More in space then on-line

A change of neighbors brought a dire lack of connectivity. Just a quick few points.

Oprah announced her giving up her show after her 25th season, that is by 9.9.11. I will miss Oprah, 'The Queen of Empathy' and occasional truly insightful interviews. I will never forget the one from prison with Betty, the woman that killed her x-husband and his new girlfriend when she intruded in to their bedroom and then claimed her gun got off by itself. I was in awe of Oprah's sensitive inquiries that really gave us a window in to this woman's soul. I became an instant fan and have been so ever since then, the late eighties. To my mind Oprah's interview would stand in stark contrast to Heraldo Rivera's understandable, but unproductive assault on the KKK, a total missed opportunity that offered us no new insights of any kind. Oprah's reporting style enriched my life and my understanding of the world that too often looks weird beyond belief. Oprah is an icon of our times, a woman of my age, a power to be reckoned with that I expect to be relevant still for a long time to come. Really, if her recent interview with Sarah Palin gave her the highest ratings in 2 years, I do not blame her at all for wanting out! The freeing up of her time will allow this outstanding woman to do a lot more good in many new and different ways and I will be eager to learn about such and wish her only the best. She deserves our admiration and best wishes along with the freedom to do as she pleases.

Appalling Palin has been dominating the news. One thing that really bothers me is that the dominant culture does not distinguish between a woman's rights and an infant's need for a mother. Infants need mothers not formula! This has nothing to do with woman's rights. Women have breasts and men do not. Women have held the infant in gestation for 9 months in their bellies, men did not. In an ideal world, mothers breast feed their babies. Sure there are less then ideal circumstances, often they involve money. New mothers may need to provide for their babies, their families. Sure, we adapt, but this does not change the fact that infants need their mothers and suffer given substitutes.

Sarah Palin and daughter both were pregnant and she had no calms to take on a high level job! Obviously this woman is not concerned about the well being of the infants, hers a special-needs child to boot. This bothers me big time. Of course we do not expect the same from fathers, from men. Women's rights should not be about erasing the differences between men and women. Sacrificing all to the altar of achievements and climbing the social ladder is not admirable. What happened to all that we learned, the hard way, in the sixties and seventies in humanistic psychology? All forgotten or discarded? Wake up America!

Sarah Palin moaned about the flak her daughter got during last year's campaign. The criticism of course was never about her teenage pregnant daughter, but about the hypocrisy of a stance for no sex education and the real life hard facts of a pregnant teen. Sarah's phony glossing over such and creating this rosy picture that entailed her teen aged daughter about to marry her teenage, bad-boy infatuation, with this way ward son-in-law to take on a job at the White House, was hard to swallow for any seasoned human being.

Sarah will challenge us to the max in regards to the unification of this great, but deeply divided country, the United States. President Obama was calling on that which unites us, Palin will clarify that which divides us.