...may not tell us all we need to know about Oprah, but it goes a long way. She's a media shill, as obsessed with and unable to resist the cliche, the sensational, the "shocking" sound bite, the attention-grabbing "story" regardless of journalistic merit or even a normal definition of "truth" as any tabloid.

I always had a lot of respect for Oprah. Professionally I still do. No one can deny she has accomplished so much and inspired many. However, I hear that personally she is the most thudding disappointment. Nay, fraud.

I know a number of people who have met her first hand, either in the service industry or by home town connections. And I have consistently received the same report - that she is dismissive and racist against whites. (i.e. she will not interact with a white service provider if there is a black one around. Of course she doesn't SAY that - she just makes a point of shutting out and ignoring the white person...but not the black one). And this comes from both white and black people. I must've heard 10 different, personal stories - all with the same behavior witnessed. I too find this hard to swallow. I see no hint of this on screen. But I don't think that this many consistent, first-hand stories can be coincidence.

Then again, after the whole "The Secret" trash, the jig was up without a doubt. She was selling a total joke and spouting such crap (like her success has nothing at all to do with luck - we can all be her if we'd just work hard enough!) that I don'tknow how she kept a straight face.

Oprah may sometimes give helpful advice to people and have meaningful things to say. But honestly, I'm not sure I can trust anything coming from the mouth of someone who puts a picture of herself on the front cover of every single issue of her magazine. She makes Richard Branson seem demure by comparison - and that's not the sign of a healthy psyche.

She also has the problem that I imagine so many women's magazines have. They're forced to come up with new material all the time. If the "30 day bikini body diet" actually worked and did what it said, well, there wouldn't be anything else to talk about now would there? The fact that each issue touts a different solution to the same problem suggests that none of them is effective. Oprah's self-help solutions are likely to be the same - it's not like she's identifying new problems each episode, there's a short rotation and they each get a new treatment maybe once a week. At best, most of the advice probably has no effect.

I'm with you on the Narcissistic thing, although I suppose when you manage to build a billion-dollar empire, that's to be expected. But the reason she's on the cover of all her magazines is because when she is on the cover, more people are more likely to buy it. Rosie O'Donnell had the same thing; she only wanted to be on the first three covers of her magazine, but found when she wasn't on the cover, they didn't sell as well.

Oprah's the face of her company, so it's only natural that her face adorns one of her flagship operations. (Martha Stewart isn't on the cover of her magazines, but then no one is--it's all her products or creations.)

But the stuff she features simply can add a little convenience, fun or joy to the user's life.

I think most women in her greater audience are smart enough to understand this, no?

I also think most women can understand that loving yourself is not mutually exclusive from wanting to be more fit, e.g. losing 15 lbs to be more athletic and fit into your fave clothes.

Self-acceptance does not necessarily mean that one cannot consider self-improvement; I think they can/should both go hand in hand.

I don't think the Living Oprah woman thought of herself as a zealot or a groupie. For her it is an experiment to see what happens when you do this. Sorry to burst your Salon selfrighteous bubble of Che-T-Shirts.

I don't see the contradiction between accepting yourself as a person who has inherent worth as you are right now and looking to improve yourself.

Do you?

Oprah has certainly managed to create the strangest alchemy combining the truly useful and utterly useless.

Yesterday I caught a rerun of the author who wrote "The Gift of Fear" interspersed with accounts of women who had/had not obeyed their own gut reactions to danger. Very useful! Or when she has that doctor fellow on explaining how the body works, also very useful. I don't bother watching the shows that are vanity/consumer fests -- it's kind of nice that you get the little promo at the beginning of the show to decide whether the subject is worth your time or not.

I'll tell you who I like to think is the REAL brass tacks Oprah: The absolutely most amazing, compassionate, informative and forceful JOURNALIST Oprah who went into the New Orleans Convention Center during Katrina. Andersen Cooper got the accolades, and deservedly so, but Oprah's fierce passion for both the truth and the people knocked my socks off.

I can only imagine the things Oprah the journalist could accomplish.

on one hand, here's oprah with her telling women they need to accept themselves, and yes, their bodies; as they are! yet, here she is constantly pushing something that is, traditionally; " a must have in order to be woman!" be it the way too expensive and frilly dress which is " in style", or that new diet to lose 15 Lbs fast. and so, on one hand, she empowers women[ and NO! that does NOT include the pregant transsexual man-whom is a man, emotionally and legally now!]

I do respect her a lot for accepting us transwomen as any other woman, thus opening up avenues into every living room in america's more ignorant, christo-fascist states such as south dakota and mississippi, texas[ except the big cities]

but when it comes to women talk shows? a lot of the female "empowerment" shit she promotes/convinces women they " absolutely need"; in a way similar to the 100's of bullshit fashion/traditional lifestyle, magazines such as Real Simple and In Style [www.realsimple.com or www.instyle.com ]; the latest diet or trendy clothing article in order to feel more " womanly"

give me a real woman, like mrs. ellen degeneres, and her talk shows, anyday [ though she too, sicken me with all the " hollywood star" shit!]