Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 1619

@AustralianCannonball ty. Will have a friend look at the doc and translate the Japanese later this morning.
by bo 6/14/2011 2:15:45 AM

@AustralianCannonball The rainy season has switched the winds and is increasing contamination with rainfall. There is probably 4-5 more weeks of it. Then there are typhoons.
by Bobby1 6/14/2011 2:16:40 AM

@bo @edano can you pin bobby's post I tried but it just hopped it to here it is 3 posts below me at present
by elainekirk 6/14/2011 2:21:21 AM

Annother dog on the Tepco cam. Short hair, tight curly tail, cream color, pretty big.
by Mart 6/14/2011 2:25:35 AM

They are smarter than I am.
by AustralianCannonball 6/14/2011 2:28:24 AM

Thankyou. I'm at work and my boss is looking at me funny so gotta go. 12.29pm in Brisbane.
by AustralianCannonball 6/14/2011 2:29:21 AM

@mart lets hope it is rescued @all I must take to my bed dawn is breaking :) have a good time everyone
by elainekirk 6/14/2011 2:30:13 AM

@elainekirk nite and ty for the pin
by Bobby1 6/14/2011 2:33:13 AM

Hi all! @Bobby1 Great post...I wish I could say I don't live in San Diego! @Bo Thanks for the great RT video..well done!
by LM 6/14/2011 2:37:23 AM

Hi @LM, thanks!
by bo 6/14/2011 2:38:15 AM

@elainekirk Night! @Bo thank god you are here lol I am swamped with Uni but I will keep checking in
by Angie 6/14/2011 2:40:09 AM

Nite Elaine!
by LM 6/14/2011 2:41:07 AM

@elainekirk goodnight, ty. @Angie yes, I am back! Our timezone has more support! Get that Uni work done!!
by bo 6/14/2011 2:41:20 AM

Grey smoke coming from 4.
by LM 6/14/2011 2:43:53 AM

'NATO May Have Used Uranium In Libya' 14June2011. rt.com (reason I post this is because uranium is one of the chemical properties that create nuclear power, including weapons)
by MaryW 6/14/2011 2:59:38 AM

Our local post office today has flyers advertising food products from Tohoku (sold through the Japanese Post Office). The message stated again and again is support for Tohoku, Fukushima etc. One interesting item was yogurt from Koriyama city (郡山市). Six of these ”original yogurts” (オリジナルヨーグルと) can be yours for just 2,500yen.
by Will 6/14/2011 3:09:39 AM

@Will wow. I knew this would happen. The narrative being presented to the Japanese people is that we all need to support the farmers and businesses in Tohoku. The unstated piece of that is that their support must come from regular people (i.e. not from TEPCO). We are being asked to sacrifice public health to protect private equity.
by bo 6/14/2011 3:12:53 AM

@will Frightening...I was afraid of this as well..especially when I found out they were shipping contaminated cattle outside of Fukushima 2 months after the accident. It's not right that the GoJ should manipulate the compassion of others for their own economic needs.
by LM 6/14/2011 3:18:55 AM

@bo It's the same issue in the US. Except Americans aren't even told that there is a radiation problem in the first place.
by Bobby1 6/14/2011 3:20:36 AM

@bo Yeah. Depressing. And the appeal to regular people has a patriotic subtext it seems to me. Not only must you not spread damaging rumours, but also there is a pressure/appeal to buy food from places like Koriyama. One of our elderly neighbours says the manipulation of society reminds her of the war. Not as extreme but familiar patterns. By the way, if those flyers are useful to your research at all I could scan some of them and send them to you. Or you could probably find the equivalents in your local post office.
by Will 6/14/2011 3:23:12 AM

@Will I will look at my post office today, but please do scan and send me a copy, I can definitely use it in my research. And, you know how there is a lot of rhetoric here about how this is the biggest challenge since WW2 (or the Pacific War, as it is known here)? Well apparently they meant propaganda challenge as well as other things!
by bo 6/14/2011 3:26:23 AM

@Bobby1 the story of socialized risk and private profits is the overarching economic narrative of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, globally. I'm sure you're familiar with the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
by bo 6/14/2011 3:28:42 AM

