30 minutes meals

If you watch MSNBC for the politics fix, no doubt you have seen Rachel Maddow. She's one of the talking heads, a politically savvy woman who has been featured on shows like Hardball with Chris Matthews and Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

In fact, she's been Keith's regular fill-in this summer, a sure sign that she's MSNBC's star on the rise. The network has just announced that Rachel Maddow has been chosen to replace MSNBC's Dan Abrams, bumping his show Verdict out of the primetime lineup.

Maddow is getting a great spot on MSNBC, right after Countdown at 9 p.m. Abrams is not getting kicked to the curb. Like when Tucker Carlson lost his show and remained one of the net's pundits.

Just saw a news crawl on CNN about Rachael Ray's new syndicated talk show, which will premiere across the country on September 18. It said that Ray's show will feature "can do advice" about cooking, travel, and...relationships?

Oh, great. Dr. Phil with a spatula.

Seriously, do we need yet another talk show that gets into the relationships and personal lives of the guests? Is Rachael Ray going to show a woman in the audience how to make BLTs and then ask her, "so, were you abused as a child?" I mean, Rachael...why can't you stick with your strengths, which is making food in the kitchen that all of us can do, giving us travel tips we can use, and having some fun? Why drag relationships into the show's mix?

I still haven't seen any evidence that this is going to be the "different" daytime show that the ads have been touting.

Or, was, at any rate. Page Six (cribbing from the ever-reliable National Inquirer) is reporting today that the uber-hyper TV cook, now host of the Food Network's 30 Minute Meals as well as a frequent guest on Oprah, dropped out of Pace University after after blowing through her tuition money, and, with creditors on her tail, fled New York for the Adirondacks. "She spent the money and then she didn’t want her mom to find out, so she borrowed money to pay her tuition, and then she couldn’t pay it back," a source told the scandal sheet. "She was bouncing checks, and some people were threatening her.” Ray's official bio says nothing about her days at Pace – only that she worked in several NY gourmet stores before deciding that "though this New York City fast track was exciting, Rachel ... wanted to return to the lifestyle of the Adirondacks.” Her rep insists that she left New York after being mugged by the same man twice, a story which Ray's father, Jim, confirmed to the Inquirer. " She thought she’d be raped or murdered the last time," Jim said. "Fortunately a dog barked and he ran off.”