Crikey !

Poor Germaine Greer.

Having felt the barbs of the press myself, it was nauseating this morning to read the attacks on Germaine Greer because of her comments about Steve Irwin published in The Guardian today.

Steve Irwin loved nature. He tried to conserve it. He made a lot of money, and spent a lot of it buying up wilderness and protecting it. As a strategy for protecting habitat for vulnerable species, this doesn’t suck. But roaming around the countryside poking wild animals with sticks doesn’t endear him to me much. Credit where credit is due – he was a great ambassador for Australian tourism in the US, he used his wealth for good, and many thought him charming, charismatic, and entertaining.

He also fed a crocodile while holding his one month old son, he described John Howard as the greatest leader the world had ever seen, and he was busy developing a TV series for his eight year old daughter when he died.
A commenter on the SMH website sums it up well. I’m paraphrasing here, but the comment went something like “Get a grip. He was an entertainer, not a saint. It’s not like he was Fred Hollows or Victor Chang – those people really made a difference”.

Germaine wrote The animal world has finally taken its revenge on Irwin, but probably not before a whole generation of kids in shorts seven sizes too small has learned to shout in the ears of animals with hearing 10 times more acute than theirs, determined to become millionaire animal-loving zoo-owners in their turn.

And I have to admit that I have a great deal of sympathy with her. And also for Terry, Bindii and Bob.