Is Tokyo Leadership Time OVER ???? Is this the beginning of abandoning Tokyo?? Are the politicians starting the dispute for the SPOILS . "Osaka always has had the highest concentration of diplomatic missions in Japan outside Tokyo, so we have a natural edge in making our case as an alternative," search.japantimes.co.jp
by Majj 6/14/2011 3:37:39 AM

@bo I certainly assent to Klein's point of view, it's all about a small group extracting all the riches of the earth, and transferring the risks and costs of this venture to everyone else. I attribute it to a defect in humanity. The victimizers are more easy to understand (greed, power) than the victims' assent to it. I think it is either a global Stockholm syndrome, or a fatalism that assumes one has no power over anything. I know that my voice has been disregarded my whole life.
by Bobby1 6/14/2011 3:38:59 AM

@Bobby1 Your voice and contribution is valued here.
by LM 6/14/2011 3:44:01 AM

Radiation sleuths toil with borrowed counters. Makoto Tonami starts his workday by slipping on a white surgical mask and then drives around with a borrowed Geiger counter, taking radiation readings. Three months ago, he was assisting people living in Minamisoma, a city north of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, with problems regarding garbage disposal. "It's usually two or three of us and we drive till sunset," said the 43-year-old city official, who grew up in the coastal town. His group takes readings at 35 locations with equipment on loan from the Fukushima Prefectural Government, he said. search.japantimes.co.jp
by Majj 6/14/2011 3:44:39 AM

@Bobby1 well, as a historian, I take the long view and so while I am very angry with the situation, I think things are still moving in a better direction. 1000 years ago kings could have people killed by royal fiat. Slowly people, first rich landholders, then all male landholders, then minorities, then women, have all slowly gained some political agency. I think that 100s of years from now (if we dodge the technological bullets of global warming, nuke waste, etc...) we will have a different view of governments. Not that they help our team "win" over the other teams, for which we all need to sacrifice our share of the social wealth, but that they need to respond to public needs as best as possible. I'm an irrational optimist.
by bo 6/14/2011 3:46:09 AM

@Bo Nicely put..
by LM 6/14/2011 3:47:32 AM

@bo Allow me to correct you. You're definitely not irrational. You're a very rational and very spiritual optimist and the world needs people like you.
by Pedro Jesus 6/14/2011 3:49:12 AM

@bo There is no choice except to be an irrational optimist, because otherwise, it's game over, soon. Man has dodged bullets before... it could get pretty gnarly though in the meantime.
by Bobby1 6/14/2011 3:50:24 AM

Thanks folks. Places like this board, this community, give me hope and inspiration. I agree @Bobby1 that the rapids ahead are very tricky and dangerous. People like us used to sit around in pubs and commiserate, now we can organize and share data and empower others. I am very fascinated with the emergence of groups like ours and when I contemplate the role of communities such as this in the long term I am very much cheered!
by bo 6/14/2011 3:52:46 AM

I am hoping that this crisis in Japan will reorient the population here about what our government is supposed to be doing. This could be a pivotal moment in how people think about the correct role of government.
by bo 6/14/2011 3:54:35 AM

@bo....the one thing about your argument, and perhaps its the big "if" here is that for the first time in all of those tens of thousands of years, we now have the capability (I always thought it was the bomb, but it may end up being a by-product such as a reactor) to utterly destroy ourselves, and this is only in the last 50 years, really, if that, and our capacity to destroy ourselves only increases. (There's swapping out proteins to make superviruses, etc.) Anyway, "IF" we make it, then you're correct, we will in all liklihood approach the aliens. (I would have said the trajectory of the Europeans, but with the racist right gaining popularity in their ranks, they seem to be taking a marked stap backward.) So if there is aliens, presumably they have the type of governmental society you talk about. But we must hold that in creative tension with the fact that we also have the power to go back into the dark ages, yes, even utter anihilation than ever before. It is almost with the capacity for greater good comes greater evil, or vice versa. Like Benjamin Franklin (not may favorite person ever, but even a stopped clock is wrong twice a day), when he said that he isn't sure if it is a rising sun or a setting one.
by wrshpr 6/14/2011 3:55:23 AM

