Does it surprise you that people aren't more freaked re: the nukes in Japan??

[K8-EEE]

I feel like this is the scariest story in my lifetime and getting a big YAWN from the MSM! It's playing out like the move "The China Synrome..." NOT GOOD!

[Electric Monk]

1. I think I'm burned out on freaked. I'm numb.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

[K8-EEE]

6. I get that!

I'm like that with "outraged." I got so outraged over stuff BushCo era that it became just Reading The Crazy In The Paper. The nuke thing thought... ugh....not good.

[dkf]

14. "can't be helped".

Shikata ga nai (仕方がない), pronounced <ɕi̥kata ɡa nai>, is a Japanese language phrase meaning "it can't be helped" or "nothing can be done about it". Shō ga nai (しょうがない), pronounced <ɕoː ɡa nai> is an alternative.

The phrase has been used by many western writers to describe the ability of the Japanese people to maintain dignity in the face of an unavoidable tragedy or injustice, particularly when the circumstances are beyond their control. Historically, it has been applied to situations in which masses of Japanese people as a whole have been made to endure, including the Allied Occupation of Japan and the internment of Japanese Americans<1> and Japanese Canadians. Thus, when Emperor Shōwa was asked, in his first ever press conference given in Tokyo in 1975, what he thought of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, he answered: "It's very regrettable that nuclear bombs were dropped and I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima but it couldn't be helped because that happened in wartime."<2>

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikata_ga_nai

[Generic Other]

22. Well in this case that's utter BS...it can be helped

We don't need to accept risk of this magnitude anywhere in the world. We have freewill, and we can act even when the situation is hopeless.

We don't need to accept endless war. We don't need to accept loss of freedoms as the price of security. We don't need to accept cutting taxes on the rich and raising them on the rest.

To say "it can't be helped" or there's "nothing to be done" is to accept the unacceptable. To be apathetic when action is required.

If Americans had listened to this doctrine we would still be a British colony. If we listened to this cliche we'd have a teabagger president. If we listened to this crap, the Gulf would still be full of oil (oh yeah, we did and it is).

"shikata ga nai" means surrender. It means not taking responsibility for your own actions. As for the emperor, he was the last one to have the right to tell the people of Hiroshima nothing could be done to prevent a war of aggression he started.

To blindly accept one's fate and do nothing in the face of disaster is a fool's doctrine. The rest of us keep fighting.

[snagglepuss]

29. Hear Hear. nt

[Duer 157099]

2. Yes indeedy it does.

Well no, it doesn't surprise me exactly, because I understand what the MSM is doing and how they control the message.

But it is certainly disconcerting to think things could be this serious and most people don't know or care.

[K8-EEE]

5. Right??

If I was editing the Big World Newspaper this crisis would be front page every day!

[barbtries]

3. it disturbs me that we're not getting

enough information. but i don't see any point in freaking out. it's a done thing. what i want to know is what are the full implications of the catastrophe for japan and the rest of the world.

[K8-EEE]

4. you're right of course but

the apathy toward the real situation kind of freaks me out (not saying there is any point to it, just my natural reaction.)

[barbtries]

9. i think i understand.

i can't even count the number of times a day i think about my son and his children swimming and surfing in the pacific ocean several times a week, and wonder what the implications are for them. i am mostly frustrated by the sparseness of the information. DU is a lifeline.

[aquart]

7. Yes.

[Bluebear]

8. Media hell, many people here clucked at anybody concerned about this

'You get more radiation microwaving a bag popcorn, chicken little, blah blah blah"

[barbtries]

10. i remember that

that's what i heard on npr too, early on. now it's just crickets except for the news that gets through and that seems to be pretty much all bad.

[Control-Z]

13. Seriously.

It doesn't feel safe to voice concern about it here. I got rudely shot down within a few hours of hearing about it when I wrote an OP regarding the possible implications to the west coast. I became careful with my words and concerns after that.

[Golden Raisin]

11. Sorry. 'Dancing With The Stars'

is on. Get back to you later.......:sarcasm:

[WinkyDink]

20. How would you know?

[JDPriestly]

12. People who have the focus to excel in science are often

not very expressive about their emotions. So they have trouble getting other people excited about information.

I think that there has been a conscious attempt to downplay the Fukushima catastrophe in order to prevent people form panicking.

