Oprah Winfrey: The biggest pop culture woo?

[TZ]

Watching TV tonight I heard an advertisement for her show tomorrow. Here's her topic du jour:
Were You Here Before? Dr. Oz Explores Past-Life Regressions
http://www2.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200805/tows_past_20080513.jhtml
I used to actually like Oprah. Now, I despise her. She has done more than any 100 woos to spread illogic and irrationality in this country.:banghead:

[realisticphish]

1. the secret, etc, etc

she owns pop culture. At least, among a large portion of the population.

[Orrex]

2. She is arguably the worst offender, given her reach

Larry King, Montel, and Maury are also pretty bad. But at least Montel ended his tenure with a dagger in the heart of GOP idiocy (his appearance on FoxNews). And, of course, these are all basically figureheads; the real problem is the wholly uncritical media and a populace trained not to question the media.

Oprah is horrible in this regard because her word is taken as gospel, and what she takes seriously is automatically taken seriously by great multitudes.

[realisticphish]

3. I think, a few millenia in the future

the term "Oprah" will be a title of power, not unlike "Caesar"

[chicagomd]

4. Well,

could we hurry up and get a (metaphorical) Brutus then? Because this "Jenny McCarthy on Oprah" shit is taking up way to much damn time in my day to day practice.

[progressoid]

5. I saw an episode with Dr Oz once and thought it was pretty good.

But then I saw the preview you mentioned. I thought the Oprah has infected Oz with the Woo virus.

I checked the link and it looks like Dr Oz tried to set them straight...sort of:

Dr. Oz says there is a medical explanation for this phenomenon. In the same way that a driver on the highway "on autopilot" can miss her exit, another person forgets her oldest memories. "What's happening is this part of your brain, the cortex—the part that's doing all the executive function—it's continually repressing your reptilian brain—the deep part of the brain that has our most ancient memories in it," he says. "But if you can free that part of the brain, you can express yourself and find out minute details of your childhood or maybe things beyond that."

That part of the brain that houses ancient memories has a strong pull on our lives, Dr. Oz says. "We have spent so much time on these shows trying to get folks to change behaviors, whether it's cigarette smoking or weight loss or addictions or whatever it may be," he says. "You begin to realize that 90 percent of what drives us is not what we're thinking about; it's not the cortex—the part … that's making logical decisions. It's the emotional, decision-making quality, and that's the reptilian brain."

He then goes under hypnosis too...

So does Dr. Oz believe in past-life regression? "I've got to say I don't know if it's past lives. We can get into a long debate whether these are spiritual beings touching us," he says. "A hundred years ago in this country, we were more comfortable with these discussions than we are today. I think part of that is we have gotten addicted to the same serum that I'm taking, which is the belief that the answers are always going to be there in front of us. And sometimes we've got to take that leap, just to believe to test it out. We don't have to advocate it, but we do have to evaluate it."

Dr. Oz says he does feel like there is a collective unconsciousness out there. "I actually in my heart think that all of our minds are connected and all of these minds in history are then reflected, and we're feeding into this energy system that we can tap into. It's like karma. You can bounce into it. It bounces you back," he says. "So what I really think we want to do is challenge people to the belief and understanding that life is not as real as it seems. There's other stuff out there."

[onager]

6. Alarming sight in Egypt, in related news...

The other day I was in a big shopping mall here in Alexandria, buying groceries and getting my ration of Chinese food for the evening.

Sort of like American shopping malls, this one has small-scale vendors who do business from little carts and kiosks set up near the Food Court.

Among the costume jewelry and bootlegged VCDs on display, I spied a new kiosk selling nothing but books--generally a very welcome sight over here, where there is nothing comparable to Borders or B&N.

Not so welcome in this case. This kiosk seemed to have nothing but woo. All of Oprah's contributions to Western philosophy, stacks of dry-rotted verbal lumber by her favorite feel-good author Eckhart Tolle, and a huge pile of The Secret, slightly steaming.

Maybe these are just close-out remainders that a clever Egyptian picked up for about 2 cents each...

[papapi]

7. If it's a secret - why would you be telling anyone else?

Use to check out the big O occasionally but when she started spewing over that 'Secret' BS I cut her out of my will.

[TZ]

8. Hey welcome to DU!

:hi:

[papapi]

9. Thanks for the handshake!