Did anyone watch "Oprah" this week or last?

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

And, no, I do not watch this program.

However, while I was on vacation, I was in a restaurant which had a TV on in the bar area.

I could tell that the program was about "Medical Miracles," and several of the segments I had already seen on other programs, such as:

The woman with the 300 pound tumor.
The man with a 7-inch knife embedded in his head.

One segment, though, I was not familar with. It was about a child (less than 10-years old) who had had to have most of his face reconstructed. I wasn't close enough to tell what had happened to him. He was a normal child until "something" happened. The rest of the segment (based on the graphics they were showing) showed how doctors built a new face for him.

Anyone see this?

[AuntiePam]

I caught the tail end of the segment with the child -- I think he was injured in a fire. That little guy's gonna have a hard row to hoe, isn't he?

The tumor lady was really something, wasn't she? If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed it.

[Diane]

How could a tumor get so big? I mean, wouldn't you go to the doctor when it was like, say 100 pounds?

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>^,,^<
KITTEN
Please tell your pants it's not polite to point.

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

Diane,

IIRC, the woman had a phobia about going outside--a true "closet" case. She always stayed indoors.

She did not seek help until it had become so large that she was having trouble moving around.

[Satan]

I would rather be force-fed maggots while being eated by fire ants than watch Oprah.

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Yer pal,
Satan

[Persephone]

I didn't see this show, but I know that cysts and tumors can get that big. My ex-husband's boss was always a thin guy, but he had this pot belly that he couldn't seem to get rid of, no matter what he did. He had an X-ray done (for another reason, I can't remember off of the top of my head), and the X-ray showed that his kidneys were both on the same side of his body. Hmmmmmmmmm, the doctors said. They discovered a cyst on his liver. He'd been in a car accident as a teenager (in the early 1950's), and had been injured pretty badly. There was an abrasion on his liver, and that's where the cyst formed, and grew for over 30 years. He had it removed in 1990. It was less than 100 lbs, but not much. His abdomen went from being round & Buddha-looking to concave. Weird.

[PurpleCrackwhore]

I watched that show. OK so I was bored and it was pretty fascinating. Not an avid fan but while I was flipping thru the channels I caught it. The kid got attacked as a baby by the family pet dog. Dr's said the dog tore his whole face right down to the bone. They spent something like 40 hours straight operating in teams to reconstruct his face, and they still weren't finished with all the surgeries. Even with all the trauma he went thru, he seemed to not be affected.. maybe there is some truth to that saying, "that which does not kill us...."

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"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing, does the painter do good
things." --Edgar Degas

[PunditLisa]

Well, damn. Now how am I going to entertain Satan when he comes to Cincinnati on his millenium road trip? I just hope he likes Rosie....

[Stoid]

Ya know, folks, watching Oprah isnt' like watching Jerry Springer. The woman is a truly good person, sincerely dedicated to helping people uplift and improve their lives. She's very genuine, and very enlightened.

You may not be entertained by such things,but it's hardly shameful, lame or ridiculous.

S

[Satan]

Stoid, I find her insipid for very different reasons than I find Springer insipid.

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Yer pal,
Satan

[handy]

Believe it or not, Ophrah used to be like Jerry Springer. She has since then cut back on that sort of thing [& so has her earnings].

You can probably get all the facts from her website about any show. www.oprah.com ?

A woman did have a 330lb ovarion tumor. It was on the Guniess book of world records.

amen.

[Stoid]

Satan, if you don't watch, how doyou know you find her insipid? Is it because the few times you've caught a moment or two someone was crying?

Do you also find it insipid to:
Be kind?
Be thoughtful?
Be generous?
Charitable?
In touch with one's emotions?
Grateful?
seek a more successful, rewarding life?

Not to turn this into a defend Oprah/Bash Oprah, but considering where she's coming from and what she's trying to do, I am dumbfounded that anyone can be so down on her. Like I said, you may not find it entertaining, but she's all about very positive things and she's a very genuine person. (I can name a lot of people and organizations who are supposedly about positive things, yet who are not in any way genuine. I find that extremely distasteful and obnoxious. It is not true of Oprah.)

