Oprah Winfrey Needs Show Topic - Whacks Dog

As I'm shaking off the cobwebs of last night's sleep, I scanned the Yahoo front page as I do each morning. There it was, "Oprah: 'I feel like I got stabbed in the chest'". Oh my gosh! Did Oprah, Steadman or Gayle King suffer a heart attack? Did someone close to her get murdered? And more importantly, did I really care?

After I opened the article, I realized I didn't. The Yahoo synopsis says, "Oprah Winfrey feels extreme anguish after the death of her 2-year-old golden retriever." Here we go. Another instance of a childless person acting as though the death of a pet is somehow equivalent to the death of a human.

But it got worse. The Associated Press article details Oprah's account of the death of her dog Gracie in the August issue of Oprah's monthly tribute to herself, O, The Oprah Magazine. The dog, in an incident out of a Farrelly Brothers movie, apparently choked to death on a dog toy belonging to Oprah's 12-year-old Cocker Spaniel. No word yet on whether the Cocker Spaniel is a suspect in the death. .

Here is a poriton of Oprah's account, found here:

...I got a call: "She's down and isn't breathing."

I ran barefoot out of the house and found the dog walker and one of my security guys pumping her chest. Just as I reached them, the security guy looked up and said, "I'm sorry, ma'am. We tried everything. I'm sorry. She's gone."

Gone??!! I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Yes, I saw it. I saw the caretaker rocking back and forth on the ground, his arms wrapped around himself, crying hysterically. My brain took in the whole scene, but it wasn't tracking properly. The first thing I remember saying is, "It's okay. It'll be okay. Tell me what happened." Through his sobs I heard: "...choked on a ball."

Let me get this straight, Oprah is overwhelmed with grief about a dog that she pays other people to walk and take care of? With Oprah's constant alleged struggle with weight and exercise, you'd think that she'd be walking these beloved dogs herself. And I don't want to question the compassion of the caretaker, but do you think he was sobbing because the dog was dead or because he realized that he killed this egomaniac's dog?

Then we get to this gem: