It's not often you find yourself on the fringe of the main news story of the day. Saturday's news was full of the shooting of 10 medics in Afghanistan. Led by Tom Little, the team were returning from Naziristan having spent time giving medical treatment to people in that remote area. Tom was an optometrist and had been doing that kind of thing for around 33 years, since before the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1979.
The issue for us was that Tom was actually a good friend of Jo's parents. I don't know how they met this doctor from up-state New York, but meet him they did, as well as Libby his wife and all three of his daughters. I met one of the daughters (Molly) once a few years ago. To receive news that Tom had been killed was a massive shock to Jo's parents - he had escaped death so many times, and his mission was to make people's lives better by helping them to see. It was news they always feared, and the impact of it was big, especially when it becomes the number 1 news story all day.
Tom was a Christian, although he seemingly knew it was too risky to evangelise in Afghanistan. He would have had a bible, and could well have had one in Dari (the local language which he was fluent in). However, above all he was a life-saver, showing tremendous commitment to the poor and needy in an already impoverished nation. He is one who could be proud of what he had accomplished - in contrast to those who shot him for no gain whatsoever other than perhaps personal or short-term political.
In my own crusade, I'm joining my friends Jo and Sarah at a presentation to the BBC's Diversity Unit tomorrow, about the relentless way that trans people are portrayed as sexualised freaks and "not quite human". Admittedly the BBC has done some good programs too - such as the Horizon on the David Reimer case. But it's the ongoing snide comments - like Ken Bruce, Chris Moyles and Chris Evans on the radio - where "men dressing as women" is a source of much childish fun, on the way pandering to the most base of bigotry. We tried this presentation at Ofcom, only for them to hide behind policies and a ridiculously small amount of research to justify their position. Let's hope that the BBC is more open.