[woo me with science]

15. I think a lot of Americans consider Japan to be very, very far away. nt

[Tejas]

16. I'm one of "them".

For me, tornadoes and flooding here at home trump anything else at the moment.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

17. yes. n/t

[no_hypocrisy]

18. Yes and no. It's been a year since the Gulf Spill and nothing.

American media is coerced into covering disasters and tapers off when they reach status quo, that is, unless you have massive deaths and misery on a daily basis. I have to go online to read about Japan.

[WinkyDink]

19. No. We are now conditioned to "feel" as we are TOLD to. No news = no worry!

[Odin2005]

21. Most people are clueless about anything not in their immediate daily lives.

Most people are very concrete thinkers and are unable to take anything on the news with any seriousness until it affects them personally. Not that I think they are stupid, they are just normal people with normal mental abilities in a globalized world that is far more expansive and complex than the tribal social world we evolved in.

[Chris_Texas]

23. Yeah... about that

Your premise, and most in this thread seem to agree, is that the sensible thing is to be quite freaked, and that the majority who don't care as much as you are somehow lacking.

I suspect the majority do care, they just care about the actual disaster and the people impacted. For them the story is the mountain of water up to sixty feet tall that rolled over a thousand miles of coast, killing tens of thousands, destroying the homes and lives of millions, all those futures and pasts washed out to sea as the survivors struggle to even find food and shelter. THAT disaster, the one in which this nuclear problem is one very minor issue in a thousand major ones. MAJOR: housing a million suddenly homeless suicidal refugees. MAJOR: finding and feeding all these people when the infrastructure, including your ports and roads and rails, is destroyed. MAJOR: tens of thousands of fresh minted orphans. MAJOR: disease and plague.

Minor: A small radiation leak that so far has killed no one and likely never will.

I understand that for some, this nuclear incident is the story -- in the same way that to many Hurricane Katrina became about the looting in New Orleans. There are probably some who could look at the flaming wreckage of a 747 that crashed while carrying three hundred kids to Disneyworld, and worry more about the excess fuel leaking into the ground than the bodies in the debris. What you focus on comes down to the beliefs you had when you started.

[robdogbucky]

25. Let me respond, as this is a big issue

The first sentence is somewhat flamebait, but you know that. You hoist the straw of "the sensible thing is to be quite freaked," followed by "who don't care as much as you are somehow lacking." Neither of these are true but you sound as though you really do believe it. Trying to put all those that are concerned about the unknown, ongoing, long-term effects of radiation constantly leaking into the air, water, land into some kind of nutter camp is a cheap trick, but you know that. And then to think those that are not effected by the horror of the quake and tsunami over here are getting dosed is despicable, whether you choose to believe it or not doesn't matter, but nice try at an initial smear to set your tone.

Take those Japanese that are freaked about about it, are they also in the same boat to you? Do they think if they aer not freaked now that they are not sensible or that those that don't agree with them are somehow lacking? Here are today's NHK English headlines. Looked at how many are still dealing with the ongoing aftermath of the still critical situation at Fukushima:


-TEPCO to change reactor cool down method

-Muslims sue police, gov't over personal data leaks

-TEPCO to move radioactive water from No.3 reactor

-Fukushima companies want nuke plant scrapped

-Governors' nuclear demands

-Fukushima prosecutor chief transferred

-TEPCO: Fuel rods partially exposed above water

-More prefectures want radiation forecast system

-About 24,000 dead or missing in March disaster

-TEPCO: No.4 blast due to hydrogen from No.3

-Rapid meltdown occurs in No.1 reactor

-Seawater found in coolant at Hamaoka plant

-Radioactivity at intake of No.3 reactor rises

-TEPCO makes effort to grasp precise water levels

-Aoi Festival in Kyoto

-TEPCO rethinking roadmap


So the Japanese are not done thinking about the ongoing disaster. Do you know what the Japanese people are doing? They are going after their rulers demanding a scaling back of plans to continue with nuke power. They have been through the worst quake and tsunami in modern times there, yet they know nothing has changed as to those conditions that allowed this to happen. They are taking matters into their own hands. They know at some point the government has chosen to support the nuke industry and cannot be relied upon for the truth of the situation nor the taking of any real steps to prevent it from continuing. You did get the part about this is not over, right? You appear to not believe that radiation when released into the atmosphere travels around the globe on the jetstreams and is then deposited as time goes on in the form of rain, etc. You did get the part that as radiation levels rose across Canada, US and even in Europe that all radiation monitoring was shut down. Why is that when the damn plant is still leaking, more than ever? Out of sight, out of mind seems to work for you.


