“An appointee to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ new oversight board in control of Disney’s special tax district… shared a baseless conspiracy theory that tap water could be making more people gay.”
Reading that in a CNN story, I’m wondering… “What about filtered water?” Would it assuage the appointee’s concerns… or anyone else’s, for that matter?
Apparently, the Florida governor is punishing Disney World for opposing what’s being described as the Sunshine State’s ‘Don’t Say Gay law.’
“All of this is to say that [the appointee, Ron Peri], a grown-up human who thinks you can catch gay from tap water, will now be making decisions that will impact Central Florida as a whole,” reported the Orlando Weekly.
This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has come up. In 2011, Peruvian mayor, Jose Benitez, “in one of the most unusual claims about homosexuality to emerge” back then, according to the Huffington Post, was “blaming the high mineral levels in the area’s drinking water for a perceived increase in the number of gay men residing in his town.”
The dean of the College of Pharmaceutical Chemistry of Lima had dismissed the mayor’s claims.
In 2010, according to the Los Angeles Times, the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, had “decried chicken producers who” were injecting “female hormones into their fowl,” and claimed “because of that, men” consuming chicken cuisines, allegedly, were having “problems being men.”
And not only that, the female hormones in chickens were being blamed for male baldness… that too.
This stuff gets complicated, especially if you start wondering… if such concerns could have been watered down with, shall we say, filtered water? But then again, who knows? Probably someone will have to look into that.
‘Wackiness’ is coming up an awful lot, right now, in conversations with folks my family and I know. They’re astounded there’s so much wackiness.
In the news, there’s a plethora of it. Like, for example, 2024 presidential hopeful Nikki Haley deeming “wokeness” a “virus more dangerous than any pandemic.” That was in Rolling Stone.
Louisiana Senator John Kennedy is saying Americans ought not to be governed by “deeply weird, nauseously woke people who hate George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Seuss, and Mr. Potato Head.” He did actually say that.
Senator Kennedy’s allegation about woke folks hating the venerable potato toy apparently has to do with the decision to give Mr. P. a more gender-inclusive identity by dropping “Mr.” from its brand name, reported The New York Times, back in February 2021. In the political arena of anti-woke sentiment, that might explain the Louisiana senator’s rather extreme allegation. But Newsweek subsequently reported that the Mr. Potato Head brand was being changed to Potato Head, “to better reflect the full line” of Potato characters, and that Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head would continue to be ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’
As the British might say, maybe Senator Kennedy needn’t have gotten his knickers in such a twist.
The co-founder of venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz, Marc Andreesen, noted in a Fortune Magazine article that “we’re heading into a world where a flat-screen TV that covers your entire wall costs $100 and a 4-year degree costs $1 million…”
Wackiness! Can you believe it?
And what was that again… about woke folks hating Mr. Potato Head?
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.