Rant about Oprah

Ok, so I promised myself that I would not rant about Oprah on here, but Miss Mary Haynes just LOVES to push my buttons. I saw this article earlier:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/13/people.oprahs.surprise.ap/index.html and I restrained myself from making a comment to anyone. But then both Mary and Christine had to bring it up.
Mary asks "How can you hate Oprah when she gave away all those cars?"

First of all, I don't hate Oprah. I can't say that I have the greatest respect for her obsessed fans. Oprah is fine. I'm sure that in person she is a lovely woman. But do I think she is generous for giving away stuff all the time? No, of course not. Do I think Pontiac is generous for donating all those cars to the Oprah show? No, not really. It is a nice gesture, sure, but I'm sure that the marketing payoff for presenting their car on a show that is seen in over 40 countries will greatly outweigh the cost of giving away 200 cars. Not to mention the nationwide coverage Pontiac is getting for this right now. It was on the front webpage of CNN all day long. You can't buy that kind of publicity! Only Oprah can provide it.

But I most certainly don't think Oprah is wonderful for giving away things all the time which she gets for free, simply by asking for it. Everyone says that she is so good and generous. Well, she does try to do good things. I'll credit her that. I'm glad that she is getting people to read. But why do people like her so much? Is she easy to relate to? Is she generous? Yes, she did prevent some sandwich shop from going out of business by sending a check from her personal bank account. But the woman has tons of money. She has 9 homes. Does she really need 9 homes? Some might say that it is a real estate investment. There was one home that she loved so much, she made an offer to the homeowner when it wasn't even on the market. She told the owner that money was no object. Keep in mind that she already had 8 lavish homes. She paid 35 million over the asking price. That doesn't sound like the most saavy real estate investment to me. She also flies out to California every 10 days on her jet to have her eyebrows plucked by the eyebrow plucker of the Stars. It costs something like $5,000 to make the trip. It's a waste of money and fuel. How bout instead of spending money on lots of homes and eyebrow plucking that she doesn't need, she donate all that money to her Angel Network!

I'm not saying that she is a bad person for doing these things. For owning so many homes or flying a thousand miles to get her eyebrows done. That's fine and dandy. But these things don't make her a generous woman. They don't make her someone that a regular person can relate to. But besides these things, I personally don't understand why she is so rich or influential. All of her influence and wealth came from what I consider to be a terrible talk show. But that's another rant for another post.