In case you were wondering how thin a minority’s skin is, here’s a timely illustration. Because I lived in Australia at one time, I try to keep up with Australian news. And three news items this week caught my eye. The first is regarding an incompetent doctor. Now, I generally regard doctors as nothing more than body mechanics, somewhat lower on the scale of empathy and competence than car mechanics, truth be told. (I have seven of the blighters in my family (doctors, not mechanics), and have been observing the profession — within and without the family circle — for years, hence my immense respect for the profession.) To find out that there are incompetent doctors around is akin to finding an occasional insect in my mug of tea. Not entirely unexpected. However, have a read of this:

THE Australian Medical Association has called for a full investigation into the registration of an overseas-trained doctor over allegations relating to a series of operations at the Royal Hobart Hospital.

Dr Nandalal Gunaratne, originally from Sri Lanka, was employed as a urology consultant at the hospital in September.

What jumped out at you? Perhaps the “originally from Sri Lanka” bit? Hmmmmmm. Further down, we read:

Dr Middleton [AMA Tasmanian president] said there could have been [my emphasis] a failure of Tasmania’s stringent registration standards; an oversight [ditto] by the Royal Hobart Hospital’s credentialing committee.

The full article is here. Note (and please go read the article and correct me if I’m wrong) that nowhere is the place of Gunaratne’s medical education ever mentioned. The overseas trained doctor could have attended university (or witch doctor school, for that matter) in England, Canada, Ireland or Burkina Faso. We don’t know. Wouldn’t you think that would be somewhat relevant? I mean, if a bunch of doctors from Klendathu are invading Australian shores and botching basic operations, surely that has to be of more value to public policy and debate than where one such practitioner was born?

And then my eye was caught by another item, drawn as a moth to a flame to an article that has the word “child” in it. (Seems there are an awful lot of people being done for child pornography nowadays, and my cynic-sense is a’ twitchin’, but that’s for another time.) In an article subtitled “AFP sting uncovers ‘worst ever’ child porn”, we learn that:

Australian Federal Police officers say they uncovered 500,000 images and 15,000 videos of child abuse allegedly shared between members of a peer-to-peer online network.

Please remember that. Half a million images. Fifteen thousand videos. Worst evah. Nineteen men were arrested, including:

[a] retired Victorian Queen’s Counsel … a childcare worker … a 40-year-old Bell Park man, a 27-year-old Maldon man, a 56-year-old Altona man, a 66-year-old Northcote man, a 32-year-old Lovely Banks man and a 47-year-old Windsor man ….

And then, bingo!

Richard Ngon Fung Lee, 24, gazed around Central Local Court today as he was refused bail by Magistrate Allan Moore.

Half a MILLION images! Fifteen THOUSAND videos. Only one person named.

Now, the detractors will say to me: “Hold on. He was also charged with six (count ‘em!) counts of having sex with underage girls”. And my reply would be, “That’s true, but so what?” What do you think the other arrested men were doing with children “as young as one”? Playing hopscotch? Why name Lee (and notice, not just “Richard Lee”, but “Richard Ngon Fung Lee”, just so there’s not a shred of doubt :: wink wink nudge nudge ::) and not the others as well? (*)

For the men who set up the network and administered it, they get anonymity. But the first man mentioned by name happens to be Chinese. Hmmmmmm.

And, thirdly, up in Brisbane, we read about a woman critically injured in hospital. Here’s the article, with the headline “Shot woman new to Australia”, and here’s what popped out at me:

Yesterday, black fingerprint dust covered the entrance and stairwell to the blue stucco apartment building … Detective Superintendent Tony Cross said the woman had moved to Australia from an Asian country less than 12 months ago … [Resident] Mr Dugan said he had since seen many men of different ages arriving and leaving the apartment … A bare light bulb and a tattered bamboo screen concealing the woman’s balcony were the only signs of life inside the first floor unit ….

Piece by piece, the little items mean nothing, but put them together (especially if you’re skimming the article), and a certain mental image forms — black, Asian, new immigrant, many men, bare bulb, tattered bamboo screen. She’d been in Australia for a year, by the way. How do I know that? Because if she’d arrived later, the erstwhile Detective would have amended his statement to “less than 6 months / 4 weeks / 5 days ago”. But let’s not get in the way of the “new” appellation. God forbid someone should say, “Recent arrival shot at Kangaroo Point”.

Secondly, a light bulb and screen on a balcony are “outside” an apartment not “inside” one, m’kay? And are they really “signs of life”? (A bare light bulb is a sign of life?) Or was the reporter actually trying to evoke a particular image with such a description? Tacky, sleazy, shades of sex shows … nah, she couldn’t be … could she?

So, in summary, what has a reading of recent Australian media taught us? Who are these incompetent doctors running around Australia? Damned if I know, but one of them was definitely born in Sri Lanka. And who are these child porn swappers? Again, damned if I know, but one of them is definitely Chinese. And you know those Asian women who migrate to Australia? They’re whores.

I do so love a biscotti of propaganda with my morning latte. Cheers.

(*) UPDATE: The news item has been rewritten (and changed beyond recognition) since I first read it yesterday. (The Age has a nasty habit of doing this. If I don’t hit Print, interesting information usually mutates or perishes in the space of hours.) It now names another man:

Retired QC Neil James Williams, 74, of Newham, faces two child pornography charges, one count of using a carriage service to access child pornography and one count of knowingly possessing child pornography.

Williams was arrested by Australian Federal Police on October 22 and appeared in the Bendigo Magistrates Court shortly afterwards, where he was granted bail.

and leaves out information about Lee that was included in the original report. It has, in fact, now turned into what I consider to be a proper news item (which it wasn’t yesterday). However, the update has its own questions. For a start, it changes the number of charges against Lee, down from three to two in the space of twenty-four hours:

Lee appeared in Sydney’s Central Local Court yesterday, where he faced two child pornography charges and six child sex charges

thus bringing into question the reporter’s ability to count and report facts. And it brings up the question of why, if Williams was arrested a month and a half before Lee and, in fact,

most of those arrested were picked up in the past month

why it was that only one man — a Chinese — was identified by name in the first news item? Things that make you go Hmmmmm.