The Echidna: All this outrage is simply outrageous

Bringing you all the latest apologies, complaints and promises to do better from the perpetually outraged, highly scandalised and deeply offended world we live in...

The world's largest producer of denim clothing, Levi Strauss, issued an unreserved apology and withdrew its popular range of "ripped" jeans yesterday following complaints that pants with designer holes and slashed knees mocked and belittled poor people. The United Poverty Council said more needed to be done to end the "immensely offensive" fashion trend of shredded clothing. "People wearing $300 jeans that are deliberately torn during the manufacturing process display startling arrogance and disrespect for millions who cannot afford to patch their clothes," the council said. "Governments need to outlaw the well-off pathetically pretending to identify as the poor."

Westfield and other shopping centre developers will create more parking spots directly outside supermarket doors following a backlash over the introduction of Parents with Prams parking areas. Community activist groups Older Men With Arthritic Knees, Menopausal Women with Tricky Bladders and People Who Can't Park Between Two White Lines told a Human Rights Commission hearing that specially-designated car parks like Parents With Prams discriminated against other deserving community groups who were still being forced to drag their groceries to their cars over "cruel distances using trolleys with dodgy wheels".

The Society Against The Incorrect Use of Commas, Apostrophes and Semicolons announced it would form a "Grammar Coalition" with Opponents of People Who Send Text Messages in Capital Letters And Use Too Many Emojis. The new coalition will stage protests outside Apple and Google headquarters calling for mandatory spelling and grammar-checking software on all the world's mobile devices.

The Union Of People Who Like Emojis And Don't Give A Rat's About Spelling says it will launch legal action to overturn any move designed to enforce "woke" spelling and grammar. The union says the move would discriminate against people who identify as "free-form spellas" - a rapidly growing segment of the population who claim their alternative spellings constitute "the true langwitch of humianity which has already been adopted by several headline writers at the Daily Mail Online".

The publishers of Moby Dick, one of the world's best-selling and most beloved novels, announced yesterday its title would be shortened to "Moby" following a letter-writing campaign by 10,000 men named Richard angered over "centuries of inappropriate commercial use of the nickname we have used since the Middle Ages".

Thousands of middle and late-aged women rallied in city streets across the country yesterday demanding changes to the name and genetic structure of the plant dracaena trifasciata - commonly called Mother-in-Law's Tongue. "Such a name perpetuates tired stereotypes of an endearing and beloved family member," said a spokeswoman. "And it's time someone got rid of those pointy, sword-like leaves and replaced them with something softer."

The prospect of a multi-billion-dollar class action by bewildered patients has forced the Australian Medical Association to apologise for decades of indecipherable handwriting by doctors on prescriptions and referrals. Handwriting by GPs will be phased out by 2026 and replaced with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic-based keyboards.

Federal parliament will vote on a private member's bill banning the use of the thumbs-up hand sign frequently employed by politicians being photographed after casting their vote on election day. The bill was drafted after a nationwide campaign by the Italian Heritage Society, which claimed the thumbs-up sign - originally used by Roman emperors to indicate if a slave or gladiator should be put to death - had been "callously and culturally misappropriated".

AFL club St Kilda and NRL club St George have agreed to change their names to Kilda and George following complaints by Vatican lawyers that using the appellation "Saint" constituted a breach of international trademark laws and was "highly offensive to followers of those who have attained true sainthood, particularly given the poor performances of these clubs in recent years".

Consumer advocate group Truth In Retailing has called for supermarket cashiers to stop using phrases like "Have a nice day" and "How's your day going?" because such statements "are shallow platitudes, mean nothing and force customers to needlessly interact by smiling and responding with equally superficial replies while remaining in a state of permanent shock over the store's rising prices".

The International Society of Comedians and Satirists says its members will retire en masse next week, claiming satire was dead in the modern world. "We just can't compete anymore with the real world," the society said. The rest of the world immediately condemned the society for its "incendiary and provocative language " and demanded a formal apology.

HAVE YOUR SAY: What are you outraged about? Do people seem angrier these days? Has society lost its sense of humour or is our "culture of outrage" really about righting wrongs and giving long-oppressed individuals and groups a voice? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

- Employment bounced higher in February as the economy added a net 64,600 jobs and the participation rate edged higher, causing the jobless rate to fall back down to 3.5 per cent. The result, which exceeded market expectations of a 50,000 increase in employment, underlines the ongoing strength of the labour market despite the pressure on the economy from a succession of interest rate hikes and high inflation.

- Expectations are high for the federal parliament's newly formed refugee support group. Almost 50 senators and MPs from various parties have joined the Parliamentary Friends of Refugees group to promote fairer refugee and asylum seeker policies.

- Cost of living is front and centre as the federal government prepares the upcoming budget, with a leading welfare organisation calling for people on the lowest incomes to be prioritised. The Australian Council of Social Service published its budget submission, which called for unemployment payments to be raised to at least $76, up from the current $48.

HE DIDN'T SAY IT: So I will. John Hanscombe reflected on The Echidna's first anniversary this week and tipped his hat to everyone. Except himself. So here's to you, John, from someone who knows how scary and confronting the sight of a blank page needing to be filled each day can be. Your words and insight are consistently brilliant. - Garry Linnell

YOU SAID IT: Sabre rattling and supply chains. If things turn really nasty, we'll have to keep those Chinese-made socks and undies and just about everything else in modern life going for a lot longer.

Norm says: "Included in your planning for conflict with China should be special courses on how to bury millions of radioactive corpses and how to live with radioactive cockroaches, rats and blowflies. Once these things are settled, you can worry about underwear and tech products."

Tony laments the offshoring of a once-local undies brand: "Your editorial highlights how American-style capitalism/free market economics has destroyed our national self-sufficiency. Bonds had a factory in Cessnock before closing and going OS. As mentioned on Sunrise this morning, Australia is the largest gas exporter, but shortages are forecast this winter. It is also highlights the failure of the federal government to prevent these things from happening."

Martin says all is not lost: "I knew there was a good reason for having a large supply of sensible socks in the cupboard from the excellent Lindner Quality Sock company of Crookwell."

But Old Donald despairs: "I won't be here in 2050 unless someone finds a magic forever pill, but I despair of the new Labor team in this latest commitment. What on earth could have possessed them? OMG: Here's another Coalition of the Willing! And at the risk of bankrupting the country we'll have three 2020s-conceived subs that the Chinese by 2050 will know how to deal with (should they wish to) before they even leave port. The biggest caveat of all should be that Dutton's mob agrees with them and 'supports' the idea. Surely anyone with the experience of the years knows that to be both rare and something to be very carefully examined."

Ian says: "Thank you for raising this point that our 'leaders' in business and government else seem to have forgotten. It brings a new nuance to the old Stop The Boats rhetoric. Successive governments have allowed manufacturing to drift offshore, until we find ourselves back in the old days when all we exported was wheat and wool, and all our metalware from cutlery to bathtubs came from Birmingham. We've allowed capitalism to drain our country of expertise and manufacturing capacity, in the name of a quick buck. All because the big end of town is too greedy to contemplate paying Australians a wage that allows them to buy goods made by fellow Australians, and not from some off-shore hellhole of sweatshops and smithies."