In this one, I share how Oprah Winfrey has finally left us after a lifetime of self-promotion (and gluttony). Bye, bye O.
According to Michael Baxter* [actually Michael Tuffin, but whatever] Oprah Winfrey “was executed at Guantanamo Bay for having aided and abetted the enemy, FEMA, in depriving Hawaii residents and tourists of life and property during last summer’s Maui inferno.”
Apart from the multiple claims from her many supporters, the take-homes I have from this news are that:
- Death comes to us all, eventually, sooner or later;
- We all try to fight it, deny it, explain it;
- Overweight [blubber] is … yuck!
1. Death Comes To Us All, Eventually
Scripture calls it. Mankind screwed up in the Garden of Eden.
We live, then we die, then we face the final judgement.
I concur.
The writer to the Hebrews puts it like this:
“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”
Heb 9:27
Again, I concur and note that this is essentially and is always exquisitely personal.
2. We Fight It!
Ah!! Nobody in their right mind actually seeks death. We all fight it, argue with it, deny it, and attempt to deal with it, but usually only when we have to . . .
I remember a mate of mine recounting how a dude told him in horror that after an NDE (Near Death Experience) “there was nothing out there, mate! It was just black.”
My mate Gary however ‘knew’ that there was a God because he too had experienced an NDE after having drowned and coming to on a West Coast beach but he had seen the white light. My mate never hurt a flea since then and later came to Christ. He didn’t ‘hurt a flea’ because he had to, to “get into heaven”. He did it because he chose to.
As St Paul said in scripture: “The unbeliever does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Cor 2:14
3. Blubber is Bad
I’ve shared previously that Oprah was overweight when she breathed her last.
I think that 345lbs is a bit too much blubber. Her last meal too was also ‘rather large’!
Gluttony is also based on pride.
Quotes from the book: ‘Oprah, A Biography’
Not exactly flattering to Oprah, it though is a good book that draws on almost 3,000 interviews and shares many home truths.
They say about it:
“[A]n impeccably researched and well-organized look into the unlikely life of a self-made woman who used her poor upbringing as a steppingstone to build an astonishing media empire…Oprah is, in many ways, a brave and audacious book…. Oprah, the book, methodically traces the rise of Oprah, the woman, in fast-moving chapters about her upbringing, career, romances and causes, all of which highlight her many charms and contradictions.”
http://www.kittykelleywriter.com/reviews/
a fascinating and indispensible window onto contemporary life on many levels.”
lifted the lid on one of the most enigmatic TV legends of our time.”
a very powerful understanding of what makes a modern celebrity. She gets the journey, to use a favourite Oprah word, but she also gets the cost of the journey.”
well-argued the stages of Winfrey’s own rise; she did not spring fully armed as Athena did from the head of Zeus with all the answers about dysfunctional relationships and recipes for self-realization fully spelled out…. There’s also a similarly interesting through-line in the book about the evolution of the talk-show form that Winfrey was instrumental in shaping.”
transcripts of 2,732 interviews Winfrey has given. Add to that the 850 interviews Kelley did on the billionaire TV talk show host and you have Oprah: A Biography … all 525 footnoted pages of it.”
“The image of Oprah as America’s benevolent earth mother is about to take a serious hit, thanks to — who else? — biographer Kitty Kelley…”
“John Tesh acknowledged Monday that he and Oprah Winfrey were once an item – one of the juicy tidbits in a new tell-all biography about the talk show queen.”
“A Kitty Kelley biography of Oprah Winfrey is one of those King Kong vs. Godzilla events in celebrity culture.”
“Kitty Kelley’s just-released book ‘Oprah’ contains a number of interesting media tidbits…”
“For me, the most surprising scene is the one in which she calls room service at a hotel to order a snack of two pecan pies, which she immediately consumes…It is jarring, as is the detail about the heated dog kennel at her former country estate in Indiana.”
“Kitty Kelley’s name will not be showing up on any of Oprah Winfrey’s lists of favorite things.”
*Elizabeth Guilder’s “Kitty Kelley’s Book Tries to Dissect Oprah” is behind a paywall at HollywoodReporter.com, so the above links to a lightly edited version of the review posted by Reuters.
I quote now from this unauthorised biography by Kitty Kelley.
Oprah’s deep desire for control of her own destiny, plus her deep desire for fame and fortune is shown from her childhood:
Oprah … used to talk about things, like how one day she was going to be very, very, very wealthy … some people say it but they don’t really believe it. She believed it. People say, ‘I’d like to be wealthy’.’ Oprah said, ‘I’m going to be wealthy.’ [emphasis in the original]
Janet Burch, P71
Daddy, I got down on my knees there and ran my hand along all those stars on the street and I said to myself, One day, I’m going to put my own star among these stars
Vernon Winfrey, P47
The trouble with seeking fame and fortune is that evil becomes justifiable, to cast others to one side becomes the norms as your values must change to achieve your goals. You becomes more important as you focus on self, and this means that one’s love for others runs increasingly shallow.
One of the things that changes first is your loss of any natural/biblical values, buying into the social norms of the day:
Oprah … arrived with the biblical precepts of a young country girl who had been called “Preacher Woman” by her classmates … she believed that homosexuality was wrong
P93
You start to value things that are unimportant in the end looking only at things ‘skin deep’, like appearances:
We were peers but she decided that I was her student … So Oprah figured, ‘I’m going to get close to her.’ It was a ‘pretty girl’ thing. Nothing to do with any accomplishment or my personality. Just how I looked.
Sheryl Atkinson, P63
Then the natural and good value of ‘truth at all cost’ becomes ‘truth conditionally’:
“[I] don’t believe a bit of it … Oprah was a wild child running the streets of Milwaukee in those days and not accepting discipline from her mother. She shames herself and her family to now suggest otherwise
Katherine Esters, P37
More amusing than accurate, her exaggerated yarn about getting her head fried until she was “as bald as a billiard ball” was all part of a buoyant performance that took her audience on a happy ride, but something her “aunt” Katherine Esters have called another one of “Oprah’s lies”. Truth to tell, she had gone to a high-end beauty salon in Manhattan, but she had not been sent sent by the station.
Larry Singer, P 95
The idea that we use others for our advantage becomes common and therefore justified:
She was the most driven person I ever met. Wanted to go straight to the top … Then, well, I guess you could say she dropped me.
Dori Wilson, P121
She was highly astute politically. She seemed to have a natural instinct for it and used it to her advantage.
Gary Eilion, P91
Nothing is spontaneous with Oprah … It may seen spontaneous, but it’s all as carefully choreographed as Kabuki … Nothing is left to chance.
P132
The root cause of all this evil is the same always – pride.
She readily acknowledged her new fame – “Ain’t I something,child?”
Oprah Winfrey, P141
Oprah Winfrey, and her demise at the hands of another is, to me a great lesson in the value of humility and faith.
Make sure that you too do not not follow in her footsteps, eh, especially if you want to think long-term?
* Real Raw News seems to me to be a legit news source, primarily a Q/Trump/Gitmo political mouthpiece but legit nonetheless.
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