The Cairns Post created somewhat of a shit storm recently when it reported on a woman who had the audacity to complain about having to pay for two seats on an plane because she was rather more than average in size.

Crowing that their report had made international headlines and had been the subject of much debate on their website after the original story was printed, it seems like The Cairns Post feel they've done journalism proud.

Bollocks.

The opening paragraph in the original story, about an overweight woman who paid for two seats on a plane only to find that they were on opposite sides of the plane, begins thus:  "A Cairns woman says there is a fat chance she'll fly with Jetstar again after she claims she was discriminated against for being overweight". A fat chance? A FAT CHANCE? This is supposed to be a news article, not a sly dig at someone's personal situation by a cheeky pun. I'm going to chalk up one nomination for "Low of The Year" for that disgustingly unprofessional intro.

The follow-up article where TCP praises themselves for breaking such a successful story was titled "Samantha a Big Hit". Once again, TCP tries to make a pun on an unfortunate personal situation.

I never bothered to watch the Fox segment, but after following the story for several days it became clear that Samantha's actual issue with Jetstar was not that she was forced to pay for two seats (in the original story it mentions she had discussions with Jetstar staff regarding this policy, so she was obviously not unaware of it), but that Jetstar had said they would work around the issue and then reneged on their stance and asked her to pay for a 2nd seat and then in a fit of genius allocated that seat somewhere else on the plane.

The comments on the original story made me want to punch my computer screen in anger (but I didn't because it's shiny and big and expensive). Most of them were in the vein of "lose some weight you fatty bitch/fatties r gross n i hate sitting nxt 2 dem on da plane ew lose wt!" and calling for Samantha to stop complaining and get on a treadmill, all of which miss the point of the article (the two seats being in different sections of the plane) and completely disregard the fact that there are many other reasons for obesity that have nothing to do with being a lazy cow who scoffs cheeseburgers all day (diabetes, thyroid disease, etc). Some comments were insightful, well thought out and not inflammatory, but the majority made me disgusted at the ridiculous amount of intolerance people have.

As a frequent flyer, I can well attest to the fact that Jetstar have very screwy policies. They've screwed me for scandalous baggage fees at one leg of my trip and then not a cent extra on the return leg. They're also late 100% of the time when I flew with them. Unfortunately at the time for me, being on minimum wage and in a long distance relationship with George I couldn't exactly afford to fly with any other airline. Catching a flight that should arrive at 11.30pm isn't fun at the best of times but is especially un-fun when you arrive at 3am. Another time they completely cancelled my 7pm return flight and put me on a 6am flight instead, effectively cutting short my holiday by an entire day (and that was the ONLY flight option to return that day so I had to accept it). While it's an unfortunate situation for Samantha, it's also nice to see that I'm not the only one that Jetstar have fucked around.

Enough paying out on Jetstar however, let's get back to talking about how stupid The Cairns Post is. I'd be taking The Cairns Post to the anti-discrimination tribunal for that introduction.

This little gem kind of says it all really. And that stirring piece was written by the Chief of Staff.

As I was reading it I was wondering how it was going to end. I was hoping for a nice cheery "and this sarcastic piece of inane vitriol was all in the aim of fun fun fun".  Unfortunately not. It seems this wanker was actually serious.

Issue #1: "Virgins are pure of character and strong of will."
This is a very generalised and broad statement, which given that the nature of his column is a blog, can be slightly forgiven. But I still find it sets my teeth on edge as it seems to imply that once you lose your virginity you turn into something slightly less human. I don't think that I, or any of my friends who are no longer virgins, have lost our strength of will or have had our sense of decency lessened in any way. Nor do I find that those friends of mine who chose to remain virgins until their wedding day, chose to wait until they felt they had found the right person or those that waited (or are still waiting) thanks to bad luck, bad taste and certainly not for lack of trying are necessarily pure of soul either.

