CORINNE GRANT’S RAGE INDEX
There’s no sense in getting angry if you don’t know how to do it properly.
Here’s the stuff to get worked up about this week and, more importantly, the extent to which you should do your lolly.
Let Them Eat Yellowcake! Gina Rinehart says we’re all jealous of her.
In a stern lecture to the little people, Gina made the very good point that poor people earn far too much and we should lower their wages. She then made the further good point that poor people are poor because they’re not working hard enough. See? It’s easy: all you have to do is earn less and work longer hours and soon you’ll be a multi-billionaire just like her.* Oh! And perhaps you could send your children to work in one of her mines.
*Rich father who leaves his entire wealth to you sold separately.
Outrage level: Gina Rinehart has done an incredible amount for this country. She has every right to be furious at us for not getting off our lazy arses and making her queen.
Germaine Greer was allowed back on Q&A and made a dick of herself. Again.
Nowadays, being Germaine Greer means being an expert on a few things and pretending you’re an expert on everything else. Her current tactic is to keep talking for long enough that people forget she didn’t answer the original question and is actually spouting complete bullshit. Given the chance to explain why she focussed on the Prime Minister’s jackets and body instead of her achievements and work the last time she was on the show, Greer claimed that, thanks to her, Gillard has changed her wardrobe. She hasn’t. Germaine then banged on about Julia’s arse again and gave it the thumbs up. The weird thing was, she appears to believe she’s doing Gillard some sort of favour.
Outrage level: If you’re opinionated, have poor reasoning skills and lack the ability to form a logical argument and you haven’t had a go on Q&A yet, you have every right to chuck a massive wobbly that Greer keeps taking your spot.
The European price of carbon is going to kill us all.
See? SEE??? Tony Abbott said the carbon tax was going to ruin us!
…he was just off by a few years.
The price of carbon in Europe is cheaper than here. In three years, our carbon price will be linked to their carbon price. This means we are going to enter an economic hell hole from which we will never escape. Tony Abbott has a similar accuracy rate to Nostradamus – so if he says we’re all going to die of poorness, then we are all going to die of poorness. Just like we died of the mining tax, the carbon tax and aluminium in roll-on deodorant.
Outrage level: I used the words ‘carbon tax’. If you kept reading after that point instead of starting to yell and throw things, then you aren’t doing this right.
Tony Abbott is being picked on by girls.
First, Anna Burke kicks Abbott out of Parliament, then Leigh Sales (left) asks him rude questions about whether he read the report he went on her program to discuss, then Julia Gillard takes on the whole press gallery just to show off and make Tony look bad because he wet himself when one person asked him questions. This is a conspiracy and it’s not just any conspiracy, it’s a great, big lady-orchestrated conspiracy designed to pick on Tony Abbott. I’ll bet you any money it’s being secretly funded by Emily’s List.
Outrage level: Pure, unbridled fury. Go out, find yourself a mouthy chick and call her a cow.
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46 Responses to this article
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Jane Caro August 30, 2012
I caught up on Q&A last night. Sometimes I think Greer doesn’t take herself nearly as seriously as other people do. I liked her responses on the fantasy of colonising other planets – without moulds, bacteria etc. I was also interested in her view on female genital mutilation, don’t think she’s right but like her reluctance to condemn other cultures out of hand. And I thought she was just having fun about Gillard – and made an important point about girls with fat arses feeling like they are losers as soon as puberty hits.
As for all the rest of your rage, Corinne, share it completely along with a few extra irritants. But I’d have to ask my husband’s permission before I told you about those.-
Amy August 30, 2012
Jane, GG is a total legend to a mid-age woman like myself, and it greatly disappoints me that she’s also the only person I know who should probably sit back and rest on those laurels. I can’t understand how she can put culture ahead of the systemic cruelty that is the genital mutilation of young girls. To compare the practice with the discretionary cosmetic procedures undertaken by adult western women is disingenuous in the extreme. I’m sad that G evidently thinks her audience are fools.
As for the jackets and JG, it seemed to me Germaine just seemed to be digging herself in more deeply, making some sort of irrelevant virtue (Julia’s body shape) out of something she shouldn’t have used as a party trick in the first place, on the previous QandA.
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DogMaa August 30, 2012
yeh I’ve seen her in one of the jackets. moving on. Abbott runs from a poor performance from a (although be it talented) journo and PM faces a whole gallery of them for an hour. Whats a bet that we don’t see Abbott on 7.30 report and back in from of soft interviews such as Alan Jones.n.b. Sales showed the rest of the pack how to interview.
