Off The Shelf

The good doctor qualified as a physiologist and holds licenses in marriage and family therapy. Her talk show wasnt doing too well until she decided to mix talk about honor, ethics, and integrity in tandem with the more traditional psychological approach and Bang! My radio program took off and became an international phenomenon.

Her basic message is fashioned around what she calls The Three Cs character, courage and conscience. She always begins her program with the Patti La Belle number Ive got new attitude which she feels epitomises her belief.

On the face of it, no one could have quarrels about the importance of the Three Cs. However, her views as to what constitutes living by the three Cs would be hilarious except that people listen to them which makes them frightening.

 

Witness for example, her attitude to sex. It ought to be proscribed except in a marital relationship which alone provides the necessary commitment for a happy and satisfying sexual relationship.

Then there are her most illuminating views on abortion Dr Laura believes women are lucky that they have the capacity to bear children. She herself was an infertility patient who had her only child at age 38. So, regardless of the circumstances of conception, be it rape, incest or a hole in the condom, regardless of whether she can actually support herself and the baby the pregnant woman must have it.

She succeeds in trivialising what is often an agonising situation by calling unplanned pregnancies oopsies. Apart from nauseating readers with slightly more delicate sensibilities. On one occasion detailed in this book, she advises a couple in a failing relationship who are contemplating an abortion, to have the baby and stay together for the sake of the kid.

If necessary, its okay to put a kid up for adoption. Gays are okay as adoptive parents but not if they are in a gay relationship. That is, a lesbian in a platonic relationship with a male gay can adopt a baby because the baby would grow up seeing a traditional father-mother role model.

Incidentally in case of divorce and custody battles she believes both parents ought to have a public squabble over custody. Otherwise the kid will grow up warped because it will think that mommy or daddy, as the case may be, did not love her. There is one women she praises because this lady was prepared to give up her relationship with her boyfriend because the said boyfriend was not contesting his ex-wifes claim to custody of their child. This womans decision restores Doctor Lauras faith in humanity because she is passionate about doing the right things and living by the values of family and community. O, yes, she is also deeply religious.

The book consists of case studies of 40-year-old John/Jane Doe who called up and told the doctor she/he had this problem. Then she details her advice and tells the person why she thinks he/she is lacking in one or all of the three Cs. This is delivered in the hectoring style of the Ten Commandments dumbed down for consumption by morons. Then she proceeds to analyse from the specific to draw general conclusions about what, in her opinion, constitutes bad attitude.

The people whose case studies form the core of this book are not savoury specimens on the whole. Many of them obviously need help and most of them definitely lack all the three Cs. They also seem to be uniformly grateful to her for her suggested solutions. That could be because she has only talked about the cases where the callers were actually grateful.

This book, however has been on the New York Times bestseller list for several months. That, given its unendingly irritating style and hysterical attitude, gives one pause for thought. Obviously lots of people like being sent back to Sunday School for a Moral Science lecture.

In Eric Hofferian terms, Laura Schlessinger is just another person who has succeeded in creating a power base by pushing the triggers of the True Believers. However, if you like your laughs uncomplicated, try alternating case studies from this with Bina Ramanis and Pearl Padamsees agony aunt columns on a lazy Sunday Afternoon.