5Top: Most annoying Oprah Winfrey disciples - Celebrities- msnbc.com
Today, I heard on NPR that the government of Myanmar finally has allowed NGO's to enter their country to distribute aid to the victims and survivors of the cyclone that happened nearly two weeks ago. And also, I woke up to the story of the earthquake in China that just killed 9,000 people. Later in the day, as the death tolls of both disasters mounted, I found this ditty on the MSNBC website and I thought to myself, to what level of triviality had we come to? Is it really that important to dis Oprah's "friends?" What virtue can be gained by dissing the divine Ms. O's friends? If you don't like Oprah and her "friends" then don't pay attention to them. Personally, I love the Oprah show, I listen to her on XM and subscribe to her online newsletters. The only thing I don't like about her empire is her magazine, so okay, I don't subscribe to it.
I won't say that Oprah saved my life or even that I like her, but her shows have encouraged me to update my look, improve my diet and get my fatt butt out of debt. Yeah, sure some of her shows are over the top. Yeah, she's Oprah, not Aristotle, so I don't expect intellectual depth and sophistication from her discussions with her guests. She, like everyone else in these United States is in it for the marketing and the money.
Why are we so critical of Oprah, when she has done so much good in her role as a talk show host? She has, as Bono stated once in an interview with Bill Hybels of Willowcreek Church a couple of years ago,"leveraged her celebrity, to use it to promote good in the world."
And her shows on the soul are wonderful. Honestly, folks, Oprah is respectful of her guests and not manipulative at all. So far, I have found that the shows of her annoying friends that I have been able to listen to on XM are really very good entertainment (I listen to XM online, I chose not to get a radio). Also, I don't have a problem with Oprah being the popular spokeswoman of the New Thought Movement, promoting books like The Secret, etc. I may have some issues with the New Thought movement, but essentially, they are mostly doctrinal and philosophical pinpricks. I don't expect the host of a talk show to be able to discuss transubstantiation, or Plato's concept of the forms because that is what is not required on an internationally syndicated program such as Oprah's.
I like to think that I'm moving up the ladder of evolutionary consciousness, as described by Don Beck (author of Spiral Dynamics, et al.). Maybe someday, this green memer (yours truly) will make it into the ranks of the second tier. In the meantime, I'm down on the first tier, along with housewives in Wilmette having their refrigerator's cleaned by Dr. Oz. Yep, Oprah and her friends are definitely first tier thinkers (I doubt if I'll ever get to see my beloved Philosopher guide, Ken Wilber on her show, or that any one his books like, A Brief History of Everything, would ever make it on the reading list of Opraph's book club), but she and her "friends" are definitely inspiring millions to at least start ascending the evolutionary ladder.
Anyway, that's how petty we've become. Hopefully, if my day job hasn't drained me too much, I'll be able to post more of my thoughts on the scourge of pettiness over the course of the few days and weeks. It's a subject that I've been thinking about for awhile now and I want to give it some play.
In the meantime, let us keep the people of Myanmar and China, and everywhere else there has been a disaster in the world, in our thoughts and prayers.
A few years ago I started a blog, but it cost a lot of money to maintain the site, and so I gave it up. The other aspect of blogging is that it required me to stay in front of a computer to write. I have to sit in front of a computer all day for my job, so why would I want to come home and sit in front of a computer all night?
Then, I downloaded i-tunes to my computer and started to search for podcasts. I found the TED Talks podcast. I had never heard of TED talks, but I downloaded a few episodes and wow, I found some pure inspirational thought candy.
Well, anyway, a couple of months ago I watched the talk that Mena Trott gave about blogging, and it gave me second thoughts about the whole process of blogging and its social usefulness. What seemed to me to be a narcissistic activity, deserving of a wee bit of derision and contempt from my Puritanical side, now became an activity of a wee bit of personal significance and importance.
What I glommed onto in Mena's talk, was the idea that I could keep a record of my life and experiences for my descendants. Not that I plan on having children anytime soon (I am 47 years old, so too late now!) but the thought that I could leave something to those who follow me, gave me pause. So, that is the main reason I decided to specifically blog at this particular service because of the inspiration of Mena's talk at the TED conference.
I also had other reasons for blogging. I found that it would be a great way to personally write to my friends about what is going on in my life, as well as make new friends who share similar interests. My blog could serve as my own life newsletter directed to my personal network. Of course, I plan on adding links to other sites that gave me inspiration and more oxygen to breathe. Hopefully you will click on them and be as enriched by them as I have been over the years.
Yep. That's why I am starting this blog.
Now, let me tell you about the title of my blog.
This is a picture I took on my recent trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
This church is the one that General Belgrano (b. 1770, d. 1820) had attended, and the statue in front of the church commemorates the life and "battles victorious" of this famous general.
If you zoom in to the tower on the left (facing you, the viewer) you will see canon balls embedded in the tower. It turns out that these canon balls were put there after the church was built to remind the church goers of the the time that ordinary portenos, singlehandedly repelled the British "pirates" from the city.
I found the whole idea hysterical, but poignant as well.
