By Jason Miller

Thomas Paine's Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/T HOMASPAINE/?p=277

"The other kids were all into black power," Oprah told the Tribune in the mid-1980s. But "I wasn't a dashiki kind of woman ... Excellence was the best deterrent to racism and that became my philosophy."

Excellence indeed. Few would deny that Oprah Winfrey has achieved an extraordinary degree of THAT, at least by our society's warped standards. Witty, articulate, attractive, beloved by tens of millions, and fabulously wealthy, she is the "I pulled myself up by my bootstraps" queen of a vast media empire. Oprah is a living embodiment of the American Dream. What is perhaps most inspiring to her genuflecting disciples is that Oprah rose to her stratospheric position of wealth and influence from an impoverished start in a socioeconomic hierarchy still largely dominated by white males.

By Jason Miller

Bursting forth with renewed intensity, the "War on Christmas" is back in 2006.

So just what does this alleged war against an impalpable enemy entail?

Have "Islamofascists" captured and decapitated Santa Claus?

Did a US-made IDF "smart bomb" strike Bethlehem and obliterate baby Jesus as he lay in the manger?

Did the Grinch go global with his nefarious thievery?

by Jason Miller

[I dedicate this essay to the untold millions who suffered as a result of Milton Friedman's creation of an intellectual bulwark for economic brutality. On 11/16/06, Friedman died of heart failure, an ironic cause of death for a heartless individual.]

"We have reached the deplorable circumstance where in large measure a very powerful few are in possession of the earth's resources, the land and its riches and all the franchises and other privileges that yield a return. These positions are maintained virtually without taxation; they are immune to the demands made on others. The very poor, who have nothing, are the object of compulsory charity. And the rest -- the workers, the middle-class, the backbone of the country -- are made to support the lot by their labor."

----Agnes George de Mille (granddaughter of Henry George), New York, 1979