RAAAAAGE

[ninablues]

I have just read the most ignorant, bigoted, classist pile of horseshit I've ever had the displeasure to clap eyes on-- and in The Sunday Times, too, a newspaper my family have regularly read for years!

The villain is Minette Marrin, a well-to-do, toffee-nosed journalist type who is constantly spewing her right-wing rubbish all over the place.

Comments

[adifferentdrum]

As a journalist (a student one anyway) one of the things we're taught is fair and balanced reporting and editorializing is a grave no-no. Editorializing is basically when you assert your own opinion into the article. The very first line I didn't see as so bad until I went through the rest of it. @_@

Just say what 'It's an assumption everyone is equally smart BUT I DON'T BUY IT' What rock did you crawl out from lady? Do you still wear your Donna Reed pearls and full petticoats while you clean the house and your husband makes a living for you both? Oh, I forgot! You're a journalist. You're a strong, independent woman that's a journalist and apparently has the leeway to spread your bullshit rhetoric. I didn't know there was a Fox News in England. @_@

The part that got me is 'Oh nuus! We have to let disabled students tart up our schools!' Excuse me. I didn't come from a life of privilege either but just because I'm not covered in purple spots you would have no idea I'm disabled. :| Pee Ess: I tested on the Gifted scale. Go on. Tell me

[ninablues]

This article is an absolute steaming pile of shite that nearly made me choke to death on my breakfast. I don't understand who in the world thought it would be a good idea to publish it. It's atrocious. I disagree with her opinions, yes, but the article itself is also entirely circular and WTF and makes absolutely no fucking sense at all.

Yeah, the bit about the omfgsnarkyquotationmarks "REPRESENTATION" of disabled and otherwise disadvantaged students made me absolutely rage. I had to read it a few times to make sure I was even getting it right. The government is "forcing" those poor, poor top-level universities to take in more underprivileged people?

THE. FUCKING. HORROR.

I would be very concerned if I was the only one pissed off by this. I'm considering writing a letter but I must let myself calm down a little first, sending her an email repeatedly stating how much of a bitch she is probably won't help matters. XD

AAARGGGHH!

I needed to get this off of my chest desperately.

[ninablues]

Top-level schools in the UK have had scholarship programmes for the last twenty years or so, but they were never taken very seriously. Oxbridge specifically was almost exclusively private-school until embarrassingly recent times. Nick Clegg, because he has failed his lib dem followers so hard, has put his foot down and made it compulsory for universities charging the new raised fees to consider the backgrounds of students and, if they come from a crappy school, lower the grades they have to get in order to get into the university.

This has caused outrage amongst the toffs-- including, obviously, Miss Marrin.

Now, if I squint a bit and try to be very sympathetic, I can understand why they might be upset. Sort of. But this? This? I don't even know.

Also: used my Adele icon to express ragey-ness. XD

[ninablues]

This lady is absolutely backwards and undermines her own point several times. Here's another quote from the very same article to prove it:

Last week saw an outburst of furious attacks from ministers on universities and academic freedom, in the name of fairness. Nick Clegg angrily denounced them as "elite institutions"; a source close to him said that "universities should be the greatest agent of social mobility we have, but too often instead they are serving as instruments of social segregation".

She describes this as a "furious attack on universities", and then you read it and... it makes perfect fracking sense. Clegg is actually doing something slightly reasonable for the first time in his political career, she quotes him being reasonable and the uses this to apparently prove herself right.

My brain. It is broken.

[ninablues]

Reading this article hurt. Seriously, it made me hurt inside. That is not healthy. All of the articles she writes, as far as I can tell, are pretty sickening... but this is the only one I've managed to read all the way through, and I was propelled by my disbelief and rage and my hoping that she was being ironic. My counter-remarks were my way of letting off steam. XD

It's horrible. I had more faith in humanity before I read this. Now, the thought of anyone thinking like this or agreeing with it... aarggh!

And sure, post away! Shove a link to my journal somewhere in the header or something and just paste the whole thing up. :3 I'm glad you liked the total character assassination, and I would be made very happy at the thought of more people reading this and realising what bigoted shitstains we have working in the media at the moment.