Your middle paragraph is just flat out untrue, and pure emotional inflammatory fluff, also predicated to insult. As there is nothing to do about the terrible disasters of quake/tsunami, but you know that, those can be recovered from rather quickly compared to school children playing in contaminated soil because the government wants to avoid panic. There are things that can be done about the ongoing disaster. Your statement of minor radiation only and has not killed anyone says it all. You choose to believe what you hear from the powers that be, that there is nothing to see here, move along, the quake and tsunami are worse, etc. They are not worse. This is not over. That is the worst part. The unseen, un-heard, un-smelled danger of radiation is. The continuing threat with no real end in sight for our oceans, air, etc. will not go away, no matter how many times you try to bury your head in the sand about it.

Yes, I knew about this potential before it happened, as I was privvy to information published in 2004 in The Japan Times about the foolhardy notion of building so many nuke plants in densely populated, earthquake prone Japan. I know someone that was working on the issue of Depleted Uranium used in the middle east occupations, and this article on Japan's vulnerability was part of a document cache that I read in the mid-2000s so, this disaster in Japan was not really a surprise to me:


Japan's deadly game of nuclear roulette

Sunday, May 23, 2004 | Leuren Moret @ Japan Times

"...The 52 reactors in Japan -- which generate a little over 30 percent of its electricity -- are located in an area the size of California, many within 150 km of each other and almost all built along the coast where seawater is available to cool them.

However, many of those reactors have been negligently sited on active faults, particularly in the subduction zone along the Pacific coast, where major earthquakes of magnitude 7-8 or more on the Richter scale occur frequently. The periodicity of major earthquakes in Japan is less than 10 years. There is almost no geologic setting in the world more dangerous for nuclear power than Japan -- the third-ranked country in the world for nuclear reactors.

"I think the situation right now is very scary," says Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a seismologist and professor at Kobe University. "It's like a kamikaze terrorist wrapped in bombs just waiting to explode..."

...After visiting the center a few kilometers from Hamaoka, I realized that Japan has no real nuclear-disaster plan in the event that an earthquake damaged a reactor's water-cooling system and triggered a reactor meltdown. Additionally, but not even mentioned by ERC officials, there is an extreme danger of an earthquake causing a loss of water coolant in the pools where spent fuel rods are kept. As reported last year in the journal Science and Global Security, based on a 2001 study by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, if the heat-removing function of those pools is seriously compromised -- by, for example, the water in them draining out -- and the fuel rods heat up enough to combust, the radiation inside them will then be released into the atmosphere. This may create a nuclear disaster even greater than Chernobyl..."

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20040523x2.html


There is much more information in that 2004 article, like what happened to two whistle-blowers. That is what faith in the utility and in the government will give you. Do you think the former governor of Fukushima is mad too? Is he just some chicken-little thinking he is better than everyone that does not think there is any danger from this "minor" radiation leak?


Japan nuclear crisis was 'avoidable'

Ex-Fukushima governor says crisis could have been averted had power company taken steps.
Last Modified: 04 May 2011 10:24

This is a video interview that runs 2:46. Try to watch it before you judge the rest of us any further, mkay?

"The former governor of Fukushima - a long-time critic of the nuclear industry – insists that the power company had an opportunity to implement measures that would have averted the crisis.

As frantic measures are under way to cool down the quake-stricken reactors, sentiment on Japan’s streets are heating up. In a country where nuclear power was once synonymous with development and success, vocal opposition to atomic power is gaining momentum."

Al Jazeera’s Divya Gopalan filed this story

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/asia/2011/05/2011541001713134.html


Did you hear him? Safety was their last concern in maintaining the nuke plants. You trust those people to tell the truth to us?



The Japanese are not taking this lying down, even though you don't think there is any danger from radiation, and they are resourceful. Check out this one:


Crowdsourcing Japan's radiation levels

A group of motivated individuals have come together to create a community approach to gathering radiation data in Japan.

D. Parvaz Last Modified: 26 Apr 2011 13:44

"...The disaster in Japan has kicked all sorts of activists into high gear – volunteers helping people clear out their tsunami-battered homes, green energy proponents picketing the offices of Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) and a bunch of DYI-ers who are roaming Japan with hand-made Geiger counters (a hand-held device used to measure radiation), recording radiation levels. You read that last part correctly.

