The Secret is.. making people pay you for helping them! When you're not!
I am a fellow who is interested in, concerned about, and in my own way have commented on, issues of contemporary sexism. As such it should be no surprise that I enjoy reading the blog, Girls Read Comics (And They're Pissed), on occasion. On occasion, not because it updates infrequently, or because it is only sometimes enjoyable (both of these are untrue), but rather because I often find myself forgetting that it's still there. I am.. easily distracted. When I was reading there today, and Karen (the common author) made mention to "familiarity with the principles and theories of feminism", I found myself struck with a kind of paranoia that a feminist blogger who I admire and enjoy reading from may, just may, subscribe to the definitions of feminism that I have spoken out against in this very journal. Did she and I fundamentally disagree on what was OK in the battle for gender equality, and I simply hadn't noticed?
I followed a link she recommended to a Feminism 101 Blog, with intent to find precisely what kind of feminist she was (there are, of course, several kinds), and was genuinely delighted to find that she (and they at the blog) are my kind of feminists. More delightful still was a reference to the 'power-based' feminist theory that I loath so much, which described them as "simply dismissive and condescending" in regard to the sensitivity of gender-issues.
That made me smile. 

In other news, I spent over two hours today 'supervising' (for lack of a better word) my mother's viewing of The Secret. I took it upon myself to pause the film for my mother, and point out to her any point in which the film contained blatant logical inconsistencies or clear scientific misinformation (which is to say, lies). I was only permitted to interject like this once per problem/lie, but it was still enough quick corrections overall to turn a one and a half hour movie into an over two hours long exercise in exasperation. I can think of fewer pure examples than The Secret of what Sam Harris describes as 'life-destroying gibberish'. 
It's not so much that I don't trust my mother to make a reliable and informed decision herself, based on the facts. I simply know better than to assume that my mother has the empirical background to know when she is simply being lied to.
Tim.