Tuesday, December 12, 2006

A dumptruck full of stupid

This is really making the blogger rounds, so I'm probably the last person to weigh in on it and you're already probably tired of hearing about it. But, just in case you live under a rock, here it is: Jim Rutz, a columnist at World Net Daily, has written a column about how soy-based foods make you gay. Seriously. I am not making this up. The title of the article is, "A devil food is turning our kids into homosexuals." After reading it, I'm honestly surprised such a short piece of writing can contain such a high level of weapons-grade stupidity.

There has got to be at least one factual error, stereotype, or just flat-out fabrication in every sentence, if not every word of this article. His thesis is that soy products contain estrogens, and those are "feminising" and that's bad. This is basically the money quote:

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products.

Oh, Stupid, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

  1. Rise in homosexuality? There are really more gay people now than previously? Based on what, he doesn't say. Maybe it was all those studies on gay people done in the 1880s that he's referring to. If there's been such a big rise in queers, that just makes it doubly frustrating that I can't find a date.

  2. Note the implication that gay men are feminine. Fags lack masculinity. We all walk around lisping, bending our pinky fingers when we drink tea, and carrying a purse. A pink purse. With sequins. Good God, someone get this man to a leather bar, quick.
  3. So soy leads to femininity, which leads to small dicks and all the faggotry, huh? The only study I've been able to find suggests that gay men have bigger dicks, not little ones. (Bogaert and Hershberger. "The Relation Between Sexual Orientation and Penile Size." Archives of Sexual Behavior. 28. 213 (1999).)

I could go on, but I'm trying not to. (Did you notice I didn't mention his claim that childhood leukemia has increased by more than one-fourth in a single year? One-fourth! Argh.) There is so much stupid in this article, it burns on contact.

This was published on World Net Daily, and there's a reason it's sometimes referred to as World Nut Daily by people with a functioning cerebellum. What I fear, is that there are people that use it (and probably FOX News) as a primary source of information, and will read this, internalize quite a bit of it, and never begin to suspect the yawning chasm of stupid that lies within it.

Others, smarter than me, have already weighed in: Sing a Song of Sixpence, Feministing, Ex-Gay Watch, Americablog, Pam's House Blend, Wayne Besen, and Pharyngula are a few.

(Just no one tell John Bambenek about this article, please. He likes to quote studies done by the Heritage Foundation and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and calls it "research.")

Anyway, Jim Rutz is a putz.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh for heaven's sake. I'm not smarter than you...I want to be you when I grow up!

Anonymous said...

I like how you try to ride my coattails to notability.

Narc said...

Fig: When do you think that will be? Because, you know, I'm on the clock here.

Mr. Bambenek: I don't seek notability, whether via your coattails or any other article of your clothing.

Anonymous said...

I guess I'll be grown up when I stop going to school....which won't be any time soon.

Did I tell you I'm getting PhD?

Anonymous said...

Everyone who blogs seeks notability, the entire industry is built around vanity.

Anonymous said...

The definition I have for notability is a celebrity who is an inspiration to others.

While Narc was that even before he started blogging, I would argue that most people who blog do it pass the time, to explore ideas, to spread ideas they feel worth spreading, and to socialize. There are thousands of blogs, most of them read by only a few faithful readers and their writers have no aspirations of celebrity.

Herman Melville wrote: "We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results."

THAT is why people blog.

David said...

I think "notoriety" is the word Mr. B is looking for, not "notability." The dictionary defines "notability" as "a famous or important person." So, by blogging, I'm seeing a famous person? Eh? Though, in theory, he's right; the only reason to read blogs in which one is being dissed is to feed one's own vanity.