"We were getting frustrated with what was being reported in the media, what was being released by TEPCO, what was being released by the government," said Sean Bonner, co-founder of Safecast.org, which is currently partially self-funded, partially funded via a Kickstarter fundraiser.

"The information was just kind of unreliable, not updated frequently, no way to fact-check it... So, we just started thinking: What happens if we go get numbers ourselves? Like, is that an option?" Apparently so.

Out of thin air, a group of folks based in the US and Japan created a network that distributes Geiger counters to teams of people who record radiation levels in a consistent manner and upload it all to the Safecast site. Mapped out with radiation readings gathered from other sources, Bonner said Safecast hopes to "paint a more reliable picture of what was going on". Safecast currently has around 30 Geiger counters out in the field, they have ordered the parts to build another 300, and Bonner said their plan is to have 600 units collecting data within six months. While he wishes for a shorter timeline, the fact is, Geiger counters are in demand at the moment..."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/04/201142317359479927.html

Again, I urge you to read this whole article, if it is not too much trouble.


This is an ongoing disaster with worldwide implications, whether you choose to believe it or not. I have too many miles under my belt on this earth to not see the handwriting on the wall. This is not over, I hope wherever you live you continue to have that peaceful, safe sunny life we all want. I live on the west coast and I have simply become fatalistic, there is nothing as one individual that I can do.

I bet you support the ongoing use of nuclear power too, eh?

Just askin'



More Extreme Enviroweenie Biased Claptrap on a Monday morning.


rdb

[Chris_Texas]

26. I stand by what I said.

The first sentence is somewhat flamebait, but you know that. You hoist the straw of "the sensible thing is to be quite freaked," followed by "who don't care as much as you are somehow lacking." Neither of these are true but you sound as though you really do believe it.

Of course I believe it, as this is the entire point of this thread.

Trying to put all those that are concerned about the unknown, ongoing, long-term effects of radiation constantly leaking into the air, water, land into some kind of nutter camp is a cheap trick, but you know that.

Nutter camp is too strong. Be as concerned as you like, but don't condemn those who are more focussed on the mega-disaster. Too many in the anti-nuclear camp have latched onto this with absolute GLEE. It is not only disgusting to those of us who care about ALL the people impacted, but it has been a constant distraction that has diverted attention away from the real and ongoing problem and onto one comparatively minor aspect.

And then to think those that are not effected by the horror of the quake and tsunami over here are getting dosed is despicable, whether you choose to believe it or not doesn't matter, but nice try at an initial smear to set your tone.

Everyone in Japan has been impacted by this disaster. Again, you insist on focusing your attention on one aspect while ignoring the rest. Yes, some people have recieved more radiation than they normally might have (assuming they didn't fly often or live in a city like Hiroshima). Some, perhaps even as many as a dozen, will eventually have some health impact some decades hence. Some might not be able to ever return to their homes or collect their property.

In the meantime as many as thirty thousand people are DEAD. Hundreds of thousands of homes were wiped out of existence. A million people are sitting in schools and tents, their jobs and homes and towns and streets and everything they have every known was washed out to sea.

I care about THIS, and ten thousand other identical scenes of horror that played out over hundred large cities:



Take those Japanese that are freaked about about it, are they also in the same boat to you? Do they think if they aer not freaked now that they are not sensible or that those that don't agree with them are somehow lacking?

I highly suspect that they are, on average, far less "freaked out" about it than many of the members here, and yet they have plenty of reason for concern (being right there).

[spanone]

24. the media manipulates the message

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

27. Fukushima is a long way from Fargo and Fort Lauderdale.

And, people would rather live with the pleasant delusion that something that far away won't hurt them.

[Rex]

28. No. After 8 years of GWB nothing surprises me anymore.

The mega-corporations and uber-rich own America, we've come to accept this and now it will get us all killed.

[robinlynne]

30. It's just like election fraud. the reality is too terrible to look at, so people don't.

[donheld]

31. Oh dear, there's a jillion things I think people ought to be freaked about

that they seem to just roll over and play dead about. I don't get it but that's the way it is.



Torture, War of Choice, Financial BS going on, Budget cuts that leave people little option but death, the list goes on.