dagblog - Comments for "Oprah Winfrey kills three, injures 21"

Actually Oprah was clear to

Anderson — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:50:32 +0000

In reply to Let's be fair. It is wrong to

Actually Oprah was clear to read a statement on her show saying that mainstream science rejects claims that vaccines cause autism so she was not in any way reckless. And the people who died in the sweat lodge died for reasons totally unrelated to any self-help idea promoted on Oprah so the person being reckless is you.

1st things 1st. Let's kill

quinn esq — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:56:05 +0000

In reply to Oprah Winfrey kills three, injures 21

1st things 1st. Let's kill Bill. There's lots of perfectly good reasons, and I'm not sure we need to detain ourselves in sorting out which one was particularly heinous.

That said, what a lot of talking-out-our-arses is going on here today, eh? Oprah responsible? Good God get a grip, people. There're are only about 1001 things in the world which kill people in unhappy ways. Hmmm, lemme see. Oh yeah. BOOZE. A carcinogen. Drunk drivers. Domestic abuse. Now, how many tv talk show hosts have advocated drinking? Made it seem funny, glossy, cool? But OPRAH MUST DIE? WTF has got into you people? What, she advocated dehydrating people and sending them into plastic-wrapped sweat lodges? Jesus.

And how about fast cars? Guns? How about WARS? You know, we got any of those going? Oh wait. Not medical enough. Well, how about all those pharmaceutical ads, being sold DIRECT TO THE UNEDUCATED CONSUMER. And better yet, based on crap/cheated testing procedures. Anybody supporting that shite, talking to Big Pharma execs could just as easily be nailed for killing people.

Look, the Oprah thing was WKW throwing a rod. He runs fast, got a top-notch engine. Won the Brazilian Grand Prix. This blog was just a bad day at the track.

Still, and all. Let's kill him. Mercy's overrated.

Besides. We can always say Oprah put us up to it.

Let's be fair. It is wrong to

Doctor Cleveland — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:12:00 +0000

In reply to Oprah Winfrey kills three, injures 21

Let's be fair. It is wrong to call Oprah a murderer.

But it's totally fair to call what she did manslaughter. So give WKW a break.

What is the standard for manslaughter? Reckless indifference to human life. And that's all that Oprah did. She is indifferent to scientific truth, and to the dangers that ignoring scientific truth holds when it's medical science being ignored. And she lets gets come on and talk about their alternative medical fantasies without vetting the theories to see if they might be dangerous. I call that reckless. So does the dictionary.

If you use your talk show to give quacks free time, and they use the air time to tell people that they should stop injecting their insulin, then some of your viewers will believe those quacks and some of those gullible viewers will die.

If you let people on your talk show to say that giving kids an MMR vaccination will make them autistic, then some people who watch are going to refuse to let their kids get MMR vaccinations and some unvaccinated kids will be, very very ill: maybe fatally so.

Don't blame Bill. He's only the messenger.

Wolfrum is right to judge

Larry Jankens — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:27:14 +0000

In reply to Oprah Winfrey kills three, injures 21

Wolfrum is right to judge Oprah for endorsing quackery. C'mon folks, lighten up. Of course she didn't literally kill anybody, but a person seen as an authority should not endorse ridiculous "self-help" methods that are at best a placebo-effect and at worse actually dangerous.

Of course there's truth to

Nebton — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:56:27 +0000

In reply to I’m not saying WKW in

Of course there's truth to what you're saying, but your method of engagement suggested that anyone who criticizes Oprah is doing so because she's black, and that hurts her as much, if not more so, than those "who are turned off by seeing such a black looking black woman make so much money & have so much influence for such a long period of time".

Just because all men are mammals, it doesn't mean that all mammals are men.

I’m not saying WKW in

Anderson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:40:03 +0000

In reply to Do you really think that's

I’m not saying WKW in particular is motivated by race. In the individual case it’s hard to know motivation, but in general, there are a lot of people who are turned off by seeing such a black looking black woman make so much money & have so much influence for such a long period of time, so they jump at any excuse to attack Oprah & portray her in the worst possible light & some of those attacks get repeated here, even by people who have no problem with blacks or women. And it’s possible to love black people when they stay in their place, but then resent them when they become too successful simply because the stratospheric level of success Oprah enjoys is not something we as a society have yet gotten used to. It threatens what many perceive as the natural order of things & so there are growing pains as we move towards equality.

Do you really think that's

Nebton — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:26:00 +0000

In reply to It was clear that she was

Do you really think that's what WKW is doing, or are you just projecting? Why don't you try reading some other pieces he has written before jumping to such a ludicriously absurd statement?

As for me, I'll admit that I don't watch Oprah on a regular basis, but I have enjoyed her pieces on spirituality with Ekhart Tolle et al. None of the regulars at Dagblog (a blogsite with a significantly liberal following) have anything against Oprah's race.

And Oprah's been very clear

Anderson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:25:50 +0000

In reply to There have been studies

And Oprah's been very clear that positive thinking is not the silver bullet. She calls it one tool out of a great many tools. But Oprah feels it was important to her because growing up an extremely poor illegitimate dark skinned black female who was sexually abused and pregnant at 14, had she not been positive she never would have had the mental strength to get ahead. This is very difficult to grasp for those of us who were born with every opportunity yet still managed to accomplish nothing.

It was clear that she was

Anderson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:20:48 +0000

In reply to I suppose I have a lower

It was clear that she was endorsing which alternative treatment? Do you even watch Oprah & have any idea what you're talking about? And of course people of all races have responsibility, but Oprah is held to a higher standard because people resent seeing a black woman have so much wealth & influence for so long & look for any excuse to bash her. In general blacks are held to a higher moral standard which is why blacks spend more time in jail for the same crimes whites do. People can't find anything Oprah does wrong so they try the old guilt by association method by finding fault in any of the tens of thousands of people who have ever appeared on her show & linking those faults to her. I find it very depressing & very transparent.

There have been studies

Nebton — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:15:58 +0000

In reply to There's actually quite a bit

There have been studies supporting its benefits and studies showing no statistical significance. I suspect that in many cases it depends on the problem and to what degree other treatments are excluded. For problems that are largely psychologically related, it should be no surprise that positive thinking can help. Here's one study on the problems associated with positive thinking:

Positive thinking? An unfair burden for cancer patients?

Again, I won't discount it entirely, but neither should it be considered a silver bullet.