@bo Cheers! This group has made me feel like I'm part of a global initiative..that's what we need more than anything right now. Rising above the petty nationalistic politics is a brave new world. Hey look..I sound like an irrational optimist too.....until I think of Sarah Palin. I'll have to hold on to the thought.
by LM 6/14/2011 4:00:06 AM

@bo The Japanese people had an outcry over the 20 mSv/year limit for children... the government then reduced it to 1 mSv/yr ... this is good. Though I can't say that the government is achieving this goal. Some schools took it on themselves to clear contaminated soil, this is something optimistic.
by Bobby1 6/14/2011 4:00:50 AM

@wrshpr Alien civilizations are not going to help us now. We have to learn from our mistakes. They've given their best. Now its our time to make things right and to draw a sustainable future plan for our civilization and for our planet, since we're yet far from being able to colonize other planets. I really believe in Mankind and our ability to evolve beyond our current capacity.
by Pedro Jesus 6/14/2011 4:02:02 AM

@wrshpr I agree, we are in a moment of great tension wrought with danger and opportunity. We could fall back, and that wouldn't be the worse thing that can happen. The planet may be a lot happier without our proliferation. But amazingly empowering things are occurring as well. These last few centuries we have, for the first time, opened our eyes up and understood where we are in the universe, understood the nature of the long (pre-technical) past. While reactionary right wing groups are pulling back against the changes, knew knowledge is empowering us. For example, in the face of racism, and even in the face of faith-based claims that all humans are family, we now know about DNA and the fact that we are indeed family. Knowledge can shift dynamics. I agree that my narrative below is Euro-centric. In my mind I often view us as poised between becoming wise enough to make it past our brutal selves, and fragile enough to succumb to it. That is why our actions everyday are important, we need to shift the weight of the bus towards keeping it grounded rather than tumbling over the cliff.
by bo 6/14/2011 4:02:14 AM

@Bobby1 exactly. And the attempt by the GOJ to define this as a "Japanese" problem rather than as a regional / global problem will fail too.
by bo 6/14/2011 4:03:48 AM

Night all! Thanks for all the wisdom...a great way to end the day.
by LM 6/14/2011 4:05:42 AM

@LM nite LM!
by Bobby1 6/14/2011 4:08:33 AM

@bo It is a global problem, there is a considerable amount of radioactive material in the stratosphere. This will eventually spread radiation throughout the earth. And then there is the sea contamination.
by Bobby1 6/14/2011 4:10:22 AM

@Bobby1 All One Ecosystem
by bo 6/14/2011 4:13:18 AM

@bo Unfortunately, Tepco was left in control of the situation, even after they wanted to leave the facility after the #3 explosion. I think this is the most foolish aspect of the response to this disaster.
by Bobby1 6/14/2011 4:16:46 AM

@Pedro...the alien thing was strictly a literary device, i.e., an occurance of the utopian government that we haven;t achieved here yet, so in order for our minds to really be able to wrap itself around it, then we have to see it as being "out there" somewhere. @bo....I am very keen of our advances from the fact that the king can't just sleep with every bride on the wedding night to the fact that people don;t have their own drinking fountains according to color. And I would say the paradigmn shift that is occuring gives humanity a chance to receive a MUCH needed break from the shackles of mysogyny, racism, and whatever other nasties you want to throw in there, which have been imbedded from day one. However, I still think that you must needs hold in dynamic tension that imagination of where we could go with the "awesomeness" in a negative way, of where we will inevitably go if we do not evolve and respond. In many societies, even thouse which are leading the way, the young people live as if there is no tomorrow, because for the first time in recorded human history, there might not be. And that should sober us up to make sure that we do what it takes to get the positive reaction, that's all.
by wrshpr 6/14/2011 4:17:06 AM

@Bobby1 We've had that for millions of years and more consistently since the 50s. We've evolved surrounded by radiation of all sorts. The difference now is that we've spent the last 60 years producing more radiation but we can easily put an end to that and that should be our aim. Technology is in on our side. The technology for harnessing energy from sustainable sources has developed throughout the troubled last half century. We can make a turn now and it is not too late. That should be our focus.

Got to get some rest now. Good night to all
by Pedro Jesus 6/14/2011 4:18:45 AM