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amd August 30, 2012
Re Mr Rabbit and the Carbon Tax – I think you are missing the point. He has jumped on the bandwagon of hating it because the vast majority of Australia hates it – which is why our illustrious leader had to lie through her teeth about it to get elected. He is only riding the waves of public feeling. Regardless of whether Mr Rabbit loves it or hates it, Australia loathes it.
Labor, I beg you, please ditch Gillard and the deeply unpopular CT – or it is a cast iron certainty we are getting that awful man for PM. I won’t vote for him, but I certainly won’t vote for her. (And before anybody says oh but all pollies are liars, all the more reason to make them accountable; she didn’t lie – Yes. She did. Unequivocally. John Howard GST – blah blah, hated that creepy little man, did not vote for him, but no he did not go into an election lying about the GST).
Bottom line, if you have lost the vote of an extremely working class person (me), who grew up in what they call a deprived area of Glasgow these days (read poverty stricken) then you have lost nearly all Labor support. Understand it, accept it, fix it. Before the Rabbit gets into power.
As for Greer, she’s a dreadful, shrill creature. What a shame such a highly intelligent woman has wasted her gifts choosing to simply be annoying to get publicity, over and over. I never watch her anymore, have not for years, never will again.
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Kerry Cleary August 30, 2012
Dear amd. I think you have it the wrong way around. The reason most Australians were “nervous” about the carbon tax is that our little Mr Negativity (TA) went on about it so much, in his inimitable negative style (if such a word as style can be linked to him).
I would much rather pay a bit more in the short term for electricity etc if I knew that some of those horrible coal-fired power stations would shut down because they are dinosaurs… presumably, the “clean emitters” will not pay carbon tax, so their prices will be cheaper…
This may not actually be the case, but it seems logical to me.
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Lara August 30, 2012
The greatest irony may be how many people have described Germaine as a ‘dick’ this week.
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JoanneH August 30, 2012
Corinne, this morning I’m outraged to read about Gina ‘Mummy dearest’ Rinehart. She is telling all us unwashed bogans who lounge around in pubs feeling jealous of billionaires, that we should give up our addictions, and get jobs. We must also demand that our employers cut our wages down to slave labour levels, because we have been too spoilt by our wasteful Socialist Government.
We should realise that Billionaires are just big softies at heart, and are the poor people’s best friends.
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Jennine Heymer August 30, 2012
Germaine Greer has done as much for women as Tony Abbott and it would now seem the Anglican Church. I bet she has read that 50 Shades of Grey book whilst beating her own head with a massive dildo. Oh and there is the Super Trawling Carbon Taxing ostrich sticking it’s head in the sand or up Tony Abbotts arse….but of course it’s a female ostrich. We just don’t understand these things. Thanks Corrine. Loved it Now I’m angry!
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Wendy Lee-Lusher August 30, 2012
Dear amd, you are one of the people that ‘everyone’ is talking about! How foolish, thank goodness most enlightened women gave up that rubbish a long time ago. As for TA – ewww and grrrrr!!!
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Petra August 30, 2012
Someone’s got to say it. Corinne, you cow.
(I think I put that comment in the wrong box just now, hate to think where it’s gone.) -
Jules August 30, 2012
Corinne, please keep writing….forever. Unless of course you start talking like GG, then we may have to retire you.
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Paula August 30, 2012
Love you Corinne Grant!! Great commentary and great ideas
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Mumabulous August 30, 2012
I’d give Germaine a BIG fail for her comments regarding Julia Gillard’s dress sense. However her appearance on 60 Minutes last Sunday night was priceless. Love her or blame her for the decline of Western Civilization, she’s usually very entertaining.
http://mum-abulous.com/2012/08/29/curse-of-the-pretty-woman/ -
Ladystardust64 August 30, 2012
Someone should possibly should re-watch that original Q&A. Greer spent 95% of her on-air time talking up the PM’s work and how, under a difficult and hostile environment, she was succeeding. The jacket and bum comment came right at the end of this. As she explained on RRR this morning, her point was to make people think ‘how ridiculous’ to comment on Gillard’s clothes, and possibly think twice before performing the same sin themselves.
