Oprah has had some hard hitting topics this year.

[Tim4319]

She has done shows on New Orleans and how slow things are moving as far as rebuilding. She has done a show on schools in the inner city, and how under funded they are. But, yesterdays show really made me think! It dealt with the genocide in Darfur a section of the Sudan in Africa.

After watching this episode, I wondered, what if this administration focused its attention on what is really wrong with this world? From what I understand, more people have died due to the genocide in Darfur then under the ruling of Saddam Hussein. Instead of these oil companies retiring their CEO's with $400 million retirement packages, schools that have classes with 45 students and only 38 desks can receive some necessities.

Then, I am not going to get into the whole New Orleans thing!

After connecting the Oprah dots, she has really made me see that this administration does not care about poor people, black people, middle class people, or any of the children of these groups.

But, all the RW can do is trash Oprah for having a guest on who lied in a book. These people make me sick!

[elehhhhna]

1. Not earth shattering but the Debt Diet series is also good....

three families who are UP to their ASSES in Cr. card debt--all overdressed suburbians with literally hundreds of THOUSANDS of dollars on credit cards & still spending! One fam of 4 was spending like 24K/yr on fast food alone--all at 24% interest.

Unreal.

I have a feeling there are an awful lot of folks faking their way into upper-middle-classdom thanks to Citi--er, SaudiBank, etc.

Scary.

[Tim4319]

3. Thanks for reminding me!

Those topics hit home too! Right now I am unemployed, but doing some substitute teaching. Bills are piling up, and I can feel a lot of those families pains.

[AlCzervik]

7. i saw that series, unreal and quite a behind the scenes look at the

neighbors, also watched yesterday, very good, heartbreaking but informative.

[elehhhhna]

10. interesting that one woman in debt said her friends and family

were really weird about her confession that she was deep in debt...like they were shunning her & her family...probably hit too close to home.

[AlCzervik]

11. maybe it did, i was stunned by the amount of debt they had that didn't

include their mortgage.

[Captain Hilts]

2. It was nice Clooney didn't bash Bush, though, on that clip.

That made it seem humanitarian and not partisan.

[Tim4319]

4. Yes, I am glad he didn't!

Because it would have been blown all out of proportion.

[Sunkiss BlueStar]

6. You could see

in his eyes that he wasn't thinking about the *. Clooney was close to a breakdown.

[Sunkiss BlueStar]

5. Oprah is a Diplomat

Oprah is awesome, I love Oprah. George Clooney and his dad should receive an award for their risky trip to the Sudan.

The love of a Liberal has made a difference for the Congo Women and Im so proud of all the donations from Oprahs core audience. Im proud of Lucy Liu and her friend too.

take notes condi!

[Tim4319]

8. You are correct!

Condi doesn't just need to take notes, she needs to do an internship.

[Strawman]

9. I've watched those shows

My wife Tivo's them. I think Oprah is doing a good thing and highlighting important problem.

I wonder if she is being really careful politically on how she frames this stuff or if I'm reading too much into it to think that. I notice she constantly talks about low "expectations" as part of the problem. That's conservative rhetoric. And she made a point of talking about expectations alot. Then she has Jonathan Kozol on and shows dilapidated school buildings. So I wonder where she is coming from politically. I think a conservative could watch her program and say lets give the money to charter schools and impose stricter standards and a liberal would say lets equalize funding for these poor schools.

[Tim4319]

12. I believe she has to be careful on how she address issues.

I think, in her position, she cannot attach any political agendas. What she does do, and a great job at it, is speak directly with those immediately effected, have them describe their situation which makes the viewers feel empathetic and start to think about the "What if's...?" That is how the show hit me!

[FlaGranny]

13. "Low expectations"

IS conservative rhetoric, but also unfortunately true, especially when you're talking about kids and their expectations of themselves and their teachers' and parents' expectations of THEM. Hope and optimism that you can succeed are definitely missing from a lot of lives - kids AND adults. Families and whole neighborhoods need to know that they can improve their lives. A conservative would say it's their own lazy fault. A progressive would say "let's give them a leg up." The conservative response is a dead-end because no real solution is given. The progressive response provides a possible solution. People get into a hopeless mindset with low expectations from generations of poverty and lack of education.

[Strawman]

14. Well said. I think the key is what one emphasizes on the front end

Do you emphasize culture or do you emphasize resource inequality? Ultimately you need to change both, but I think it starts with a real committment to provide resources up front for public education. Focusing too much on culture and ignoring inequality seems to lead one to assign blame and lets the haves off the hook. It doesn't cost anything. I'm sure a conservative could watch that Oprah episode and ask what kind of school buildings those kids in China had who could list the first five US Presidents (while the American kids could not).

And they'd have a point. Up to a point. I don't think we can be successful by just throwing money at the problem without throwing sufficient intellectual energy and committment to genuine improvement at the problem too. We do need to change the culture in schools and in the nation-at-large to one that values learning. I don't care what kind of neighborhood you're in: black, white, middle class, poor, upper class, whatever, it's basically the same. People in this society care too much about bling-bling and not enough about think-ing. Having a Hummer is regarded as cooler than having a Ph.D. In all those schools that worked one witnessed an environment where the students and teachers were all excited about learning. Some of the suburban schools looked nice enough physically and had a third of kids dropping out. The culture and environment is the key, but how do we get there?

That requires investment. One can't expect these kids to show up to the same shitty building with the same teachers in the same classes and get different results simply because the legislature passes a law to end social promotion and test students. It's hard to get excited about science without things like labs with microscopes. It's hard to get excited about music without instruments. These schools need an extreme physical and pedagogical makeover in order to really change the culture. And the culture in the school needs to be more compelling to students than the culture outside the school (even in the home) that devalues learning. These schools have to be so cool that they change the entire culture through some sort of ripple effect. In this culture, that's gonna cost some money.

These conservatives have a Potemkin Village mentality. Let these schools spruce up the exterior so they can feel better when they drive past on the freeway, or take a photo outside. That's not just conservatives or Republicans either. Alot of our elected Dems could really give a crap about changing a status quo that keeps them comfortably in office too. Let them teach to the test and raise scores marginally so that they can say "mission accomplished." As long as they can claim some credit for their next campaign ad, they don't care if it's a facade.