Ditzes: "Newsweek's Oprah Exposé Was Sexist and Racist"

Let's just pretend that this is universe is fair for a second. In that universe, I am jumping up and down on the heads of Katty Kay and Claire Shipman.

Seriously, the HuffPost will print anything, and this week they proved it. It was called:"Did Anyone Else Think The Newsweek Photo of Oprah Was Misogynistic? And Just Plain Dumb?" My answer is, "Clearly, it's only you two nitwits." They are talking about the cover of the recent Newsweek issue in which Oprah was ripped a new one for pushing fraudulent cures and New Age idiocy. A new one wide enough I could park my car in.

First of all, whatever case the reporters were trying to make about Oprah, it would have helped them tremendously to have done it in a dignified manner. That photo was just in horribly bad taste. Picking a photo of Oprah to make her literally look crazy, with a banner headline about wacky cures? Was the point to make her look like a nutty witch doctor? In fact it felt not only misogynistic, but racist. I could almost hear the voodoo drumbeats in the background.

If you had understood the article's content, you would have seen that that is exactly what they were going for, and they had the science to back their assertions. So, the picture of her looking a little like a spazz was really perfectly in line with the message of the article.

Also, what the fuck was the cover supposed to look like? This?


That makes SO much more sense. Oprah is a black woman. But let's face it, you don't really give a crank about whether or not a black woman should be on the cover of a magazine with a feature article about...the same black woman. You claim that the article is weak. Well, then, let's do this:

First of all--"Outside Oprah's world, there isn't a raging debate about replacing hormones." Really? What planet are the authors on? There's plenty of debate, despite the research into hormone therapy, and the risks associated with it. Menopause hits many women like a truck, and millions of women wonder what to do. About 20 percent still use some sort of hormones for at least a short time. And, um, as Newsweek put on the cover in 2002 with "The Science of Alternative Medicine," the holistic approach is gaining ground.

You have two fallacies here. The first is what is a type of appeal to sympathize with the victim's feelings. (I can't think of a corresponding formally named fallacy off-hand.) When you explain, like I have, to Allison Dubois's victims that they have had their minds fucked with by a fraudster by saying, "No, you can't talk to the dead," they get irate. "WHY DO YOU WANT THESE PEOPLE TO HURT?!" they rage. And that, of course, is not the point at all.

The second fallacy is in the statement that holistic "medicine" is gaining ground. This is a species of ad populum, which says, "Lots of people are doing or believe in A. Therefore, A must be right or true." This is, of course, a steaming load of dingo dirt.

Next, you are misrepresented what she is doing: injecting her hoo-hoo with estrogen, using both hormone creams and HGH. On her own initiative. There is not an unsued doctor in the world who would agree that there is any debate about whether or not what she is doing is wise.

Lastly, this passage suffers from taking the line out of context. The next sentence of the original article reads:

Somers "is simply repackaging the old, discredited idea that menopause is some kind of hormone-deficiency disease, and that restoring them will bring back youth," says Dr. Nanette Santoro, director of reproductive endocrinology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and head of the Reproductive Medicine Clinic at Montefiore Medical Center.

So who are you to believe? An MD who is a Director of Reproductive Endocrinology or some loon who gets chelation when she catches a whiff of cigarette smoke and by all rights probably should be in a big plastic bubble?

Do we want to go to the extremes Suzanne Somers does? Who has the time? Or the guts? But she's like our food taster. Doing the hard work for us. And if we can seize on 10 percent of what she does as helpful, why not have access to that?

And again, you avoid the larger point that according to credentialed experts taking hormones unnecessarily is a health risk. At the same time, she does so much shit to herself, how would you ever know what was working? Look at this:

Each morning, the 62-year-old actress and self-help author rubs a potent estrogen cream into the skin on her arm. She smears progesterone on her other arm two weeks a month. And once a day, she uses a syringe to inject estrogen directly into her vagina. She swallows 60 vitamins and other preparations every day. "I take about 40 supplements in the morning," she told Oprah, "and then, before I go to bed, I try to remember … to start taking the last 20." [S]he says that she also starts each day by giving herself injections of human growth hormone, vitamin B12 and vitamin B complex. In addition, she wears "nanotechnology patches" to help her sleep, lose weight and promote "overall detoxification." If she drinks wine, she goes to her doctor to rejuvenate her liver with an intravenous drip of vitamin C. If she's exposed to cigarette smoke, she has her blood chemically cleaned with chelation therapy. In the time that's left over, she eats right and exercises, and relieves stress by standing on her head.

I mean...???? How could you ever sort out exactly what was doing what.? The other thing that I think people would benefit from knowing is that Susanne Somers has had ASSLOADS OF PLASTIC SURGERY, a conspicuous omission when you are talking about appearances of "rejuvenation."

Is there really anything wrong with giving people information, and trusting them to ferret through it?

Yes. When it is bad information, it is positively immoral and you should be taken behind the shed and beaten until you shit blood, metaphorically. This is what happens when a doctor gives bad health information and is sued for malpractice. (Of course, doctors get sued when they do everything right and still have a bad outcome.) The same standard does not seem to apply to New Age wackos.

Over and over, these dizzy bimbos prattle on about "challenges to established medicine/autism research/etc." as if it "challenging" was, a priori, a great thing great thing, regardless of outcomes. But there is a reason that established medicine is...established. It is the best known practice. The scientific method has extended our lives ridiculously. Seriously. A century ago, there was no expectation that a grandparent would even be around to meet grandchildren, much less be around to babysit! You know "the Gipper" (not Reagan, but the guy he was playing in the movie)? He died of strep throat. Yeah! I know! Modern medicine has dramatically changed the quality and quantity of life. What these asshats are pushing is what came before real medicine. And, boy, can they shove it!

And just because it does not have the seal of approval from the establishment--is no reason to trash it. Quite the opposite, in many cases. And Newsweek, if you are going to go all paternalistic and controlling and establishment, please at least get your facts straight.

Let me be clear: AltMed does not empower women. It victimizes them and subjects them to exploitation by charlatans. Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, for all their girl-speak, should be considered traitors to their gender.

HJ