Who will make them leave their keys?

It's not hard to dislike Oprah. I have, involuntarily, seen my fair share of the dribble that passes as true concern and compassion, and wondered about the short attention span, that I'm not sure if it was born out of the perceived necessity to always cover the newest and the latest, or out of the desire to devise a grand marketing scheme. Nothing they ever talk about seems to last longer than a week. One day Oprah announces she is done with dieting and accepts her body the way it is, which I thought was great considering that she didn't appear to be entirely unhealthy. And the next thing you know she is bawling about having fallen off the wagon yet again. The conversation on her show seem utterly insincere to me, in desperate attempts to be deep and meaningful. I like to think that it wasn't always that way, but that she has simply been on the job for way too long.

Enter Wendy Williams. The way I see it, because of the way she revels in superficiality and irrelevance, strangely enough, she ends up being much more sincere than Oprah. And I think it's because there is no pretense about being pretentious, which sounds like such a tired cliche but in the wide world of TV talk shows should be considered poetic.

And so the other day we saw Gloria Gaynor performing on the Wendy Williams show, the audience was dancing and everyone was having fun, and I said something to the effect of "Can you imagine what this would have been like on Oprah?" to Christina. And using her best Oprah impression of how she announces celebrity guests that she is really excited about, Christina goes "Glo-ria Gay-neeeeer" (yes, it is spelled with an o, but not the way Christina's imitation of Oprah has it). And that completely cracked me up. You had to be there to appreciate it, but as an eyewitness, let me tell you: It was hilarious.

Talk of the town.

Man, two nationally televised presidential speeches in just one week. Obama is keeping busy. I watched a repeat of the back to school speech and saw the speech yesterday live on TV. I like the idea of addressing the kids directly like that, as they most certainly deserve to be shown that kind of respect. I didn't like the speech itself very much, though. The message was good and positive over all, of course, but nothing new that attempted to rattle a jaded teenager. Not that a single speech could achieve that.

My main criticism consists of two things: Firstly, he mentioned no blue collar jobs, disregarding the important contributions that every person in the workforce is making. Secondly, because of this emphasis on the small percentage of people that rise to the very top, he puts additional pressure on kids, and makes those that end up as the school janitor, and somebody in our society will have to do that job, most definitely feel like losers. Of course every student should try to take their talents as far as they can and realize their full potential (Lyndon B. Johnson had some great things to say about wasting resources and potential), but Obama painted an outdated romantic picture of children that want to be lawyers and doctors one day. I, for one, never had that dream. I imagine being a lawyer is mostly boring and I feel a lot of them lack a sense of moral wrong and right, focusing only on the legality of things. And what about all those accident lawyers? Did they really achieve something great? Judging from the ridiculous lawsuits we hear about all the time, I beg to differ. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a truck driver, or operate some other kind of heavy machinery. Then, for the longest time, I had no idea what the heck I wanted to do. Fact is, people fixing drains, picking up trash, repairing roofs, selling books or programming databases all contribute an equal part to making sure that our society is functional and prosperous. To suggest otherwise is an affront to any hard-working person out there. What I think is great about an good education, is that it offers you a choice. It allows you to try different things, until you find the right fit. If you quit high school without graduating, your choices are severely diminished. That, I think, is the message we should teach our kids.

Oh, yeah, parents that had their kids miss the speech for fear of indoctrination are obviously fanatical paranoids.

The health care speech was really great I thought. I felt his attempt to show that he is willing to consider objections and new ideas was genuine, while he made clear how much reform is needed, and how much of a moral obligation it is to provide better health care. I guess that is what I don't get. It is plain to see that health care in the US is not distributed according to need (I got a whole 'nother post in the pipe on supply and demand in markets) and that this is a huge moral challenge. Now why would anyone in their right mind oppose giving people access to the care they desperately need, but simply let them die (and that is actually what is at stake here) in pain and poverty instead? You'd have to be a paranoid fanatic.

Diabolical dishonesty.

The other day, and I don't really feel like retracing my steps and providing the links, I somehow stumbled upon Michelle Malkin's website and saw that she had written a book in which she attempts to set the record straight on the WWII internment camps in the US. From what I gathered there, she claims that racism was not a big factor when people from various ethnic backgrounds were moved to internment camps, that it was not predominantly Japanese-Americans that lived there, and that it was a military necessity to create the camps. This might not be a 100% accurate depiction of her position, as this is just from memory, though. Oh, I also remember a claim stating that some people moved there voluntarily. Somehow, it seemed really fishy, and without further research I thought that putting people that have been convicted of no crimes in camps is just wrong, no matter how you rationalize it.

After looking into it a little further, I quickly discovered articles refuting her claims piece by piece, written by expert scholars on the subject. And as much I was outraged by somebody putting forth such false and misleading claims, I also thought about a tendency I have observed, where this kind of intellectual dishonesty, especially by those who like to cry the loudest, is becoming more and more widespread. Because a lot of people will read this book and take it at face value, and no matter how much the experts explain how wrong and misleading it is, the damage will be done. I loathe people deliberately deceiving the public like this, all in the name of uncovering the truth, but really trying to further their agenda. Case in point: Michelle Malkin claims that she wrote the book as somebody not affected by the internments in any way, thus not having any vested interest in the outcome of her findings. However, she immediately takes her findings to argue that racial profiling should be used more widely to deter acts of terrorism. How someone can keep a straight face and present themselves as a messenger of truth while at the same time arguing in such a way is simply beyond me, and taints the public debate upon which a functioning democracy relies.

Not the worst city in the world.

Last night we were walking home through the subway tunnel connecting Times Square and Port Authority, our bellies full of Chinese dumplings, when we saw a crowd at the end and heard the sounds of Michael Jackson's "Beat It" blaring from a radio. The crowd was watching something, but we couldn't see what over their heads. As we came closer, we still couldn't make out what was going on, but I was prepared for some people breakdancing on the floor or something. But what we were about to set our eyes on, nothing could have prepared me for. It was a guy, fully decked out in a Michael Jackson outfit: sparkly black shirt over a white t-shirt, black hat and sunglasses, the curly bit of hair in the face, black pants paired with white socks and black shoes. He was doing a whole choreography including the moonwalk, crotch-thrusting and everything. And he was maybe 3 feet tall and just blew my mind. You can see him on youtube, but to see it live and unexpectedly like that was what made it so special I think.

In an unrelated matter, I started reading "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin a few months ago, and finally worked my way through it during my morning and evening commutes. It was my way to celebrate Darwin year and I feel like it would be ok to call him Mr. Chuck from now on. As far as the book is concerned, it is a little dry, but interesting, and his detailed observations are admirable. Reading it was more of an accomplishment than an experience in being bound by the writing the whole time. But hey, who am I to argue with one of the most significant works of science ever created?