoicePoint and all of that. How it wasn't really about hanging chads and skewing the people who got to vote, but it was really about preventing tens of thousands of people from voting at all.

I thought, "surely Oprah Winfrey will devote a show to this. After all, she was kind enough to have Bush on her show for a whole hour and then at the same time Bush's brother is removing black women from the voter registration records? Surely Oprah will do a show about this."

Nope. If she has devoted a show to the topic of Florida 2000, please kindly point me to it.

Then I will stop thinking of her as a worthless whore.

And I don't mean whore in a sexist way, this definition of "whore" includes men like Charlie Gibson and Lou Dobbs as well, just to be clear.

[sunny]

IanEye

[nomo]

Draft Oprah for president!



C'mon! Isn't it time we had a winner on our side?

America loves Oprah. She's got good politics, a great heart-and she'll have us all exercising AND reading! This can't be a bad thing.

Let's convince Oprah to run. Please sign the petition below.

Dear Ms. Winfrey,
We, the undersigned, call on you to declare yourself a candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America. We want to hear your ideas on how to straighten this country out and we think you can force the other candidates to stand by their hearts and consciences. At the very least, you can shake things up, but more likely, you can destroy the field and blow through the elections to become our first black President, our first woman President and our first President in recent memory who represents the interests of the American People.

Name
[_____________________________]

E-Mail
[_____________________________]

City
[_____________________________]

State / Province
[_____________________________]

Optional Comments
[_____________________________]

[Submit] [Clear Form]


http://www.michaelmoore.com/books-films/dudewheresmycountry/draftoprah/index.php

[Wombaticus Rex]

A personal brand is a voracious monster that destroys your actual life.
_________________

[sunny]

Here is why I wanted to provide a miniscule amount of balance to the deification of Oprah:

{http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/arts/television/15opra.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://www.pbs.org/previews/oprahs-roots/ }

Oprah Winfrey ostensibly possesses the mythical Midas Touch, a generous spirit, deep spiritual wisdom, and, in the eyes of those blinded by their adoration, the credentials of a saint. Yet despite appearing destined for canonization, Oprah injects heavy doses of infectious pus into the already deeply abscessed wound of the American psyche.

How could anyone who’s noted for having said, "Let your light shine. Shine within you so that it can shine on someone else. Let your light shine," have such a pernicious effect on our culture?

Let’s "count the ways…with a passion put to use."

To truly understand the depth of the damage Oprah inflicts on our society, we need to step outside of our bourgeois indoctrination and see her for what she truly represents. Manifesting the Horatio Alger Myth on steroids, Oprah is a wet dream come true for our criminal class of ruling elites sometimes referred to as the plutocracy. She provides them with "irrefutable" and ubiquitous anecdotal evidence which "proves" the idiotic delusion that America is a meritocracy where everyone has a realistic chance of getting rich, if they just work hard enough. The reality is that the richest 20% of US Americans own over 80% of the wealth and the long-term trend has been toward an ever increasing concentration of treasure into a smaller number of strong-boxes(1).

Comfortably administering her dominion from "The Promised Land," her 42 acre estate near Santa Barbara, CA (which she purchased for a cool $50 million), Oprah surpassed the $1.5 billion mark in net worth in 2006 while earning the tidy sum of $260 million. See what happens when you devote yourself to excellence (and narcissism) instead of "wasting your time" parading about in a dashiki to pursue "ridiculous" ideals like civil rights and egalitarianism? Others did that for her. And now Oprah’s very existence proves that economic inequalities and barriers to upward mobility have been eliminated for all of us, right?

Well, not exactly. Consider that in the United States "the average African-American family has about 60 percent of the income as the average white family…..[and] the average African-American family has only 18 percent of the wealth of the average white family(2)." Meanwhile, in the most affluent nation in the world (in which 12% of the population is black), "Saint Oprah" is the only black billionaire and one of only two blacks to make the Forbes 400.

