■"'Oprah' Is Attracting Young, Female Viewers To TV in Saudi Arabia," by Yasmine El-Rashidi, Wall Street Journal, 1 December 2005, p. B1.

When Karen Hughes showed up in the kingdom with her public diplomacy a while back, a bunch of hand-picked professional Saudi women gave her what for on their alleged lack of opportunity. Of course, they were the cream of the crop, and despite being that they nonetheless lack the right to vote, drive cars, and a host of other things that women in the West take for granted. Sure, there are a host of feminized positions in Saudi Arabia's economy that they are allowed to pursue as professions, but they remain essentially minors politically and socially.

We are told they like it that way (and Hughes was told much the same) because they view life and the world differently than women over here per se.

And yet, given the connectivity of having Oprah's show broadcast in the kingdom, lo and behold we discover that young women are pulled into her orbit by droves. Why? She talks about all sorts of stuff they want to talk about but that aren't freely and openly discussed in that society.

Here's the kicker: "almost a third of Saudi Arabia's population of 26 million is women under the age of 25 years old." And guess what? This "group of women commonly perceived as sheltered and conservative was actually identifying with the same issues as women around the world."

We get this notion, and it's real, all the time about generations in the Middle East: that the young men are more conservative than older men.

This is true, by and large, because young men see radical Islam as a way out of the stultifying corruption and decay of authoritarian rule throughout the region.

But for women, the opposite, I will argue, is largely true. Few of them will escape much if radical Islamists take over: they will simply trade one form of oppression for another very similar. Here, I think we find that younger women will tend to be far more open to perceived Westernization.

And along those lines, Oprah will be a killer!

I have said it before and I say it again: to put it crudely, expanding globalization is mostly about liberating women and, when necessary, killing the young men who stand in the way of that process.

If Oprah can do it peacefully, then more power to her. Same argument I offer on hip hop in BFA.