In a previous post, a reader asked about the reasons for Oprah’s staggering success. I gave a few superficial reasons, and discussion followed. But I did not probe a major factor in this success: Oprah’s role as spiritual leader.  Oprah takes trivial matters, such as fashion, relationships, shopping and cooking, and skillfully blends them with issues of ultimate meaning and destiny. This deft combination of the [...]

  Mrs. N. comments on the previous post regarding the lamentable ‘Ms.’: I grew up in a small midwestern town that in my mind’s eye was not unlike the fictional town of Mayberry. Unmarried women carried the title Miss. A married woman was addressed by her husband’s first and last name, i.e. Mrs. John Smith. If a [...]

    For all this                                                                           That shimmers and shines, Rinses and wrings, Settles and sings; For leaf and limb, Oar and wing; For readers fickle and readers true; For all this, Sweet Sovereign, Thanks are due.    

  MarkyMark writes: My question is this: Why is Oprah so popular? Why were so many women taken in by her? Why weren’t more women able to see through her and her message? You’re one of the few who has. By the way, I agree with you: Few people have done more to damage American [...]

  Having announced that she’s giving up her TV show in 2011, Oprah is not headed toward retirement. She is redirecting her efforts, which will include a cable TV series focused on an L.A. housewife who dumps her family to pursue a life of erotic adventure. Is this any surprise, dear reader? Oprah never was the girlfriend, true [...]

  Can you imagine any portion of the male anatomy deified as the female breast has been in recent years? If there were ten-foot phallic symbols lining the mall in Washington, would we be any more in thrall to masculinity than we are to femininity in our current state of outright breast-worship? Last week, newspapers and TV [...]

  From Milton’s Il Penseroso: But let my feet never fail,                                    To walk the studious Cloysters pale, And love the high embowed Roof, With antick Pillars massy proof, And storied Windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light. There let the pealing Organ blow, To the full voic’d Quire below, In Service high, and Anthems [...]