Why is Bill Maher’s name echoing in my head right now? It was Jenny McCarthy who was invited to promote a breast cancer charity in Ottawa, and had her invitation revoked because she’s a woo-woo dingleberry child-killing putz.
I think it’s because the charity didn’t think it through.
“To be honest, we didn’t expect this kind of response,” said Eagen, adding she thought the choice of McCarthy was made for all the right reasons.
“We recognized that she had some incredible talent to bring to this event. She is an energized woman who can bring excitement to hundreds of people who would be working hard that day. We didn’t select her based on her personal opinions. We really focused on her celebrity fitness instructor profile and we had hoped that’s what people would find exciting about her visit to Ottawa.
“When we started to get that (negative) feedback where people were talking about anything but cancer, we just decided to move away from that.”
It’s a medical charity, and McCarthy promotes quackery. Shouldn’t that have set off a few alarms?
Fortunately, other people were on the ball — like Larry Moran, the Ottawa Skeptics, and CFI Canada — and wrote to the organizers, informing them of her ignorant anti-vaccine stance. Goodbye, Jenny.
Phil Plait at BA was on it pretty quickly as well. That attracted another wall of 1000+ comments for Slate.
The past two years anti-vax has been hammered. I am happy.
They started getting feedback with people lacking about anything but cancer?
What did they expect? Jenny McCarthy has a website devoted to her “death count” for promoting Wakefield and scaring people away from the settled science of vaccines.
She’s brought the excitement, all right.
“Putz?” That Jenny McCarthy is many unsavory things, albeit superficially attractive, but a “putz?” As a male, I’m rather offended and resent the association. You may wish to brush up on your Yiddish.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/putz
Don’t call McCarthy a putz, you schmuck!
Nudnik might’ve been better.
I live in Ottawa and was appalled when I heard that Jenny McCarthy was invited to participate in the Cancer event. It’s fine for them to say she was asked for her personality and not her ideas. However, people do not compartmentalize like that. Giving her a platform does, even if unintentionally, provide her an air of authenticity. She needs to be ignored.
I, and obviously many others, cantacted the organization. There was enough swift and negative response that Jenny McCarthy was uninvited. It is great that people in the area jumped on this and got a horrible decision reversed.
What I don’t understand is why anyone within the organization would think, even for a second, that she would be an appropriate choice.
Oy vey; what was i thinking? That Jenny McCarthy is a meshuggeneh.
♪ One of these things is not like the others ♫
Well, I certainly agree that she has “some incredible talent” in medical issues.
(Which is to say, it is utterly non-credible that she has talent)
I thought one of the primary reasons for promoting the HPV vaccine was the fact it could prevent a potentially deadly cancer in women. Couldn’t that be reason enough not to invite an anti-vaxxer to this type of thing without the complaint about the people “talking about anything but cancer”?
ABBIE SMITH aka ERV on Science Blogs talks about the latest in microbiology and imunolgy. Then we talk smack on anti-vaxxers, quacks, frauds and creationists.
http://skeptiles.com/skeptiles-episode-21/
Skeptiles.com
ck @10, in men too, apparently.
Is there some way we can report #11 for being spam?
@scooterskutre
You find nothing ironic about promoting one vile, repulsive person in a thread about how another person’s invitation was withdrawn from an event because she is also vile and repulsive?
Sadly, they had to pay her, for not coming.
This should also be spread, to maximise the trashing of her reputation.
(In the interests of health care of course)
@13 and @14.
I am a satirist , and if you haven’t noticed, we are the journalists of your time. Let me share a story with you.
I was beaten, handcuffed, thrown to the ground and arrested in front of my children at the Crawford TX protest in support of Cindy Sheehan , whom is one awesome woman.
The reason I was beaten by police was because I dared to walk across the road to interview the counter-protestors. This was not allowed. The police and Cindy Sheehan’s self appointed Peace nazis had agreed that was prohibited. I got beaten up, my microphone and recorder was confiscated, spent 10 hours in a WACO jail, because I DARED to cross the line. In defense of Cindy Sheehan, she had no idea this shit was going on, and the whole nightmare ended up as a weird story on Air America.
How many of you have put your asses on the line or stepped out of bounds or thrown your pathetic asses into the gears? Fuck you..I’m allowed to be a friend of PZ and Abbie, and you are not. How dare you call her a repulsive person because she’s not in lockstep with your idea of how a woman should behave as an appropriate atheist.. The show in question was all science. I thought that was a good thing,
http://skeptiles.com/skeptiles-episode-21/
I am also in Ottawa and would have made some noise about this had I heard about it, but the first time I saw anything dealing wit this was a CBC story about how she had been dropped from the event. A good ending though.
harbo, she got paid anyway?
(So, she wasn’t actually doing it for charity, but for money?)