Despite the innumerable exploitative workings of the capitalist pyramid scheme which enable the obscene opulence of Oprah and her miniscule number of peers (while concurrently damning billions of others to live in varying degrees of economic misery), she certainly has no qualms. In fact, she gushes about her unconscionable accumulation of treasures. From the 4/11/06 People Magazine article, Oprah Winfrey: Wealth Is ‘A Good Thing:’

[Speaking in Baltimore on Monday at a fundraiser for Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School, Winfrey told the audience, "I have lots of things, like all these Manolo Blahniks. I have all that and I think it’s great. I’m not one of those people like, ‘Well, we must renounce ourselves.’ No, I have a closet full of shoes and it’s a good thing."

Winfrey, 52, who is reportedly worth more than $1 billion, said she doesn’t feel guilty about her wealth. "I was coming back from Africa on one of my trips," she said. "I had taken one of my wealthy friends with me. She said, ‘Don’t you just feel guilty? Don’t you just feel terrible?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t. I do not know how me being destitute is going to help them.’ Then I said when we got home, ‘I’m going home to sleep on my Pratesi sheets right now and I’ll feel good about it.’ "(3)]

The Oprah mystique affords her and her fellow members of the opulent ruling class a potent psychological weapon (which they wield like a cudgel) to sustain their cultural hegemony, thus perpetuating their virtual monopoly on the wealth and power of the US. And be it conscious or otherwise, Oprah has betrayed her own race and class by shilling her core philosophy that "not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment." While personal responsibility is undeniably important and human beings do have the potential to pull themselves out of difficult circumstances (i.e. abject poverty), for every Oprah who "makes it," there are tens of millions, regardless of race, who work tenaciously and are never able to overcome the tremendous barriers erected by the ruling class. Yet Ms. Winfrey would have us believe that if she can do it, anyone can. And if you don’t, just what the hell is wrong with you?

Aside from the significant impediments that face all US Americans (excepting those who are born into our de facto aristocracy and can rise to the top regardless of how lazy, depraved, and ignorant they may be—think George W. Bush), many blacks face nearly overwhelming structural barriers which keep them mired in chronic destitution.

Thanks to the courageous efforts of civil rights activists, institutionalized and overt racism are fading in the United States. However, Oprah’s very existence as a black billionaire and the "you can do and be anything you want if you work hard" pseudo-wisdom she so gleefully dispenses to the masses would indicate that America’s poor (and its impoverished blacks in particular) no longer face incredibly long odds as they employ vigorous efforts to improve their socioeconomic conditions.

Consider this excerpt from Paul Street’s "Skipping Past Structural Racism" (http://www.blackcommentator.com/85/85_think_street.html):

"…reflecting (via e-mail) on a commentary in which liberal New York Times columnist Bob Herbert argued that inner-city blacks’ material poverty reflected their own poor values and behavior. "There is a need for" a "values discussion" among "the poorest African-Americans," my correspondent acknowledges. "But," he added:

"there are three points to add. One is that [the] hypersegregation [of urban blacks into nearly all-black de-industrialized ghettoes] creates objective conditions that incentivize (perhaps even require) certain anti-social behaviors. The second is whether the values evidenced by the poorest are actually anti-American values. If we consider that the norms of the protestant work ethic have been devalued in American society – consider conspicuous consumption, state gambling expansion, frightening anti-intellectualism, Wall Street’s shenanigans, sexual revolution, and that recreational drug use knows no racial barrier – how different is the "underclass" from the rest of America? The final point is the somewhat sad notion that those who have been most disadvantaged by American society must somehow quickly develop the values and norms necessary to overcome those disadvantages, to "function," concomitant with undertaking political struggle to dismantle structural barriers. What is more is that if we accept that the values Herbert holds in high esteem are not reinforced generally throughout American society, we are absurdly expecting one group of super-disadvantaged people – without additional assistance and against the mainstream of American society – to somehow morph into some kind of ubervolk.

"As the great ‘historical materialist’ Karl Marx once wrote,’men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted from the past.’"

