All I have to say this morning is......WTF was Catherine Deveny thinking?
Interesting comments from the peanut gallery -
Interesting comments from the peanut gallery -
"Dear Catherine,
From George Bernard Shaw:
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him… The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself… All progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
You are one of the more unreasonable men in this fair town, Catherine and you’re needed today, more than ever.
With the advent of neo-conservatism and its xenophobia and fundamentalism – its prosecution of free-thought: are we surprised that you have been sacked for humour that is unpalatable? Is not the “Shirley-Templelizing” of Bindi Irwin more unpalatable?
You’re not going to be popular with most people, Catherine – NEVER, because you challenge them.This requires them to rouse from their mediocrity: to poke their heads through the cloud of popular opinion, to straighten their backs that are bent-over double, under the weight of mortgages, Telstra shares, huge TV screens and their aspirations for gentrification.
I am sure you will be replaced by a female, who writes in a nice, missionary style, which appeals to all the mums and dads out there. After all, isn’t that what we want: more of the same?
Well done Catherine. Sorry you lost your job. There will be other gigs and lots of us are looking forward to them. x"
"Hey,
Sorry to hear you got boned from The Age. I enjoyed your columns, and often have marvelled at your ability to combine passion, outrage and incredulity with astuteness.
That said, I think a couple of your Logie tweets smacked of kamikaze humour, and to be honest, I’m disappointed.
Not because I’m offended, but because you had a great platform there at The Age, and I personally believe the world needs as many athiests getting good chunks of copy space as it can get.
To see that go … and all over a couple of glib tweets … I hope you learn from this. The comment about Bindi Irwin wasn’t the magna carta; it wasn’t funny, it wasn’t clever, and it wasn’t something you’d spent months working on. It was a throwaway line; it could have been partnered with an equally disposable apology, and in a couple of weeks it all could have gone back to normal. And to be honest, I don’t think even a writer of your calibre could retro-fit that tweet to prosecute a meaningful essay on red carpet celebrity culture.
Anyway, I look forward to reading your columns wherever they next appear, and I hope tomorrow works out better than today."
I actually find the double standard appalling.
Bert chats up Tahnee (she has just turned 18), feigns giving her his room key (that’s my keycard not the business card bit) and all is fine (not to mention his horridness towards k.d. Lang).
It appears, to act like a lecherous dirty old man, making a young girl look uncomfortable is fine all because you are considered a legend in TV, yet to make a few quips on Twitter is not to be tolerated.