S

[Cooper]

No one on TV is genuine. Except Ben Stein.

[PunditLisa]

You know, I like Oprah all right. I just get a tad annoyed when she starts talking about her little tug boat trying to find the mother ship... And it seems everytime I tune in, she has one of the same three guests on. I am thrilled that her show isn't a venue for freaks of the world, like Springer, et al, but sometimes I think she's gotten too serious lately.

[handy]

I think these days people get ambushed much more on Judge shows [Judge Jerry, Judy, Brown] than they do on talk shows.

Oprah is okay but boring for me. Each year when contract time comes around she says shes not sure she wants another year, her stock drops, she buys tons, then says shes wants another year, her stock & thus her worth goes up.

I almost barf when I hear her say things like how she loves finding $10 in her coat pocket when she puts on her coat. I mean come on, like Martha, shes worth around $1B. They both make enough they don't have to cook, clean or do those stupid projects as they could hire someone to do that stuff.

[Girl Next Door]

Oprah's okay, she's trying to do good, that's all good.

But doesn't she come off as a little ... I dunno ... sanctimonius?

80% of the time I think she's cool and the other 20% I want her to just lighten the fuck up.

-Leslie

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Leslie Irish Evans
http://leslie.scrappy.net

[manhattan]

Each year when contract time comes around she says shes not sure she wants another year, her stock drops, she buys tons, then says shes wants another year, her stock & thus her worth goes up.

handy, this is at least the second time you’ve repeated that lie. The first one (that I know of) was on August 13, in a discussion of insider trading and stock fraud. http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/001903.html

I’ll repeat my response:

Handy's example would be a interesting case if it were true.
But it's not.
She doesn't.
According to King World's annual proxy statement, http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da...-98-000193.txt , Oprah holds directly exactly zero shares of her employer. She has the right to acquire 5+ percent of the company through the exercise of options awarded to her as part of her deal there. If the exercise price of those shares is lower than it would be than if she said right from the get go that she were sticking around (I don't know), that would be good negotiating, not insider trading.
Handy, don't go believing every bad thing you hear about people. The stock has in fact historically gyrated around "will she or won't she time." As it happens, many professional traders I know make that trade, but it's speculation, not insider trading. Oprah doesn't.

Handy, I ask you either to come up with a source or stop repeating this lie.

As an aside, her employer is now the CBS corporation, following King World’s merger with it. And CBS is merging with Viacom. Pro forma for those transactions, the company will be so big that even "Oprah renegotiation season" won’t move the stock much.

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Livin' on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine

[handy]

manhattan, seems to me what you wrote about her and her options agrees with what I wrote.

Maybe it's not true right this moment.

If you think that Im going to go back two years & find the news program that stated that information about her lowering the share price & then buying lots of it, forget it.
Besides that, I did not imply any form of insider trading...

Still you have to wonder how her worth keeps growing on the way to $1B.

[manhattan]

Besides that, I did not imply any form of insider trading...

I apologize if I seem like I’m obsessing on this, but it’s important to me. Yes, you did imply insider trading, even if you didn’t intend to. You said

her stock drops, she buys tons...

You are accusing her of insider trading, which is a federal crime. If she bought stock knowing that she was going to sign a new contract (which contract was material to the prospects of the company), she almost certainly broke the law. It is exactly like accusing her of embezzlement. You seem like a really good guy, and I’ll bet that in a million years you wouldn’t accuse someone of embezzlement based on a half-remembered news report a from couple of years ago.

All I’m asking is that you apply the same standard to this crime.

As to how her net worth goes up, she, uh, earns it. Since she is the centerpiece of her very popular show, she shrewdly negotiates to get a fair portion of the revenue it generates. She also negotiates to receive (through stock options) a portion of the value of the show that accrues to the company she works for. It's no different from what the actors on Seinfeld or Home Improvement do. Hell, it's no different from what I do, except that I don’t generate as much revenue as she does.

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Livin' on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine