Oprah Winfrey Exploits Shawn Hornbeck
Oprah Winfrey is the brightest star in CelebrityWorld; she doesn’t have to flash her vagina for publicity. Ohmygawd, what a frightful thought –Â the only thing worse would be if she appeared in public without any makeup.
The Queen of TV talk has a very faithful audience, she could discuss strategy with the chess champion and still garner high ratings.
The tubby talker doesn’t have to resort to exploiting children who make the news because some misfortune or tragedy befalls them.
But that’s exactly what Oprah did when she interviewed 15-year old kidnap victim, Shawn Hornbeck, and his family.
Shawn Hornbeck was only 11 when he was kidnapped by Michael Devlin, a 41-year-old pizzeria manager, over four years ago.
Shawn was freed on Jan. 12, when authorities entered Devlin’s apartment, searching for another missing youngster.
From WSBTV.Com:
“During an interview with Oprah Winfrey on a TV show that aired Thursday, Shawn’s parents said they have not asked their son about his ordeal on the advice of child advocacy experts.Â
‘OK, I’m gonna go there and ask you, what do you think happened? Do you think he was sexually abused?’ Winfrey asked Shawn’s parents, Craig and Pam Akers.
Both nodded and said, ‘Yes.”‘
Disregarding the advice of child advocacy experts, Oprah asks Shawn’s parents on TV if their son was sexually abused. His parents should have refused to answer the question. In fact, if his parents had any common sense and decency they wouldn’t have subjected their son to a TV interview so soon after his long ordeal.
Shawn must be mortified knowing that when he returns to school all his classmates will know that he was sexually abused by an adult male.
Oprah should stick to her usual New Age bullcrap and interview self-help experts and other neo-spiritual con artists.
Oprah Winfrey, you bloviating cow: Leave traumatized children alone!
I write a weekly column for a small town newspaper in Virginia, and I also write for several Web sites. Please leave a comment or send me an email at: rreyes4966@aol.com | More from Robert Paul Reyes
Stumble It!
January 25th, 2007 at 1:39 am
You people sure do talk a lot. I think this issue is a dead horse, and that the media and yourselves will have forgotten this story a year from now. You will find other and newer (not to mention more irrelevant) things to argue about. Perhaps it will be issues other than homophobia, child porn, sexual abuse, and “miracle” missing children. What a large amount of flaming goings on here… (hyuck). The media by it’s very nature looks for “stories” to “expliot”. But remember that they are called “stories”. Why is this story any different than a news report of a traffic accident, or Chinese nuclear testing? Whoopdee do, some kid comes home after 4.5 years. Is this “amazing”? Is this newsworthy? In the modern world, sadly, yes. The media can and will expliot anything that can improve station ratings or paper’s readers, or websites hits for that matter. The question that no one (myself included) can really answer is, do you really care about Shawn Hornbeck? I think the best a large majority of people can think is, “I’m sure glad that didn’t happen to my child” or “I’m glad that didn’t happen to me when I was a kid.” Each of us (myself included) have taken this “story” as an oppurtunity to promote our own beliefs. Whether it be homosexuality, or homophobia, or pedophilia, or women’s lib, no one has discussed much about Shawn Hornbeck. What do any one of us KNOW about him, or Michael Devlin for that matter? All we have is bullshit coming from all sides, media, police, us (as in us!) People react in their own way. Some point the accusing finger (at anybody it seems). Some hide under their beds and never come out again. Some are quick to point out uninteresting facts and analysis. In a hundred years, no one will care. We’ll all be dead, and this webpage of comments will be long deleted and forgotten (this post included
). Maybe I have a point, maybe you’ll point out that I don’t. I’m sure you will find a way to aruge further about something further regarding this string of posts.
P.S. Robert Paul Reyes, Dittohd, & S Baker, I please try to respect and understand each other instead of flaming and “correcting” each other. It sound like each of you are trying to become the “Alpha Male” of postings. Each of you sound like you’re trying to establish an air of superiority over the others in terms of views and beliefs. Who really is a bigot? I would risk to say that there is no such thing aws a “bigot”. All people have different views on things and whether or not they are “politically correct” or “offensive” is irrelevant in the long run. My theory is, in a hundred years, they will have forgotten Shawn Hornbeck, Michael Devlin, and all of you. For that matter, me as well. lol (yes I will stoop to write “lol”) i’ve ranted enough. I’m just a human being like the rest of you that has enough time to write a comment in some obscure webpage about yet another “news-worthy” event. Kudos to everyone for explioting everyone.
January 21st, 2007 at 9:31 pm
To everyone here who has been reading my posts concerning not trusting what we read or hear in the media, here’s the latest in that saga:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jan/07011908.html
January 21st, 2007 at 5:51 pm
I suppose, in your view Robert, all the homosexuals get in a real frenzy when “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’ comes on. Television sets must be destroyed at an horrendously wasteful rate. The “Queer Studies’ people at Universities all over the place must hardly get any study done, so incensed they must be at the use of the wicked word. I come over all queer when I hear such facile objections.
