FRIDAY FOLLIES: On Oprah, Elizabeth Warren, Hitler's Dogs, and Assorted Boobs

 After months of building up to this, on Wednesday Oprah Winfrey said goodbye to her still-huge audience and ended her daytime show. I watched a re-run of her final show last night.  I got through the whole thing and I have to say, it was as dreadful as I hoped it wouldn't be.  Oprah is big, I get that, but a whole hour of watching Oprah congratulating Oprah on her huge success (after a whole week of everyone else congratulating Oprah on her huge success) -- well, it made it much easier to say ho-hum.  (It's not like Oprah is leaving for good to take up knitting or to finally marry Stedman.  She has her OWN network, for God's sake.  She's Oprah.  You really think she's going to stay behind the scenes? She's Oprah.)

Oprah giving benediction for last time

I confess I watched Oprah religiously when her show first began.  I can't remember now what was so compelling that I would actually buy a little 5-inch counter-top TV so I could watch while I was cooking dinner, but she lost me for good one day when she announced there was no way she could sleep under sheets that weren't Egyptian cotton with at least a 400 thread count. 


So this week I've been stewing less about losing Oprah and more about this story I read in the NYT: 

Jobless Discrimination?  When Firms Won't Even Consider Hiring Anyone Unemployed
When Sony Ericsson needed new workers after it relocated its U.S. headquarters to Atlanta last year, its recruiters told one particular group of applicants not to bother. "No unemployed candidates will be considered at all," one online job listing said.

The cell-phone giant later said the listing, which produced a media uproar, had been a mistake. But other companies continue to refuse to even consider the unemployed for jobs — a harsh catch-22 at a time when long-term joblessness is at its highest level in decades.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2073520,00.html#ixzz1NYPCcNZj

But I did get a good laugh out of the blow-back after Rep. Patrick McHenry tried to make the country believe Elizabeth Warren is a liar.  Elizabeth Warren, for God's sake!  OUR Elizabeth Warren -- mighty and adorable watchdog and head honcho of a consumer protection agency that might actually get around to protecting consumers someday.


  Elizabeth Warren was shocked, as someone who tries super hard not to lie would be, but she wasn't nearly as shocked as McHenry when thousands of angry Elizabethans bombarded his Facebook page to set him straight.  (Now there's a movement to get her to run for elected office.  I really hope she doesn't. She needs to stay right where she is, at least until the other side makes good their promise to kill the agency right out from under her.)


So did you hear about Hitler's army of talking dogs?

In his new book Amazing Dogs: A Cabinet of Canine Curiosities, Cardiff University historian Jan Bondeson mines obscure German periodicals to reveal the Nazis' failed attempt to breed an army of educated dogs that could read, write and talk. "In the 1920s, Germany had numerous 'new animal psychologists' who believed dogs were nearly as intelligent as humans, and capable of abstract thinking and communication," he writes. "When the Nazi party took over, one might have thought they would be building concentration camps to lock these fanatics up, but instead they were actually very interested in their ideas."

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/25/how-nazi-scientsts-tried-to-create-an-army-of-talking-dogs/#ixzz1NYbSmfkb

And this has nothing to do with anything, except it's darned funny:

A Chicago lawyer is being accused of sexism after requesting that a "large breasted woman" seated at the opposing counsel's table be moved as to not distract the jury.  (No it didn't get past me that the plaintiff is a dealership called "Exotic Motors".  Delicious!)

Cartoon of the week:

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