Copyright (c) 1994  
An opinion piece  
 
                           'I'M RIGHT' 
 
               DON'T CLUTTER UP MY ENTERTAINMENT  
                       by Arnold Slotnik  
  
      Everybody has an opinion. You can't go anywhere these days 
without somebody dropping an opinion in your lap. Oprah, Maury, 
Ricki--everybody has an opinion. I'm tired of it.  
     Remember when sitcoms didn't have opinions?  Rob and Laura 
never had a social conscience. I really don't want to know what 
Roseanne thinks about AIDS or teen pregnancy. What Tim Taylor  
thinks of gun ownership doesn't interest me, either. Somewhere  
along the way, somebody decided entertainment should contain a  
hefty quantity of reality and opinion.  
     If I want reality, I'll read the newspaper. There are a lot 
of really important issues in the world today, and it's a good  
thing that people care about them. We need a break from all that 
every once in a while, though. We need entertainment.  
     I don't want reality and opinion!  I want to be entertained! 
Now here's Ruby's Pearls, a source of entertainment for the last 
three years, and they want to clutter it up with opinion. Del  
Freeman wants to add a forum to the magazine that'll allow folks 
to voice their views on important issues of the day. Phooey. I  
don't want to hear what some dweeb thinks about the death penalty
when I pick up a copy of Ruby's Pearls. I want to read a good  
mystery, or chuckle at Ruby Begonia's latest escapade.  
     And don't give me that "Just hit Enter" crap. Everybody  
with half an ounce of sense knows opinion columns generate an  
amount of heat and light completely out of proportion with the  
rest of the stuff in a publication. One little opinion here or  
there, and pretty soon it'll be nothing *but* opinions.  
      Sheesh. Don't clutter up my entertainment with opinions!  
 
                              -30-

Copyright 1994(c) 
An opinion piece 
                         "YOU ARE NOT!" 
 
                     THE ANATOMY'S THE THING 
                         By Ruby Begonia 
 
     Opinions, said some wise someone, are like other parts of the
anatomy -- everybody's got one. 
 
     "Tell me what you think."  
     "I'll tell you what *I* think."  
     "You want some advice?"  
     "Have you thought about...".  
  
     Those phrases all have the same common inference. They presume
that we are homo sapiens; thinking creatures capable of forming 
opinion based on an unbiased revelation of factual occurrences. 
     This really has nothing to do with thinking, other than as a
a process employed to arrive at the end conclusion. Opinion is much
more than what you think... it is a compilation of things you have
known and emotions you feel and have felt. It can be, and often is,
indicative of your very cognitive ability; labeling you a dunce or
a genius in the eyes of those with whom you share it. It is one of
the key criteria by which we judge one another, much like a spot
of soup on the tie, or bad eyeliner.  
     Perhaps, in an elemental society still mired in the ooze of
origination, there is no room for opinion, but somehow I doubt that
even there such a void is tolerated. I ever remember that quince
seed, or whatever, so annoyed by the voices of his brethren seeds
and their constant debate over the meaning of life that he moved
into the heart of a pomengranate, where the seeds are few and  
almost silent.  
     Human nature being what it is, opinion is as much a part of
our essence of being as the instinct to breathe and walk upright.
The people who are practicing this art are grabbing our attention,
right and left. We may despise Rush, but we listen. Even when we
don't wish to do so, we can't avoid it because people talk. We hear
things that intrigue or enrage us, and then we listen. Howard Stern
is, in actuality, a rather disappointing-looking Jewish man with
an attitude. He neither has nor claims any particular brilliance.
But he, by God, has an opinion.  
     If the failure to form an opinion can be likened to comatose,
then certainly the failure to voice one's opinion must be 
indicative of brain death. He who steps carefully around it may 
never know what what it was full of, after all.  
     "The only good Cuban, ... had a defective raft."  
     Got your attention?   
     That's opinion, Mac. You might not like it. You might not  
agree with it, and if you don't you're welcome to say so in print.
If you say it good enough, it'll be in this spot next month, and
I'll be trying on bunny-fur tails and practicin' my "What can I 
bring you from the bar, sir?" line.   
        
                               END