@16: Irrelevant. It was spamvertising. And your defense has nothing to do with McCarthy nor Ottawa nor breast cancer. Appeals to authority created via special pleading: No one cares if you’re a friend of PZ or of Jesus if it doesn’t relate to the topic at hand, be it true or false.
As for the on-hand topic, some faith in Ottawa has been restored. Though we’re a bit better than our southern neighbors about it a lot of the time, we can still go a long, long way forward. I’m tempted to give them benefit of the doubt, there are a LOT of stupid people in the world, who are unaware of the vitriol that others spew, especially when, for some reason, doctors are the enemy of the month. Even a family member had a “things [i]they[/i] don’t want you to know about” BS book. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, but Richard Simmons was last year’s? Do that one again! He’s pretty cool as far as I can tell, for a fitness instructor.
@19 I have no idea what you are talking about. Ottawa or breast cancer, or southern neighbors.
Right back atcha, slick.
#13 you should by all means report me as spam and while you’re at it, report this terrible Rebeca Watson-PZ Myers to the internet. ASSHOLE!!!
http://acksisofevil.org/audio/inner356.mp3
you Stalinist Cunt.
Is it still okay to sat cunt here?
[meta]
Scooter, no, it ain’t OK.
(The genius loci of this place has grown and matured, and it very much frowns on such epithets)
Yeah! Abbie Smith is on the ride side when it comes to this. She better fucking be, she is a virologist.
Still, it does no good to spam this thread anything she might be on. Or are you one of those who is above the fray.
Also, what the fuck does your story have to do with anything? And why do you assume that you are the only one who has put their safety on the line standing for a principle? (I am speaking as someone who has been pushed up against police horses during anti-war protests. I am sure I am hardly alone in this.)
Take your ERV authority loving ass out of here.
Scoterskutre:
Please understand that people’s dislike of M. Smith has nothing to do with “how a woman should behave as an appropriate atheist” and everything to do with how a human should behave to be viewed as a decent human being.
Seeing your last here, it seems you’re a bit fuzzy on the details there yourself though.
Well kiss my ass John, is it okay to say suck my dick?
Wow! This troll is so convincing!
It Came From The Pit
Such a cheesy wannabe horror film.
Troll in the dungeon! Thought you ought to know… *faints*
=====
Jenny McCarthy gets no respect because she has not only not earned it, she has actively worked to lose any respect others might have had for her, primarily by pushing alt-med autism woo and anti-vaxx bullshit.
No, it isn’t. Obviously not the place for you. You might want to run back to erv or something. Or just fuck off.
#25 I’m not fuzzy on anything. I’ve been covering the story from the gitgo, and who the fuck is M. Smith? You seem to be fuzzy on the details. I can talk to Abbie Smith about everything we have in common, never brought up the schism yall have entrenched, and am being fucked with. Take a good long look in the mirror.
I guess someone is getting their Banned From Pharyngula Badge of Honor soon…
Vaiyt:
Mmm. Gosh, it’s amazing such a good friend of PZ’s would be unaware of ‘pit policy.
Take a look in the mirror? Rich, coming from a self important schmuck, who, when called on his motives, screams about people being Stalinists.
Next time you look in the mirror, make sure that it is the reflective side.
Caine, I am sure that he has had long talks with PZ about everything they have in common and the subject of the slymepit has never came up.
Janine:
Well, it is such an uncommon subject and all. :eyeroll:
Here’s hoping the tantrum is over now.
#32? Is mentioning Abbie Smith gonna get me banned?
I’ve been hanging out at this blog forever, and obviously you feared waking up your mom to play the Rebecca-PZ link from your basement enclave. You should call PZ on your hotline, right now. He has been warned about me.
I thought I could slip some extra science into Pharyngula on the sly by posting this,
just to sucker some of you into it
http://skeptiles.com/skeptiles-episode-21/
but you’re too interested in you gossip and bullshit. I lost interest in your flameWar last year. It was amusing for awhile, but yall are really pathetic. The New Atheist movement should have schismed over the fascist ideologies of Hitchens and Harris, and yall beoke down over gender shit? Unbelievable.
I there a lingering smell in here?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’m very, very pleased that Ms McCarthy was rejected. I’m not at all surprised she demanded a bung for it. Wicked, wicked woman. She’s evil, setting back the causes of human rights, disabled rights and medical health in every sphere she has infected with her presence.
M. is the genderless honourific. It doesn’t work very well in spoken language though. On the other hand, I never use honourifics on people I like. And people I don’t like I prefer to keep in written form. It all works out.
I’m sorry, given your apparent qualifications and clarity of thought I should have spelled out things more clearly: You seem to be very fuzzy on the details on how to be a decent human. Or rather, since you’ve now passed three points: You haven’t got a fucking clue at all, dipshit. Enroll in a good kindergarten, the teachers there might teach you something you’ve obviously failed to learn by yourself.
[meta]
Scooter:
If I want to find out about virology, I’ll look on the internet.
