I am sorry if you clicked on this post looking for a rant of some kind, but it no longer exists. I am over it and you should be too. Stay and look around though.

The high gas prices are causing Americans to do get loco. Take, for instance the Hales (The Scooterists), a Flower Mound, Texas couple who just purchased two Vespas for a total of $15,000 in order to save money on gas and gain some “environmental panache.” The couple owns a GMC Denali that knocks out $400 a month from their bank account each month, so they are desperate for relief. One problem, the Vespas are not good daily commuters for North Texas, or anywhere in Texas for that matter.

Vespas are great for urban settings like London, New York, Chicago, and Paris, but not so much for spread out suburban America. Also, Texas weather negates six months out of the year for daily Vespa usage. No one, not even Al Gore, is going to drive a scooter anywhere in 103° August heat, nor will anyone drive a scooter in January when it is 33°. There is no spring in Texas. Winter immediately gives way to Summer. At best, if this couple plans on using their Vespas as a daily commuter, they can expect six months of comfortable weather.

How much gas is $15,000. At $4.00 a gallon, you get 3750 gallons. The Hales put 100 gallons a month into their Denali ($400/4). This amounts to 37.5 months of gas or 3.125 years. The Denali gets about 15 mpg for real world usage. The Hales, for just their Denali alone, are driving a bloated 1500 miles a month. The Vespa gets 65 mpg for real world usage. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, if the Hales use their Vespa to replace three quarters of driving time from the Denali, they will save 58 gallons a month (1500X0.75/65 compared to 100X0.75). This is substantial savings of $232 a month based on current fuel prices.

I will give them even more benefit of the doubt and say they will get eight months of usage out of their Vespas, making the annual savings equal $1856 (232X8). I will round this off the an even $2000 a year in savings. All this is based on the substitution of one Vespa for the Denali and not every vehicle they own. In seven year the Hales will make back their investment. This seems like a long time to wait to start getting full savings considering Americans like to trade in their vehicles every three years or so.

There are cheaper and easier ways to save money on gasoline. For half of what the Hales spent, they could have bought a well maintained, used vehicle with better gas mileage. The Honda Civic, Nissan Sentra, and Toyota Corolla all come to mind. In addition, driving fewer miles at slower speeds also reduces fuel consumption. High gas prices are making people do crazy things, this is both sad and amusing.

Oprah is a superstar. She is a megacelebrity with a bank account to match. She made $260 million between June 2006 and June 2007. She is worth an estimated $1.5 billion. I have no problem with this, because is represents the American Dream. I do get the feeling that Oprah’s perspective on all this money and success is flawed. You see, God owns all this, not Oprah. She is a manager and nothing more. Consider these words:

You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. (Deuteronomy 8:17-18)

Oprah has been getting spiritual with the aid of guru Eckart Tolle. She will take his word to heart, but is she willng to do the same with God’s Word? Will she ever admit that her success, fame, and money are GIFTS from the Lord? The one and only.

Beyond even this, and one does not have to be religious to understand this, she gives away chunks of money for her own benefit all in the name of charity. This is what bothers me the most about Oprah. She is always in self-promotion mode. For Christians, it is much worse, because we believe God owns it all. Oprah is using God’s money for her own personal and professional gain. To her credit, she is not the only human on the planet doing this, but this fact does not make it any less ignoble. Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount discourse, says this about giving to the needy:

So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matthew 6:2-4)

This is my challenge to Oprah, even though it is quite certain her eyes will never view this blog post: Spend one year being charitable without the cameras. Let no one know what you are giving and to whom you are giving. Do not even publicly attach your name to anything concerning giving to the needy. Do it in secret as Jesus commanded. Can you do it?

What do you think? Is is possible for Oprah to live 12 months without announcing any type of charity? She would have to give up her most popular episode, “Oprah’s Favorite Things,” to fulfill this. She would have to stop filming Oprah’s Big Give. She would not be able to attend ANY charity dinners and galas. It does not seem possible to me. She is too vested in herself as a commodity to stop giving under the spotlight. This is sad.

Related Posts:

Oprah’s False Christianity
[O]prah [W]infrey’s [N]arcissism
The Real American Dream

A coworker of mine was telling me that when he attended The University of Texas at Austin way back in 1957, his annual tuition cost was $50. This did not include room and board, which he actually made money on because of a deal he made with Darrell Royal. The latest numbers for in-state tuition/room/board put the average annual cost at $10,674 a year (2004). In Texas, tuition costs for the same year averaged $3559. That is a crazy 7118% increase from $50. It is an even crazier 9174% increase from the national average of $4587.

Adjusted for inflation, my coworker’s $50 tuition bill would be $336.12 in 2004 dollars, at least in Texas. Nationally, The average income in 1957 was $3700. If that income rose 9174% it would be $343,138. The average annual income in 2004 was $37,627 based on a July 2004 average of $18.09 an hour. Even if the numbers on annual income in 2004 are slightly off, it is easy to see that college costs have shredded normal inflation.

Last month, Oprah Winfrey announced her new network OWN. It will be a 50/50 partnership with Discovery communications, but she will control all content and the creative vision of the network. This essentially makes it hers.

I have always considered Oprah’s incessant use of her name and image as odd. She is not the only wealthy businessperson to do this and I understand that “Oprah” is now a brand. But does anyone else get the feeling that Oprah has crossed into narcissistic territory with this venture? A blogger on her own website message board believes she has already been there.

She has her own show. This does not make her narcissistic, but it certainly cultivates narcissistic tendencies (Oprah’s “Favorite Things”). She started a magazine that she named after herself in which she features herself on the cover of every issue. This might catagorize her as narcissistic to some. Now she has a network named after herself.

Oprah helps a lot of people, but does she have to put her name on everything she touches. There is something to be said about humility through anonymity. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:1-4:

Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.