Letters to the Editor
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Cathy
Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! Ack!
*Tongue extends left*
Tina Fey is a flipping genius.
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i love you, Liz Lemon!
...and Heather, you're not so bad, either! 30 Rock is one of the two best comedies on TV, at this point. But I sure miss AD. Sigh.
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Tina!
Vanity Fair's recent cover story got it right. Bet on the trifecta of Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Sarah Silverman. Saint Bill Hicks would watch them.
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Charity Begins In Your Production Studio
I was actually sort of entranced by this series. The key thing for me was: here are all these type "A" personalities trying to "win" the show by doing works of charity.
So, how fast would they rush through giving out money to all the poor people ( normally called "losers" in their world ) so they could get on to the next leg of "Charity Survivor". It was hilarous to watch them trying to seem as compassionate as Mother Teresa when you know there was a stopwatch and calculator running in each of their heads thinking -- "is this the most sympathy bang for the buck"?
But the thing that turned me off to all this fun, as Oprah...who seemed to want her charity proteges to be good...but not too good! In her reviews, she slapped down a few of them who seemed to have a knack for virtue...almost as good as...Oprah?? No...it couldn't be, so the Queen of All Charity occasionally jerked the leash to let them know that She Who Signs the 4' x 6' check wields the ultimate power.
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Who has two thumbs
. . . speaks limited French, and hasn't cried once today? This moi!
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Roomba and beans!
Ack.
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Charity is Hard Work
...And Oprah's Big Give makes it all seem like a cake walk. Which it is, if you've got an O camera crew going around with you. Everyone wants to look good and giving on camera, but it is much harder in real life to get people to give, esp. when your cause isn't well known.
I founded a nonprofit, and I can tell you from experience that even the best ideas, the best services often fall behind flashier, more glamorous "causes" that often make very little impact (or are often funded at a rate that outstrips comparable causes). I've had some success with my organization, but only because of sheer determination and the ability to scrap things together until I could build the organization's services and reputation. Building something from nothing is a hard journey that can't be encapsulated in an hourlong show.
I fear that shows like "Big Give" give Americans a false impression of charitable work, and may set many up for a crushing disappointment which turns them off from charitable work altogether. It would be great if season 2 of the "Big Give" didn't tell the contestants, or those they interacted with, that they were a part of Oprah's show. --They're just being followed around by a documentary crew or some BBC game show (of which there are seemingly thousands). Perhaps, then, you'd get some reality with your charity.
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I like to watch Battlestar Galactica
Where interestingly not only has it become the best show on television but young Representative Lee Adama (Jamie Barber) has become the equivalent of Barack Obama, a young, charismatic first-term Congressional member fighting against the establishment and the entrenched, powerful elite as signified by a powerful autocratic, lead character who just happens to be female, the Hillary Clinton prototype Laura Roslin (Mary McCormick).
But interestingly, since its first week lead story, Battlestar Galactica has suddenly disappeared from Salon since it started illuminating this storyline (Lee Adama/Barack Obama i.e. young honestly Democratic leadership v.s. the old, autocratic style of leadership that must automatically be allowed to continue simply for being female despite its overly aggressive warlike/repressive/dictatorial tendancies simply because it is female i.e. Laura Roslin/Hillary Clinton.)
Anyway no surprise here.
Any time a series happens to call it as it is, even if it is disturbingly accurate, it is automatically dismissive if the male happens to be even remotely positive and the female could even possibly be construed as negative.
So I'll continue watching Battlestar Galactica (which again earned a front page story right here on Salon not a month ago) and enjoying it despite the fact I now know I will never be able to see it even remotely covered in Salon. Oh well, just another casualty in the constant attempt to prove that all that is female is right and all that is male is wrong, no matter what.
Does anyone else remember when Salon used to be a real website/magazine? Oh well Joan Walsh, by her gender-baiting anti-male bias, has built up readership so God forbid any of us question her, ever. Great job, Salon (in being the female equivalent of the John Birch Society.) Keep up the good (actually bad but whatever) work.
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You're several weeks too late, Havrilesky.
You set yourself up with the brain-sucking line, and I won't bite. After all, you revealed that you bought both an expensive, ineffective Yuppie toy like the Roomba and a filth-creating dog. So I'll stick to the real grevious fault in this column.
Which is, you should have blown the whistle on Oprah's Big Give after two episoded had aired. It was clearly phony, like all of Winfrey's projects. Ranking the "biggest giver" is hardly charitable. It was also patronizing, giving the impression that these contestants raised the money on their own, when (as you observed correctly) it was raised by Oprah's house slaves.
But worst of all, there was no real giving involved. If these people had given something of themselves and their own treasures, that would have been praiseworthy. And it might have inspired ordinary people out there in the audience to donate a little money, time or energy to charitable projects. That might have made this project worth something.
But even had the show rewarded such charity, there remained the ugly idea of deciding who was the "greatest giver." Reasonable people would leave that kind of judgment to God (if He performs those kind of rankings). If we didn't believe Oprah was God before now, this show was supposed to drive the point into our skulls with a little red wagon full of extracted Oprah fat. And that's the most offensive aspect of the show.