Black people call one another ‘nigger’ all the time. Homosexuals call each other queer. How come no-one else can?
January 21st, 2007 at 4:56 pm
P.S. This comment site needs an “edit” button. The moderator has the ability to adjust our comments but we can’t adjust our own?
Pretty discriminatory, I think. Feels like that “Big Brother” syndrome. Or is it “domestic terrorism”? Commenter molestation?
Call the cops!
January 21st, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Homosexuality and Pedophilia
Media Monitor ^ | 11/2/2006 | Cliff Kincaid
In connection with media coverage of the Mark Foley sex scandal, the pro-homosexual media enforcers have been attempting to refute the idea that there is any connection between homosexuality and pedophilia. Yet Foley targeted young boys. This is something you are not supposed to write or talk about because it undermines the cause of homosexual rights.
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth says, “isn’t it telling most of the tiny number of homosexual male U.S. Congressmen have been caught in sex scandals-remember Barney Frank, who let his male lover, a hustler, run a prostitution ring out of his D.C. apartment? And Massachusetts Rep. Gerry Studds, who had sex with a 17-year-old boy and then turned his back on fellow House Members during the censure vote against him? And Bob Bauman, who in 1980 was charged with soliciting a 16-year-old boy for sex?”
Adding it up, LaBarbera says, “Let’s see: three homosexual Congressmen involved in sexual seductions of minor boys-ages 16, 17, and 17 (Foley). And yet homosexual activists ridicule anyone who suggests there is a predatory or pedophilic component to male homosexuality”
A Big Duh
January 21st, 2007 at 4:52 pm
You are right, I don’t believe any deviant behavior that taxpayers are forced to fund is acceptable including homophilia, homopedophilia, incest and bestiality. Now Robert can call me a homophobe, pedophobe, incestophobe and beastophobe — there I said it for you. Some “Mens” news site you have here. Robert should try allowing a little diversity of opinion instead of regurgitating the hollywood portrayed lifestyle of homosexuality. It ain’t the Will and Grace show — its acts with rodents, rimming, felching and the like–the acts still hidden the closet that are verboten to discuss.
Robert deleted my reference to CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly reference about the cost of homosexual behavior to healthcare — billions and comparable in cost and average lifespan to IV drug users.
January 21st, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Robert Paul Reyes said: I will delete your entire comments if you post again using derogatory words for homosexuals. The word “queer†is just as unacceptable as “nigger†or “chinkâ€
Your the boss of this comment page, so what’s objectionable to you is out. I don’t want my comments deleted so instead of qu**r, I’ll substitute the word “T-Shirt” from now on whenever I feel the need to use that word.
We are all different and that’s why in my posts I support freedom rather than everyone becoming the same in what they like and don’t like.
“T-Shirt” can’t be all that bad, certainly not as bad a nigger or chink as you allege if a national TV program can use the word in its title and have three “T-Shirts” on the program, giving others advice. But then, maybe if you offer “T-Shirts” enough money, anything objectionable can be changed to no longer be objectionable. Right? Or is this just a difference of opinion?
Should someone go to jail for being a molester?
January 21st, 2007 at 4:40 pm
In my first line, second sentence, I missed a ‘not’. It was meant to have said “and you have NOT reasoned your way throught it”
January 21st, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Robert I have to take issue with you. It is not reasonable, and you have reasoned your way throught it, that my statement even could mean that I ‘give an impression’ that I ‘coddle’ child molesters. I did not even address molestation, let alone coddle. I mearly asked what this child-porn was. I sought the evidence.
Sure, an unreasonable person just might MAKE or TAKE an impression, but I certainly didn’t give one. You infer what I did not imply. The inference is entirely of your own invention.
This mentation you exhibit is precisely what is wrong with the whole sexual ‘crime’ business. The police and DAs hardly bother to seek evidence these days. Evidence is seldom called for in our Courts where a man is concerned. The simple accusation is enough. We are becoming slaves to that very ‘Authority’ that was so vividly displayed in the famous psychological experiments of 40 years ago. Someone in a white coat – or a blue uniform – says this and we jump to obey. All the way to the electric chair in some cases.
Robert, I am too old and overburdened with the weight of dismay to jump. Why not dispense with a trial altogether and just hang the man. You do a good impression of a lynch-mob leader.
January 21st, 2007 at 3:49 pm
S. Baker, Robert is not comparing blacks to homosexuals, he is saying that none of those slang terms are acceptable. Difference. Although you seem to have a prejudice against gays. I guess you just don’t tolerate those who have different sexual preferences as you.
The way some of these MND folks talk about women so hatefully, I am surprised they haven’t “come out of the closet”. LOL.
January 21st, 2007 at 3:46 pm
P.S. P.S. Oh, that’s right! We go to adults who are LOOKING at the pictures for the “child molestor” label.