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PETA is in some hot water (again) for using first lady Michelle Obama's image in one of their ads without her permission. PETA pres Ingrid Newkirk says they didn't get Obama's permission because, well, they knew she would have said no. Since this is the same rationale I used when I "borrowed" my mom's car before I had a driver's license, I happen to know firsthand that the I-didn't-ask-because-you'd-say-no excuse doesn't work too well. Here's the ad:

By now you've probably heard that Oprah has announced her daytime talk show, which has been on the air for a staggering 23 years, will end in September 2011, and already there's clamor over how the daytime talk show void could possibly be filled.

Today, Oprah will be airing an interview with Mackenzie Phillips.  Who is that, you say?  She is a former child actress who also, coincidentally, happens to be one of the many children of the late John Phillips of The Mamas and Papas.  Like most former child actresses, her personal life has been a slow-moving disaster of epic proportions - just last year, at 48, she was busted for cocaine possession.  At an airport.  This being more or less par for the course in former child actress terms, one might wonder why she is getting the entire hour of Oprah to herself.  Wonder no more; E!Online is reporting that Phillips will reveal that she was raped by her father at 19.  Phillips also calls the relationship "consensual" at some point, which Anna North at Jezebel neatly deconstructs here.

I'm not so much interested in the horrific details of what happened to Phillips, personally - I wish her excellent therapy and hopefully some peace since justice for these things isjust a word and not a realistically attainable goal.  But I am filled with seething anger that these traumatic events are being turned into yet another ratings/YouTube bonanza for Oprah.  Oprah thrives on this stuff, of course, even though nowadays her show lies somewhere in a no-woman's land between 20/20 and infomercials.  It's the big confessional interviews, though, that are her particular specialty.  She just got done with that huge Whitney Houston bonanza, and is currently "interested in" Jaycee Dugard (cringe).  She gets them because she's Oprah and she milks them because she's Oprah and good goddamn it annoys me.