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Beth August 30, 2012
I’m still laughing that Morris described others as “poor little sensitive souls’ when ‘attempting’ to apologise for calling Leigh Sales a cow.Hmmm I think we know who the ‘poor sensitive souls might be!
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Robert T. August 30, 2012
I can’t imagine anything more dull or crushing than a submissive wife/partner.
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kay schubach August 30, 2012
Not a snob, not repressed but I have written a memoir on domestic violence and I really DO think 50SOG phenomena is a very dangerous one. Millions of women are reading that this controlling aberrant behaviour by a deeply damaged character is acceptable. It is not. Read Perfect Stranger by Kay Schubach and judge for yourself.
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Kerry August 30, 2012
That wretched Greer woman… isn’t it about time she was put out to pasture (like an old cow)? She certainly has done brilliant work – but thats been quite a while ago now. I find her, and her comments, totally irrelevant in today’s society. A pity she still thinks she is funny and its an even bigger pity that she actually is given airtime.
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Nedahl August 30, 2012
Loving your columns Corinne, keep ‘em coming!
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moorie August 30, 2012
Me too, love your columns, and these women should stop picking on poor Tony, NOT. I don’t know what his family must think because he is surrounded by woman, do they worship him so much that he doesn’t know how real people behave….?
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Leesa August 30, 2012
Rage for all you mention…particularly the trawler…such a great representation of the greed that has taken over. And today more rage for the horrendous words of Gina Rinehart. Each week seems to increase the rage…and the urge to drink!
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sue bell August 30, 2012
With a lady Governor-General the women could get together and sack Tony the Opposition, with advice from a female judge.
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MazT August 30, 2012
Love your insights Corinne and the lucidity of your ‘voice’. I heard Germaine in both Q&A’s with much the same initial reaction as those expressed above. Upon reflection, I think though GG’s difficulty is that her communication style doesn’t work for the “4 second sound bite attention span” of so many modern audiences. I suspect her method is to invite us to think by stimulating our outrage (vintage GG) then lifting up the mirror to our own convoluted thinking. eg. “JG has a big arse …it doesn’t mean she’s a failure as an accomplished, achieving human being so girls, forget your appearance – it doesn’t define you.” I also agree about JG’s high back jackets, but I didn’t vote for her for her dress style. Ok, and this is one woman’s perception …who also has a big arse.
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Shepard August 30, 2012
“grrreat literaturrre” made me giggle.
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Me August 30, 2012
Great to have a regular rant, should be more of it!
Talking of rants – did you see Jeff Daniels in ‘The Newsroom’ first episode opening scene about why America is NOT the best country in the world? – here is a clip from the script by Aaron Sorkin.
[Will (to Lewis]
And with a straight face, you’re gonna sit there and tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we’re the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The U.K. France. Italy. Germany. Spain. Australia. BELGIUM has freedom. (laughs) Two hundred and seven sovereign states in the world, like, a hundred and eighty of them have freedom.[Debate Moderator]
All right[Will]
And you, Sorority Girl, just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there’s some things you should know. One of them is there’s absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re seventh in literacy. Twenty-seventh in math. Twenty-second in science. Forty-ninth in life expectancy. A hundred and seventy-eighth in infant mortality. Third in median household income. Number four in labor force and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies.Now none of this is the fault of a twenty-year-old college student, but you nonetheless are without a doubt a member of the worst, period, generation, period, ever, period. So when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I dunno what the fuck you’re talkin’ about. Yosemite?
(Audience surprised.)
[Will]
Sure used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons. We passed laws, struck down laws, for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed. We cared about our neighbors. We put our money where our mouths were. And we never beat our chest.We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and we cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy. [pause] We reached for the stars. Acted like men.
We aspired to intelligence. We didn’t belittle it—it didn’t make us feel inferior.
We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn’t, oh, we didn’t scare so easy. Ha. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men. Men who were revered. First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore. [pause] Enough?
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Matt August 30, 2012
I can’t believe Corrine has written an article getting stuck into Tony Abbott. How very original!
Remember when you were a kid and you liked someone you would throw things at them and pull their hair? Corrine and Tony sitting in a tree. -
Amanda August 30, 2012
Wow “me” looks like I’ll have to check out Newsroom.
