The One Where Oprah May or May Not Be Satan

First of all, my posting was featured on Mushroom Printing today! Yay!

I'd mentioned a while back that I was reading the Kitty Kelley biography of Oprah. I finished it last week, and, I have to say, I'm not the least bit surprised at what I read.

I have never liked Oprah. Ever. She had, basically, trashy TV, and then she tried to go all new-agey and "I'll help you help yourself" and while telling people they needed to be healthy, her own personal weight ballooned up and down, effectively making her a hypocrite. Plus, she puts HERSELF on the cover of all of her magazines. I know other people do that, too (Hello, Rachael Ray! Hi, Martha Stewart!), but Martha doesn't do it always, and Rachael is. . .Rachael.

Nothing about Oprah seems sincere, and yeah, she gives money to people and charities, but she also makes sure everyone KNOWS she's giving money to people and charities. She's all, "I know how you FEEL," when talking to poor/downtrodden/whatever people, but y'all? Oprah has not been poor in about 50 years, and she is most certainly NOT downtrodden. She always pulls the race card, but no one's going to say "Boo!" to Oprah.

The book, while not particularly well-written, was interesting and plenty salacious. Obviously, the things written in it are not un-true, because you know if they had been, Kitty Kelley would be sued for everything she's worth and the book would have been yanked off of bookshelves.

So the conclusion that I can come to is that Oprah is just as nasty as I always thought she was.

Then there's the point of this. Oprah's Book Club.

I'm one of those people that, when something I like gets really popular, I'm like, "Dude. . .no." Because what happens then is that people think you like it because of other people liking it, and not because you discovered it first.

I've read a couple of the books on Oprah's list, either not knowing they were on her list, or before they were on her list. Most of them were pretty good. (Except for "Eat, Pray, Love," but that is another post in and of itself.)

I got an e-mail from the library today with the heading "Somebody peeked in the Oprah box!" (which. . .FYI. . .THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!) It was a link to an AP article about how the Associated Press had bought a copy of the book with the "Oprah's (effin') Book Club" sticker on it, so people already knew what the book was, even though it wasn't "announced" until today (Friday.)

The e-mail was talking about how many more copies of the book we'd need, etc.

Then a second e-mail came, talking (complaining) about how, logistically, it's always a nightmare when Oprah announces her books.

I went to the hold system at 2:27 p.m. to see how many holds had been put on the book. There were 330. Right now, at 3:42, there are 347. It'll break 400 by the end of the day, I promise.

This bugs me. Why are people such sheep? Why do so many people worship at the Church of Oprah? What makes her any more special than anyone else?

It bugs me because she KNOWS she has this effect. It bugs me because I don't understand why.

I, for one, will not be reading this book. Mainly because it sounds dumb to me. But also because Oprah recommended "Eat, Pray, Love" and we all know how THAT turned out.

All I'm really saying is that anyone with THAT MUCH mind control over THAT MANY people? Has to be evil.

EDIT: It's 3:46. There are now 350 holds.