I've lost all faith in journalism. :(

[ninablues]

OK, I'm going to try and retain my faith in journalism, slightly because it may one day be a career path I attempt to break into. But I swear, you have full permission to shoot me in the head if I ever write anything even resembling the atrocity of an article above!

My usual blind optimism has been clouded but I'm sure it'll recover eventually. XD

[shayna611]

wow...I don't know if there are even words to express how unbelievably awful this woman is. Somehow I missed this new scientific discovery that the money in your bank account (or lack thereof) can alter your genes and cause your babies to come out brilliant or stupid. Oh wait, no I didn't, cause she's pulling these ideas out of her ass. Apparently this is what she tells herself so she can feel better about herself? She was deservingly born to a better class and those of us who don't have a lot of money aren't in such a state because of difficult life events that set us back or left us with tough choices to make, nor because we have different values that led us to not so lucrative career paths (not to mention kids have NO control over what happens in their parents' lives). Obviously our lack of funds is strictly a measure of our brain power. (might as well round up everyone under a certain income and shoot them now before they can procreate, then we just won't have to worry about the continuation of the stupid genes) And don't even get

[ninablues]

I'll send something in and hopefully lots of other people will too, because this article blew my mind with simply how awful it was. The newspaper she's writing for isn't one that identifies as right-wing, either, though it has been slowly heading that way for a while now. I don't think I'm going to be reading this paper much longer. :/

It's vile and it's total nonsense. I really hope that she gets into trouble for spewing this disgusting article up. It just made me so angry!

Her weird assumption that intelligence directly correlates to wealth made me want to bang my head against a wall. Clearly, she assumes that all "intelligent" people will do all that they can to grab money in every way possible and will end up successful. As a rule. And that working class families are there because they're stupid, not the fact that the system is stacked against them.

[brassbell]

Excuse me, but who does this abominable pig of a woman think she is, and what authority does she have to talk about education? She obviously lacks the intellect for the job. I mean, right off the bat she barrels away from any reasonable arguments and into BECAUSE I KNOW BEST. I was tempted to play the devil's advocate when she started on about minorities, etc. getting in regardless of grades, but OH WAIT, so do private school students. Actually, that's a weak argument too. If schools are anything, they're greedy, and letting in bad students = worse reputation = less money. And the bit about breeding? Really??? I'm sorry, this woman has to be an alien or -something-. My personal favorite was the part about state children not having study habits--because -of course- only people that pay through their nose for schooling actually try. For the record, I went to private school for junior high. Guess what? Idiots abounded! What a pretentious bitch. (Sorry about the massive text block. Damn my phone's enter key.)

[ninablues]

She hit every single one of my rage buttons. Aaargh! To start with I could scarcely believe what she was saying.

Her so-called point, which is that it's unfair for state schools (and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, etc) to be allowed into universities with slightly lower grade boundaries due to their disadvantages, perhaps stands. I personally disagree with her initial point, but I possibly could have been able to see where she was coming from. But the way she goes backing it up?

What the helling hell?! Rich and successful people having all of the intelligent babies, privately educated students being the only kids that study in their spare time and her grounded belief that it is (QUOTE) "wishful thinking" to hope that state-educated students would be able to catch up with priavely-educated students at university

[brassbell]

Well, yes. That tends to happen when what's being said is a pile of bull.

To be honest, her point, or whatever she was pretending was a point, is only valid in maybe a handful of cases--at least in my experience (which, granted, I don't have an enormous amount of). How is it unreasonable to give someone who has a disadvantage in one area an advantage in another as long as it evens things out? Sigh.

See, I can't see anyone buying that. At all. There are people that would learn in a puddle of mud and people that wouldn't even if Socrates was their private tutor. Sure, part of education depends on the environment, but most has to do with the amount of work you put into it. This woman is just, guh. "Toffee-nosed journalist" sounds about right. (Hi, I love your insults. XD)

It's fine--if anything warrants Nina Rage-Mode (TM), it's this crazy bitch.

[ninablues]

(And don't worry about text blocks-- I am the text block queen when it comes to topics like this. XD)