Issue # 2: "I watched in wonder at their unique ability to laugh and dance the night away without a skerrick of sin or illegal substances involved. Then I remembered they were virgins, and quickly realised this was their secret weapon."
This makes me want to get up and whack "The King" with a sharp pointy object. The ability to laugh and dance without drinking or drugging oneself is certainly not restricted to virgins wholly and solely. It's certainly possible to have fun in a large crowd without ingesting large quantities of booze and puking up all over your shoes and waking up in a gutter. It's even more possible to enjoy yourself without swallowing strange substances of questionable origin, acting like a fruit loop for a few hours before doing something incredibly stupid that likely results in some serious self harm in a variety of ways. And I especially resent that this wanker seems to think that virginity is a weapon. For heaven's sake! What kind of society are we living in when someone writes about virginity being a weapon? Virginity is not a weapon. It's a word describing someone who hasn't had sex, for whatever reasons, more than likely because of their own personal choice.

Issue #3: "Virgins, I can safely assume, don't bully other kids, or do drugs or binge drink or bash old folks."
What is that oft-coined phrase about assumptions? Oh yeah, they make an ASS out of you and me. Why is it safe to assume that only the deflowered folk are the ones binge drinking or bullying? That I can safely say is absolute crap. I've known some very nice Catholic boys, virgins, who have downed as many if not sometimes more beer than the rest of us in a pub on a Friday night after a really shit week at work.  What about bullying in primary schools? It's getting to be a rather large problem these days, are we going to assume that the children doing the bullying are full of rampant sexual hormones and are out shagging everything they can lay their 11 year old hands on? I highly doubt it.

Issue #4: "No sex means no babies. That's good for our population quotas and even better for those of us who like to travel on planes in peace and quiet."
If you don't like travelling on planes next to children, who have as much right as the next person to be allowed freedom of travel, then you can pay the extra money for a business class seat, or take advantage of the in flight entertainment, take an ipod, take a laptop and watch a DVD or better yet, get a train (which in a country the size of Australia is problematic but I really hate dickheads who yell at parents on planes about babies). And when you're old and sick and need quality care and wonder why there is a shortage of well educated medical staff trying to save your life ask yourself why. Oh that's right. You preached for the world's youth to remain virginal. Everyone else is dead and all the women are past child-bearing age now.

Issue #5: "Unfortunately, the crowds of God's chaste children are now returning to their far-flung countries, leaving us with a vacuum of virgins. So when crime rates suddenly soar, financial markets nose dive and the sun stops shining, you'll know it's because the rest of us are too busy copulating."
Of course, the crime rates wouldn't suddenly soar from the release of most of Sydney's police force being released from Pope duty or doing crowd control at a long event with numbers pushing well close to half a million (seriously, that's a lot of people) and actually being able to catch baddies. I'm pretty sure the sun won't stop shining because the Pope and his pilgrims have departed our shores either (although those particularly religious folk might think so for a time).

I'm still hoping that this douchebag has written this as a sarcastic social commentary, noting that while hundreds of thousands of people flocked to Sydney for World Youth Day there were no (that we heard about anyway) incidences of violence, rape, drinking and drug fuelled idiots causing havok or causing trouble of any kind whereas if you got that many people together for say, a heavy metal concert, it's likely there'd be a whole lotta booze and quite a few fights (and you'd find me right in the middle of it). But as "The King" has a tendency to just write whatever is on his mind and doesn't seem to mind pissing people off left, right and centre with his poisonous diatribes, I've decided he's erring towards the slightly more serious than sarcastic side.

So I'm left with a slightly dirty taste in my mouth, but that's probably just because I'm not pure of mind and soul, given that I have sex and drink booze on a regular basis. I suppose I should join the rest of the crew down at city place. We've got a mob bashing scheduled for 8 and after that we're going to mix some meth and coke, rob a liquor store, drink it all and knock over old ladies and break a few windows. Coz that's what us boozing non-virgins do.

This piece here showcases one of the biggest problems I have with journalism today.

I like news and I like stories, but the news is not a story and should never be written like the intro to a bad horror themed book. The subject of the article in itself is horrible enough without adding cliches like "every family's worst nightmare" in the opening paragraph.