Today's Stupidity Round-up...
From the local Channel 4 website:
Lawmaker Angry About School's 'SexFest'
HARRISONBURG, Va. -- A Virginia state lawmaker is still hot over "SexFest."
Delegate Robert Marshall called last month's "SexFest 2003" a bawdy show-and-tell. He blasted officials at state-supported James Madison University for allowing the event that included a demonstration of how to put on a condom.
In a letter to the lawmaker, school President Linwood Rose said it would be naive to think college students don't engage in sex. Rose added that the important thing is that students are fully educated.
Marshall said that explanation doesn't pass what he calls the "blush test." He said that educating students about condoms "has produced the current epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases."
Wait a minute, let me get this straight... teaching students about condoms has PRODUCED the current epidemic in STDs?!? Aren't condoms considered one of the first lines of defense against AIDS? Isn't the reason condoms have been promoted so much in the past couple of decades BECAUSE THEY HELP PREVENT STDs!?
I'm sorry Mr. Marshall, you're the one failing the blush test here... that kind of stupid statement ought to produce some kind of blush!
and, in other stupidity news...
Wal-Mart today announced that it was pulling Maxim, Stuff and FHM from their shelves -- saying the magazines are too racy for its customers. Fine, Wal-Mart's got every right to choose not to carry these magazines. (Frankly, I don't care much because I don't shop at Wal-Mart and the "lad magazines", as they're known, are all too frat-boy in their sensibilities and content. Too much like reading a magazine edited by Johnny Knoxville.)
But, here's where it gets really stupid:
From the article in today's New York Times (3 Racy Men's Magazines Banned by Wal-Mart): 'The Timothy Plan, a mutual funds management firm that invests in companies based in part on whether the companies share its values, has been pressing Wal-Mart to pull women's magazines like Cosmopolitan and Glamour from checkout lanes and put them back into the magazine rack. Arthur Ally, president of the Timothy Plan, said that he saw magazines like Maxim and FHM as "a level worse."'
Okay, fine. The Timothy plan considers Maxim et al as "a level worse" than Cosmo and Glamour. Assuming I understand Mr. Ally's value system, I can't argue that one. But here's my favorite part... Mr. Ally is then quoted; "It is soft-core pornography... It's very addictive and leads to harder stuff."
So NOW we've got Maxim and FHM as the "gateway drug" to hard core porn!?! Oh COME ON! That argument is barely plausible when you try to apply it to marijuana and say it leads to harder drugs! (The typical argument there is to point to the statistic that 90% of heroin users started out using pot. It conveniently ignores the coinciding statistic that only 10% of marijuana users go on to use harder drugs.)
But really... now we're extending that argument to men's magazines? ("Little Johnny started with Maxim, but now look at him... lost in that issue of Big Hangin' Ones! It's so sad!")
What an amazing statement.
It's too bad for Mr. Ally, though... If it weren't for Mr. Marshall, I might have been able to give him the dunce cap for the day. But really, dumb as his "leads to harder stuff" comment may be, I think Mr. Marshall's "condoms cause STD's" has got him beat.
From the local Channel 4 website:
Lawmaker Angry About School's 'SexFest'
HARRISONBURG, Va. -- A Virginia state lawmaker is still hot over "SexFest."
Delegate Robert Marshall called last month's "SexFest 2003" a bawdy show-and-tell. He blasted officials at state-supported James Madison University for allowing the event that included a demonstration of how to put on a condom.
In a letter to the lawmaker, school President Linwood Rose said it would be naive to think college students don't engage in sex. Rose added that the important thing is that students are fully educated.
Marshall said that explanation doesn't pass what he calls the "blush test." He said that educating students about condoms "has produced the current epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases."
Wait a minute, let me get this straight... teaching students about condoms has PRODUCED the current epidemic in STDs?!? Aren't condoms considered one of the first lines of defense against AIDS? Isn't the reason condoms have been promoted so much in the past couple of decades BECAUSE THEY HELP PREVENT STDs!?
I'm sorry Mr. Marshall, you're the one failing the blush test here... that kind of stupid statement ought to produce some kind of blush!
and, in other stupidity news...
Wal-Mart today announced that it was pulling Maxim, Stuff and FHM from their shelves -- saying the magazines are too racy for its customers. Fine, Wal-Mart's got every right to choose not to carry these magazines. (Frankly, I don't care much because I don't shop at Wal-Mart and the "lad magazines", as they're known, are all too frat-boy in their sensibilities and content. Too much like reading a magazine edited by Johnny Knoxville.)
But, here's where it gets really stupid:
From the article in today's New York Times (3 Racy Men's Magazines Banned by Wal-Mart): 'The Timothy Plan, a mutual funds management firm that invests in companies based in part on whether the companies share its values, has been pressing Wal-Mart to pull women's magazines like Cosmopolitan and Glamour from checkout lanes and put them back into the magazine rack. Arthur Ally, president of the Timothy Plan, said that he saw magazines like Maxim and FHM as "a level worse."'
Okay, fine. The Timothy plan considers Maxim et al as "a level worse" than Cosmo and Glamour. Assuming I understand Mr. Ally's value system, I can't argue that one. But here's my favorite part... Mr. Ally is then quoted; "It is soft-core pornography... It's very addictive and leads to harder stuff."
So NOW we've got Maxim and FHM as the "gateway drug" to hard core porn!?! Oh COME ON! That argument is barely plausible when you try to apply it to marijuana and say it leads to harder drugs! (The typical argument there is to point to the statistic that 90% of heroin users started out using pot. It conveniently ignores the coinciding statistic that only 10% of marijuana users go on to use harder drugs.)
But really... now we're extending that argument to men's magazines? ("Little Johnny started with Maxim, but now look at him... lost in that issue of Big Hangin' Ones! It's so sad!")
What an amazing statement.
It's too bad for Mr. Ally, though... If it weren't for Mr. Marshall, I might have been able to give him the dunce cap for the day. But really, dumb as his "leads to harder stuff" comment may be, I think Mr. Marshall's "condoms cause STD's" has got him beat.
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