Corinne, very fine lambasting of your chosen targets. If only there weren’t so many of them, and a fresh outrage every day. Gina Rinehart, sigh, does she think about what she is saying, talk about born to rule. It’s unfortunately a naked capitalist approach, no room for any human compassion or empathy. As for graham Morris calling Lee Sales a cow, It’s hard to think such an experienced campaigner would come out with such a blatant insult, almost designed to elicit an outraged response. I’m becoming inclined to think it was put up as a blind to distract from Abbotts woeful performance on lateline. If it does represent his thinking however, what misogyny it reveals. -
Louisa August 30, 2012
Top post Corrine. Loved the line about Emily’s List! If only.
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Tracy Williams August 30, 2012
Maybe Germaine could give Gina some fashion tips and together they could relase a line of budget snazzy Shazza and Dazza work clobber….to entice those poor people back into the workforce.
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FerrylBerryl August 30, 2012
I hate to get all Germaine Greer but I find it interesting that Gina Rhinehart mentioned smoking, drinking and socialising as social ills but made no mention of overeating.
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Kate August 30, 2012
Corrine … as usual, you nailed it .. all of it … don’t ever stop ..
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SandsOfTime August 30, 2012
“Ask your husband what he thinks is appropriate.”
Just too, too funny. Thanks Corinne!
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Alex August 30, 2012
Poor Germaine gets verballed something shocking. What she says is always more intelligent than the reports of it. She didn’t say we should respect others’ culture – she said we should try to understand it before we go blundering in. Oh and by the way first remove the mote from your own eye – have you noticed how much vaginal surgery is going on here and why? These are reasonable points and in no way constitute a defence of genital mutilation.
Ditto Julia’s jackets comments. Jane Caro is quite right, she did have a twinkle in her eye when that came up. Heard in context, she was making serious points.
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suzanne August 30, 2012
Yes, Alex and thanks. No matter WHAT GG says she is pilloried she is shrill she should be put out to pasture yadda yadda. Its ALWAYS been like this for her and for any woman who sticks her neck out through the bars. Bite it off. She has walked the walk and talked the talk and ripped the veils from womens eyes and challenged men to open their own. when I tell jokes about men they’re called ‘man-hating ‘ jokes. When men tell jokes about women (mother-in-laws-blondes-wivesetc) they’re simply called jokes…
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Heath August 30, 2012
Well,hey Jeff Daniels. People are just fucking queueing up to get into Indonesia/Japan/India/Africa, aren’t they?
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Lentern August 30, 2012
Corrine I think your summary of Greer is misleading and a little disappointing. A prominent theme with Professor Greer in the last few years has been female body image. I must have seen her on a dozen showing grave concern about women not eating properly or wearing outlandish outfits to try and disguise their natural feminine physique. I saw her give a lecture in 2009, I distinctly remember the words “Women are fat bottomed creatures, get over it, stop trying to convince the world we aren’t.” I didn’t see anything heinous in her suggesting that Gillard, woman in position of authority that she is, should embrace her feminine physique instead of trying to hide it and mitigate it with “stupid jackets.”
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Helen August 31, 2012
“Me”, I agree completely that the US is lagging in education, health care, social mobility and other important indicators, but his nostalgia for a golden past age really loses the plot. I’m sure the POC who would have been working on plantations or discriminated against under Jim Crow laws (or dead – lynched) wouldn’t be nodding along with him. A very privileged view and it gives me some insight, not having seen the show, why some people are very irritated with Sorkin.
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Kath August 31, 2012
Spot on about Germaine Greer, I cringed every time she spoke. Two words for her: shut up.
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sue bell September 1, 2012
Saw Germain Greer yesterday. What a wonderful session, what a great speaker. As usual she took me out of my comfort zone and made me think.
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Freya September 4, 2012
Corinne, love your attitude and love the way you think but have you actually heard GG speak in a serious forum? She is one formidable thinker and speaker. And, as a 48 year old woman I have to say that I haven’t been a feminist for this long so that when I get to 70 people still think it is ok to tell me that being a woman means that I have to fit into a mould – feminists like Greer have fought for the right for women to be themselves, not what other people think they should be, and she is an inspirational example of this. Don’t undermine your own practice by placing restrictive and unrealistic (patriarchal) standards on other women. Context and who is speaking is everything: Greer can make a joke about the PMs arse if she wants!
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Mary September 5, 2012
Outrage level: Gina Rinehart has done an incredible amount for this country. She has every right to be furious at us for not getting off our lazy arses and making her queen.
I absolutely disagree …. Gina has done an incredible amount for Gina.
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Kate November 15, 2012
As always, love your work Corrine ….
