Spilling milk on the page

I logged onto the New York Times website this morning, and discovered this latest story about the China milk scare: "European regulators on Thursday ordered rigorous testing of imports containing at least 15 percent milk powder after concluding that food containing tainted milk powder from China may well be circulating in Europe and putting children at risk."

So naturally, I was curious to find out what China Daily had to say about the ongoing milk crisis. Here is what they had on the front page:

Nothing.

It did have links to nine pages about the spacewalk (an impressive achievement), a "China refutes charge of cultural genocide in Tibet" story, breaking news titled "woman's paper skin a walking notepad" and another story about a man who 'married' a deceased girlfriend... and then the regular features about Britney Spears and Jennifer Aniston's love life.

Reading the paper, I had a premonition: The writer of the Tibet story will not be winning any prose-writing awards. Unless one is offered for incomprehensibility. A typical excerpt (do not read this passage while operating a motor vehicle or caring for small children):

The white paper consists of six parts, "Foreword", "Learning, Use and Development of the Spoken and Written Tibetan Languages", "Inheritance, Protection and Promotion of the Tibetan Cultural Heritage", "Religious Beliefs and Native Customs Respected", "All-round Development of Modern Science, Education and the Media" and "Conclusion".

It is "citing facts to expose the lie about the 'cultural genocide' in Tibet fabricated by the 14th Dalai Lama and his cohorts", and "exposing the deceptive nature of the 'cultural autonomy of Tibet' they clamor for".

I don't know, maybe it made more sense in the Chinese.

The anonymous story writer goes on to quote the "white paper" eight times. If you want to know what the politically correct line is on Tibet, consult said white paper. We have other things to do here.

Back to milk. I did find a special feature section on the milk crisis buried inside the vast belly of China Daily. It led with a picture of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (China's Johnny-on-the-spot, he was at the earthquake zone last May within hours, holding out his bullhorn), and followed with mugshots of two suspects on Sanlu, an article on breast milk, and various op/eds blasting Sanlu for their misdeeds (after any Chinese crisis, it's essential to establish a scapegoat that deflects all attention away from the Party "responsible for creating a transparent, accountable regulatory structure").

As the Times notes in this separate article:

"In recent days, Prime Minister Wen Jiabo has apologized for a scandal that has sickened 53,000 children and he has promised to reform the dairy industry. But a year ago, Mr. Wen made a similar pledge to overhaul safety regulations for food, drugs and other products. His government authorized $1.1 billion and dispatched 300,000 inspectors to examine food and drug producers, but failed to prevent China’s biggest dairy producers from selling baby formula laced with an industrial additive called melamine."

One can only imagine what the prime minister said as he held that child. Perhaps: Sorry Babe.




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