(Sure looks like you just wanted to promote your show, especially after the third time you posted the same fucking link)
But not so pathetic that you won’t attempt to spruik your show to us.
Reality is only unbelievable to those who are in denial.
—
* Now gone. :)
In all these years strolling over the internet, I never quite got the gist of what makes trolls think that entering a discussion and acting like a diseased chimp is some sort of triumph on their part.
Maybe trolls are diseased chimps.
“‘Cause, really, worrying about women!
Ha!
Look kiddos, I’m an Internet Tough Guy, and I can’t be bothered with silly women’s stuff like equal rights and all that. I’m here to act smart and spew epithets. And I ain’t nearly out of epithets!”
Back to Jenny McCarthy. Why did a breast cancer charity in Ottawa think it was a good idea to have a former Playboy Playmate of the Year promote their cause? Playboy is a misogynist rag, Using a former representative of that rag sends a strong message to women about their lack of value in society.
Janice Anderson,
Unfortunately, it seems that the idea of promoting the fight against breast cancer more often goes in the direction of “save the boobies!!!!” than “save women’s health”.
Tsig
“Maybe trolls are diseased chimps.”
Unlikely, antibiotics would help the chimps. Not even reason and access to education can help trolls.
Janice Anderson @ 44
My guess is that one of Ms. McCarthy’s followers suggested her as a ‘health-conscious celebrity mom’ rather than as her role as a former Playmate. She seems to have been quite successful at rebranding herself in some circles as a celebrity mom without really mentioning where the celebrity bit came from.
(I’d think if one was going to get a celebrity, a breast-cancer survivor might be a more relevant speaker than someone, AFAIK, has never had cancer. And, as others have pointed out, her anti-vaccine stance, when extended to the HPV vaccine, puts people at risk for cancer.)
Well god damn! Forgive everyone for not knowing what an important role you play in the world.
Here, have a nice cookie. It has chocolate chunks.
I’m wondering if there is any increased chance of breast cancer if you have breast enlargements?
Ahh well at least by this, no increase.
So that shoots down that reason for inviting her.
I don’t think her playboy days have anything to do with her veracity. I mean Nina Hartley is pretty sensible when it comes to HIV charities and sex education. Her career has little to do with what message she is spreading.
If the points she makes are sensible, if the arguments she holds are true then it doesn’t matter what she worked as if she is merely attending an event to give a “speech”. I mean Bill Gates has ABSOLUTELY no qualifications with regards to medicine. He just happens to be right in his support for genuine medicine as opposed to Steve Jobs. Both were arguably extremely intelligent and made products that revolutionised the world we lived in but Steve Jobs believed in some weapons grade quackery while Bill is firmly entrenched in science.
It’s hilarious when someone’s defense is pretty much what we’re criticizing them for.
I think the what i thought was obvious point here is, is that why ask Jenny McCarthy, blatant distorter of science and medicine, to speak on a subject that is full of science and medicine.
The next question is a sarcastic one wondering if perhaps they thought maybe her stint as a Playboy Playmate made her a credible choice to speak on such matters.
Many people simply don’t know much about anti-medicine quackery. Most doctors are too busy to deal with their bullshit or think “Go for it muppet, all you are doing is drumming up more business”.
My guess is that the people organizing this event were focusing on Jenny McCarthy as a “hey, let’s all do some exercise!” icon and either weren’t aware of her stance on quackery, weren’t aware of the extent of her activism on quackery, or — worst (and most likely) possibility — are divided themselves on the science behind the “hey, let’s all make vaccines safer!” propaganda and thought it was one of those “hey, let’s all agree to disagree!” issues. Which it isn’t.
As for skooterskutre’s post at #11, I don’t think it was either spam or off-topic. I suppose there’s an interesting argument over whether there’s a relevant parallel between Jenny McCarthy and Abbie Smith in the persona non grata department (once you fuck up on A we don’t care to hear what you have to say about B) — but it would probably be more interesting to have that argument with skooter, than about him.
In fairness to Pharyngula, if The-Other-Website was having a creationism discussion and skooter posted a link to an interview on the specific topic with PZ, I wonder if the reaction would have been the same, or more so, or less so. Since I don’t read that one, I don’t know. Sounds like it would have been even worse, though — which might or might not console skooter.
my comma usage quota has been reached for the day.
I suspect that most residents of Ottawa, if they know about Jenny McCarthy apart from her anti-vax activism, know her as Jim Carrey’s ex.
If Jenny McCarthy is getting no respect, that’s still far too much.
So, does this mean active disrespect constitutes zero respect or negative respect?
@scooterskutre #16:
The journalists of my time wouldn’t have made such a schoolboy howler as:
But now that I’ve read the rest of your garbage (and not followed any of your links), I have some context to go by: you’re not a satirist.
Criminy! Comma coma!
The correct term would be “stupidist,” or possibly “moron.”
Dang, only one thing to do with that line.
*starts lining up the grog…*