Hard as it may be for Oprah and her fellow moneyed elites to fathom, Ronald Reagan’s "welfare queen" was a pernicious suburban legend, and that most people, given an environment affording them reasonably accessible options, wouldn’t consciously choose to perpetually wallow in the misery, indignity and self-destruction associated with chronic and inter-generational poverty. Not everyone is blessed with exceptional talent, intellect, or drive, but that doesn’t mean they deserve a life of suffering so that a tiny fraction of humanity can live as Croesus did.

With the vast numbers of people she influences, Ms. Winfrey plays an instrumental role in sustaining the false consciousness that keeps us in the poor and working classes pursuing the one in 20 million dream she projects, staunchly opposing the creation of viable publicly funded social uplift programs, and fighting amongst ourselves based in large part upon the malevolent lie that personal responsibility is the ONLY reason so many blacks remain "ghettoized," unemployed, drug-addicted, and imprisoned.

Man the barricades, Ms. Winfrey, here come the "barbarian hordes" to raid our treasury!

But Oprah didn’t reach her perch atop the capitalist pyramid as one of its chief apologists simply by virtue of her existence as an anomalous opulent black woman (portrayed as what could be the "norm" if only more people subscribed to her "wisdom"). She also plays a very active role in contributing to the bourgeoisie cause.

A common lever of appeasement employed by our de facto aristocracy in the United States is to exercise faux benevolence by making charitable donations. After accumulating shameless affluence through abject exploitation of the Earth and its sentient beings, they show the masses their "humanity" by giving a mere fraction of their ill-gotten gains to a pet cause or two.

Oprah is no exception. Despite being known for her "generosity," she remains one of the wealthiest people on the planet, maintaining her sprawling estate in California and, at last count, four other lavish abodes with high dollar zip codes. Bear in mind that Forbes recently gauged Oprah’s fortune to be about $1.5 billion.

Meanwhile, her crowning philanthropic achievement is her Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. This "charitable act" is cynical and self-serving. Its chief beneficiaries are those with a strong interest in maintaining the maleficent inequitable distribution of wealth. Here’s why:

1. Oprah invested $40 million in this school, a mere 2.67% of her net worth.

2. For those questioning the use of the word "invested," this was indeed a shrewd and calculated investment for Oprah. By "donating" this relatively paltry sum, she will reap huge dividends in terms of increased popularity, goodwill, power, and influence. Her Harpo juggernaut will continue to gain momentum.

3. In a world where 30,000 children die of starvation each day, Oprah has elected to build a posh, luxurious academy equipped to educate a mere 152 girls. Winfrey’s scheme was such an abuse of resources that the South African government withdrew its support of the project.

4. In a vain quest to "make her childhood right", Oprah is "rescuing" the poor black female attendees of her school by providing them with a regal, lavish existence. Just what the world needs–152 more highly educated elitists who are immersed in the paradigm that the suffering of the many to ensure the comfort of the few is the "way of the world."

5. Oprah’s principal lesson to her "girls"? Looking to her as their example, they will learn that once they have attained their affluence and power they will need to ease their conscience and help maintain the social order. The lesson is that to do so they will simply need to donate a sliver of their bounty in such a way that it enhances their public image and fulfills their narcissistic needs.

As we prepare to examine Oprah’s most deleterious effect on our society, consider the depth and breadth of her impact as characterized by Vanity Fair:

"Oprah Winfrey arguably has more influence on the culture than any university president, politician, or religious leader, except perhaps the Pope."

Biographer Kitty Kelly added:

"As a woman, she has wielded an unprecedented amount of influence over the American culture and psyche…There has been no other person in the 20th century whose convictions and values have impacted the American public in such a significant way. … I see her as probably the most powerful woman in our society. I think Oprah has influenced every medium that she’s touched."

Now let’s analyze one of Oprah’s recent and most spiritually corrosive "contributions" to the fetid cesspool we euphemistically call a culture in the United States. In February of this year, Ms.Winfrey used her leviathan media platform to introduce her minions to The Secret, a book that characterizes Christ as a "prosperity teacher." Leave it to the high priestess of Mammon to promote a means to overcome the seemingly irreconcilable contradictions between the compassionate teachings of Jesus and the avaricious selfishness of capitalism.

