The Powerful Oprah: Music To Their Ears

I spilt tea on myself at an epiphany i had after a friend of mine asked “You know what i saw on Oprah?”(with a smile). I casually switched of the lights on that attempted enlightenment and with my own polite smile i replied “Hell No!” and continued on my way while maintaining a thought that gave birth to my opinion. Powerful Oprah means music to their ears as they hang on to her every word, pause, sneeze and fart. They clap giving a standing ovation like it’s the greatest thing they have ever heard apparently they are spiritually stimulated by this woman. All I see is mental penetration an example of mind control.”They” is all the viewers of Oprah Winfrey’s show and my reason for claiming mind control can be justified by some bizarre incidents on the Oprah show. In 2003 she had audience members do beyonce’s booty-hop; a 2006 episode had her showing her fascination in describing and analysing “poop” and finally recently in May 2009 Oprah was able to cause a riot at KFC with what they call an “overwhelming response”. The power exhibited by her is scary and while she is a positive role model to many which is respectable the passive yet controlling aspect she has on the minds of her viewers is scary. While the viewers have the freedom of choice the way she does things is clever to such an extent that she makes the viewer think that they are making their own decisions.

AM I THAT STUPID???

Who knew that a mistaken action – namely clicking on one of the side-bar adverts while on Facebook – would lead me to one of the few things about which I have a strong opinion: the issue of IQ.

This is a matter in which I actually have a vested interest because being a student – there are times, sitting in the back (or the front) of a lecture theatre, listening intently to your lecturer, when you think: “What the hell are you talking about?” And you look around, expecting at least a few people to share your sentiments only to find, lo and behold, THEY ALL SEEM TO UNDERSTAND. You ask yourself: “What’s wrong with me? Is this section that difficult?” You sigh. You deliberate. You ponder... This has probably happened more than a few times in your life. But the actual issue is not whether you are smart enough to understand or not, it’s the fact that you doubt yourself in the first place.

In school, we were made to take IQ tests to help us choose our careers – I was told I should be a political analyst because my IQ score was above ‘average’. I HATE POLITICS! I think the main problem with IQ tests is that they are discriminatory. Firstly, most IQ tests are in English. Who is to say that a child would not perform better if the test was in his own language? IQ tests test only the things that a few ‘learned’ old men consider as important: mathematics, language, spatial recognition etc. A farmer may not know calculus but he knows the right time to plant his carrot crop, how to remove aphids without damaging his crops – and the list goes on.

With organisations such as Mensa, the Mega Society and the Omega Society around, claiming to have the most intelligent members in the world, you would expect that most of the developments in the world would come from their members. But all they do is sit around, discussing lofty ideas and telling people – not showing them – how clever they are. All this based on a biased test. Real progress comes from the man on the street, the journalist, the teacher... Real progress knows no IQ. To me, real progress is about heart. IQ TESTS ARE AN INSUFFICIENT MEANS TO QUANTIFY ALL THAT A MAN CAN BE THROUGH ALL THAT HE HAS BEEN.