Uninspired...

cool rants
Here's a question: Oprah, modern deity or self promoting demon?
I've watched her show for several weeks now and I've been utterly sickened at the flagrant volley of compliments between the stars and our hostess.
She recently had a gala ball which was meant to honor great African American women in our culture. When I realized that Mariah Carey was amongst those women she invited to this do, I lost it!
Why on earth would anyone celebrate a woman that made the movie "Glitter"?
Cut to today's show...Tom Cruise came on and made, what I can only sum up as, a complete ASS of himself. He managed to do what every celebrity before him has done in front of gazillions of fans...he proclaimed that he was in love....this time with the very young Katie Holmes, a woman that he met only a short time ago. How many times do we have to sit through tripe like this? Oprahs reaction to him was seriously ridiculous...she fed into this embarrassing display and out of that began the game of who can "out compliment who". This amid his insane and overly exaggerated "woohoo's" with fists flying and bended knee at the foot of the deity.
On the same subject, does anyone else remember the May-December romance between Tom and a Miss Mimi Rogers? Fast forward to his obsession with Nicole Kidman (how odd was that pairing?)... then we were subjected to the very public relationship with the other Cruz, whom we also learned of from his previous appearance on the Oprah show (someone should remind him that he was equally as "gaga" even then). When you live your life in the public eye for something like 92% of the time, you'd be wise to keep some issues to yourself. I am sure that this won't be the last time that our Joel Goodson falls in love.
Ok, so getting back to the Princess of Daytime TV...
I admit that her charity work is important, no one can dispute that. What I really take issue with is her obvious knack for making everything about her! Someone would usually appear on her show (in a desperate situation or another) and she'll find a way to relate it back to her own life. Recently she had a guest on who was completely lost in the world of substance abuse, she was lying to family, stealing, in trouble with the law and some how, god bless our Oprah, she was able to relate this poor woman's issues to her own battle with food addiction!?!
Clearly none of the "bees" on her staff have ever mentioned to her how inappropriate this really is. Which brings me to my next bone of contention:
Last month she had guests on from various countries round the world, in discussions about their cultures and practices. A lovely woman from Iceland was invited to the stage. The guest began introducing various delicacies from her native country, which our hostess proceeded to "diss" and in turn made this viewer cringe. What happened next was all too surreal. She decided that due to the fact the Prime Minister of Iceland's phone number appeared in the oh so small Icelandic phone directory, she would call and ask to speak with him on national television. Instead of creating an atmosphere of sophistication and respect when calling, Oprah, now as an ambassador of America, proceeded to do what can only be catergorized as a "crank yankers" style call to this head of state. She sounded like a teenage girl gone wild, made fun of their accents, their customs and in turn obviously embarrassed the poor woman sitting on the chair next to her. She by contrast was thrilled with herself and laughed the entire way through.
Sad, sad, sad.

Sunday Morning Call...

cool rants
This commentary is brought to you by Tucker Carlson.
Pure genius, as always....

Tucker recites, and agrees with, panelist Jonah Goldberg's recent article.
Each week, Tucker shares his thoughts on a variety of topics in his original essay, "Unfiltered."
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Holding hands in the Arab world
Every week in this space, I take a couple of minutes to tell you what I think about something that has happened in the news. The words are always mine. But this week, I've decided to use someone else's words. Our friend and frequent guest Jonah Goldberg saw the video of president Bush holding hands with Saudi crown prince Abdullah and wrote this response on the National Review's blog, which they call The Corner. I couldn't have said it better. So I won't. Here it is:

"Lots of readers are saying it's just a custom in the Arab world for men to hold hands. I was, in fact, aware of this. However, we have customs here too. Dudes rarely hold hands, and when they do it's usually because they're cops and one cop couldn't complete his rooftop leap across an alley while chasing a perp, and his partner has to grab his hand to pull him up. Also acceptable is when your buddy has been shot by a Colombian drug lord and you hold his hand as you promise to look out for his wife and kids and you vow to exact revenge on Mendoza and his entire organization. When life flickers out of your buddy's eyes, you may continue to hold his hand as you shout heavenward, "Mendozzzaaaaaaa!" at the top of your lungs.

"But most times men rarely hold hands. Even Butch and Sundance grabbed an ammo belt rather than hold hands when they jumped off the cliffside. I have searched the manual and there seems to be no exception for holding the hand of a theocratic Islamic potentate. But I may not have gotten the latest monthly supplements."

I couldn't agree more.