Here’s what the Oprah Winfrey Show website had to say about The Secret:

"It’s making headlines around the world—and buzz just keeps building. Some say it’s the secret to creating the life you truly want—losing weight, making money, finding love. See why people everywhere are talking about The Secret."

James Arthur Ray, whose "credentials" include, "…almost going bankrupt, [which] forced him to focus on the life he truly wanted. Now he runs a multimillion-dollar corporation dedicated to teaching people how to create wealth in all areas of their lives," joined forces with Winfrey to plug The Secret, a book rife with myriad inane mythologies the ruling class loves to perpetuate.

Again, from Oprah’s website:

[According to James, there is scientific evidence to back up the spiritual practices and laws defined in The Secret. "Science tells us that everything is energy, and so your thoughts are energy. Your body, your cash, your car—everything you think is solid, if you put it under a high-powered microscope, it’s just a field of energy and a rate of vibration," he says. "And so are we. So if you think you’re this meat suit running around, you have to think again."

"One way to describe this energy is by comparing it radio waves, "The frequency you give out through your thoughts and your emotions is what you have a tendency to manifest in your life," Michael says. "Whether those thoughts and emotions are conscious or unconscious, it doesn’t matter."

This means that if you are sending out the same negative energy over an over—whether thoughts or feelings—you will attract like energy back to you. James says that when bad things happen people might ask, "Oh, God, why me?" "Because it is you," he says(4).]

Forget the immediate insult of James’s barrage of pseudo-scientific gibberish. People have been using that technique to peddle their snake oil for years. The core issue here is that in The Secret, James and company are hawking a particularly toxic brew. Oprah, Secret author Rhonda Byrne, and their fellow hucksters would have us believe that Tony Robbins or Gandhi would be equally at home applying The Secret’s "spiritual practices" based on "scientific evidence" to create the life they "truly want."

At first blush its obvious remarketing of the shopworn "philosophies" related to the power of positive thinking seems benign enough, but thanks to its Oprah’s validation sparking its wild popularity and wide acceptance, The Secret is significantly reinforcing some very nasty strands of our cultural DNA, which is no small blessing to the moneyed elites atop our economic hierarchy.

While to a person who values critical thought and the pursuit of true meaning in their life The Secret would serve little purpose beyond perhaps kindling or toilet paper, future archaeologists may hail it as a Rosetta Stone to unlock the mysteries of our perverse, mean-spirited, and jejune society. Byrne was careful to incorporate nearly every revolting aspect of American culture, including narcissism, self-absorption, victim-blaming, hubris, consumerism, immediate gratification, acquisitiveness, Mammon worship, hyper-individuality, selfishness, and an unwavering faith in any belief that "forces" the world to conform to our desires.

In typical Oprah Book Club fashion, Winfrey’s enthusiastic endorsement sent the sales of Byrne’s abomination soaring into orbit. Thank you, Oprah.

As the abundant evidence indicates, despite her impeccable image and the ostensibly "positive influence" she has upon the untold millions who have yet to shatter the intellectual shackles of their acculturation and indoctrination, Oprah Winfrey is a member of our cynical pecunious ruling class and acts as a highly effective shill for their agenda.

Forget the good and benevolent image she projects. Oprah ultimately serves to distract, obfuscate, and lead us into the increasingly over-crowded cul-de-sac of "fuck thy neighbor; what’s in it for thee" savage capitalism. As a part of our filthy plutocracy, she is an enemy to the poor and working class. We need to start viewing her through that lens.

http://freepress.org/departments/display/16/2007/2808

And, for good measure:

http://www.chappelletheory.com/
_________________
QUESTION EVERYTHING, for fucks sake

[AlicetheKurious]

Thanks so much for this, Sunny. Very interesting.

I used to enjoy watching Oprah occasionally, until it struck me that there were certain guests that she would literally gush over, in a way that was really over the top. It stood out, because she's frequently quite arrogant and even abrupt with many guests.

When I took the time to think about who those guests were, and what their message was, something just went cold for me, and I just wasn't interested in watching her show any more. I think that last article's got her number (it's unclear which is the link for it).

[FourthBase]

[orz]

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28906

[sunny]

Alice: