Falwell may be dead, but his legacy continues. In fact, if I believed in demonic possession, I’d say his fiendish soul has popped into the body of a Polish woman (Kinky! Perhaps he had sublimated desires which he now indulges), Ewa Sowinska. Sowinska is a “chilren’s rights watchdog”, and she is concerned about a certain popular children’s program.
In comments reminiscent of criticism by the late U.S. evangelist Jerry Falwell, she was quoted as saying: “I noticed (Tinky Winky) has a lady’s purse, but I didn’t realize he’s a boy.”
“At first I thought the purse would be a burden for this Teletubby … Later I learned that this may have a homosexual undertone.”
And the government responds!
Polish Education Minister Roman Giertych has proposed laws sacking teachers who promote “homosexual lifestyle” and banning “homo-agitation” in schools.
Hmmm. Giertych, Giertych, Giertych…that name rings a bell. Oh, yeah…he’s that Polish creationist!
Isn’t it kind of amazing how multiple kinds of ignorance tend to cluster in certain individuals? It’s like they’re just stupid or something.
Haha, you should compare their first names, they’re brothers. Still, they are both crazy.
Should that be “Master Bater”?
Wow! PZ is responsible for the military-industrial complex? I thought he was only responsible for the moral degradation of Western/Christian Civilization!
They never talk about medical research do they. Or agriclutural research. or…
The repetition from these trolls is endless.
I always get amused by people who rant against science and universities while using a computer to access the internet.
Master Blaster – most weapon systems are developed by engineers, not scientists. I can tell you from personal experience that engineers, especially those working in defense industries, tend to be overwhelmingly conservative and religious
Sorry, gang, your comments are dangling. I deleted the post from Master Blaster. It was one of the familiar Kansas trolls — you know, the high school kids who live in their parents’ basements and know how to use a proxy server, and do nothing but troll blogs about evolution and leave comments about how evil science is.
Tinky-Winky is gay?
Next you’ll be telling me that LaLa has married Richard Dawkins.
Science isn’t evil? Oh no! I’m in the wrong profession.
Ms. Sowinska and Mr. Giertych are sure going to be angry when they find out that Bert and Ernie are gay and have been living together since the 70’s.
That’s not a purse Tinky Winky’s carrying. That’s an itty-bitty messenger bag, and we all know how butch those are.
Homoagitation. I love it. A new film developer solution.
And not a single Polish joke on this thread. How’s that for civility?
How do you determine the sex of a teletubby anyway?
Nevermind, i’m sure i don’t want to know.
Not brothers, but father and son. (The grandfather was also a prominent politician.) I like this, from Roman’s Wikipedia page:
…he was a young bookworm who devoured dozens of books…
Dozens!
Calling them stupid gives a bad name to stupid people.
The females are cable-ready.
It’s not a purse. It’s European.
Teletubbies are one of the few, rare species to carry their gonads in a detachable, external sack. Therefore we know Tinky is a male because of his “purse”.
This condition is only temporary, though, as Teletubbies also share their sex communaly. The “purse” belongs to each member of the clan and can be traded between members in exchange for certain favors. The troupe as a whole can be thought of as “male”, though, as there are in fact no female Teletubbies, it is a distinction of trivial importance. It would be more proper to refer to Tinky as the (currently) “sexed” Teletubby, rather than male or female.
Reproduction only occurs by accident, and at this point in time, neither Teletubbies nor researchers have been able to determine its cause. Therefore, while it is safe to say that Teletubbies are homoscial they are not, by definition, homosexual.
Except for Po. Dirty, dirty Po.
…Bert and Ernie are gay…
Not as gay as Bernie and Ert!
To be fair, those from religious backgrounds do know the most about corrupting the young.
It’s unfortunate that they tend to see the entire world in terms of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ propaganda.
Careful, PZ. If you call them stupid then Chris o-Stuart will get concerned.
To me, the amusing thing about the teletubbies is not that some wingnuts insist on attributing a sexual orientation to colored bits of fuzz, but that most people (including non-wingnuts) insist on attributing a sex or gender to colored bits of fuzz. It’s SNL’s “Pat” all over again.
Now you mention it, a number of things about the Teletubbies are quite suspect. They all sleep together in a grass-covered mound (I don’t even know where to begin raising my eyebrows at that one); they spend their days eating “tubby custard”, and they they all take turns in wearing La-La’s frilly pink tutu. That’s a veritable carnival of debauchery already, and I haven’t even started on the noo-noo…
I believe that sexing of teletubbies requires insertion of a finger into the cloaca. If the finger penetrates past the first knuckle, it is is female.
Or do I have them confused with baby aligators…
For sexing TTs: shouldn’t we find out if there are Spanish translations of the show? The translators would have to be experts in this field.
Teletubbies. This spanish language web-site seems to have them sexed – but no explanation on method. Haven’t found any peer-reviewed paper by the author, but hopefully he’ll publish soon.
The other blog that I read on a regular basis mentioned this the other day. It’s a GLBT blog so they have their own spin on this but take a look at the picture and decide if you agree with the first comment. BTW, there seems to have been a lot of traffic there caused by a troll named Josh who had the audacity to go to a blog run by a black lesbian, which has a large number of transpeople, and where I think that there may be only two or three other straight people, to whine about how persecuted he is as a Christian. I’m getting it from both blogs, oh my! ;^)
Thanks for that mena. Josh is an idiot. Note his idictment of ‘Islamofascism’ (thanks, Rush!) for violent behaviour but nonchalanant dismissal of similar charges against Xianity with ‘yawn, more old testament stuff, we’ve been over this before.’
It makes such perfect sense when you’re divinely right!
Obviously you people have not spent enough time watching Teletubbies. Their genders are quite clear, based on the gendered pronouns used by the all-seeing, all-knowing narrator. The pronouns are not often used, as for some reason pronouns are seen by tv producers as being confusing to toddlers or something, but once you’ve watched a few dozen hours of it, you find that Tinky Winky and Dipsy are hes, La-La and Po are hers. Additional information: Tinky Winky’s signature accessory is a red purse, Dipsy’s is a black and white top hat, La-La’s is a pink tutu, and Po’s is a scooter. The Noo-Noo is the only one of ambiguous gender, and sadly always has to clean up the spilled tubby custard.
Be sure to read Hellbound Allee’s brief post about “An eBay tribute to Jerry Fallwell.”
Idiots. Every self-respecting poofter-bashing neo-Nazi skinhead KNOWS that a guy with a handbag is an effem(inate) or a tranny (transvestite), not a poofter.
Jeez, it’s getting that you can’t even find a half-decent bigot in the world any more!
(* winks ironically *)
Ah, but they are married. Ever since 1992. Although, it is a surprise to me that Lalla Ward is a Tellitubby…
windy: er, where does that come from? Surely not the German version of Sesame Street.