Oprah's Favorite Things

The other day while sitting in a bar having a drink to calm my holiday rattled nerves, the big screen television was showing the Oprah Winfrey Show…the Oprah Favorite Things 2010 edition!!! For those of you in the minority who don’t know what that is…everyone in the audience gets all of Oprah’s Favorite Things to take home. Now I am not an Oprah fan, and have only rarely watched even a part of her show. But this big screen television was in my face…and what I saw was both frightening and fascinating at the same time. It was a greed frenzy of the third kind.

Begin with she “gave away” a whole lot of stuff, from food to lingerie to fragrance to food to I-Pads to more food to jewelry to a Volkswagon…cars for everybody. Of course we all know that in reality, she gives away nothing. It’s the product manufacturer that gives the stuff away in return for a major plug on her show to her vast audience. But a Volkswagaon? Really?

The people in the audience were whooping and hollering. They were screaming and jumping up and down like jack rabbits. And Oprah stood there with her arms outstretched like the Lord. Some of these folks were moved to tears and fainting. in the middle of this mess, she brought in a pop singer who actually sang a religious Christmas carol. So much for Silent Night. What a disgusting display!!!! It was like Queen for a Day on steroids, or a secular religious tent revival. Heal! Amen! Praise the Lord!

Couple that with the obligatory post Thanksgiving news stories about Black Friday herds of customers storming Best Buy’s front door…this year the trampling was in a store in Buffalo. I am just amazed at what I see in human behavior nurtured by shows like Oprah or a discounted hundred dollar television set.

As for Oprah's favorite things, the question is how much food for the poor the value of these products could have purchased. I found it particularly ironic that this obnoxious display of greed and obscene promotionalism took place on Oprah’s show, her being a staunch supporter of Barack Obama and that whole redistribution of wealth thing.

The folks on the left rail against those greedy business people taking advantage of the masses. What is this? My rule in life is never to knock another man's hustle, and normally I wouldn’t knock Oprah’s faux largesse. But the reaction of the audience was unseemly, and the whole premise coming from Oprah raises hypocrisy to a new level. Reducing Christmas to this is just wrong.

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