Oprah's dirty Secret

I actually read about this a while ago, but didn't have time to properly rant. Apparently, due to Oprah's endorsement of that nonsense book known as "the secret", a woman has opted to stop chemotherapy and fight her cancer with positive thinking. Do you get more stupid than this?

I'm not going to knock anyone for trying to maintain a positive attitude, but the fact is that you can't change reality with mere thought alone; it simply is completely, 100% impossible. You can't wish your cancer away, you have to take action; unfortunately, this is sometimes not enough. A very good friend of mine has terminal cancer (angiosarcoma); all of the positive thinking in the world will not save him, nor will all of known medicine.

Oprah, I despise your proliferation of nonsense and pseudo scientific ignorance. You have issued some statement I read to encourage this women to continue her treatment; now you are a hypocrite. I've read excerpts of the secret; I've read reviews, summaries, synopses, and of course op eds. It is utter nonsense, something a schoolgirl could discern as wrong and lacking in foundation (and common sense). And I would also put forth that positive thinking is not a good idea; experience dictates to me that we should plan for the worse.

Why should we just keep smiling and going on about our activities? Are we the grasshopper, simply assuming that when winter comes there will be food? Or should be we more diligent and actually store up our reserves, knowing that we will need them when times become hard? Seems to me, if we don't beef up our stockpile, we may just starve to death.

Negative thinking is exactly what keeps our country safe; why have an army when we could simply hope and think positively that no one will attack us? We can just all be positively thinking friends. The power of negativity keeps our information systems safe. I run disaster recovery plans, backup schedules, RAID systems, all because I know something can go wrong. Maybe I should just toss that all out and think positively?

Oprah, if this woman stops her chemotherapy and dies, you are to blame. But don't worry, just think positively.