Thursday, July 28, 2011

#Radioactive High School Baseball Games in Fukushima

I still remember the bizarre photograph of residents of Tokyo listening to the speech by a candidate during the local elections back in April. With radioactive fallout falling on them with rain, they were listening to the candidate with masks on. The determination of the authorities to carry on what had been planned before the Fukushima I's reactor buildings blew up, and the citizens' willingness to go along with it, as if nothing had happened. Extend and pretend.

Here's the most recent example of "Extend and Pretend", in the annual high school baseball summer tournament. I saw the news when that happened, but was too appalled to post. I am still appalled, but here it is:


This is the measurement of radiation before the ballgame in Fukushima Prefecture on July 13.

Batter box: 0.3 microsievert/hour
Center field: 2.2 microsieverts/hour
3rd base dugout: 0.7 microsievert/hour
3rd base stand: 0.8 microsievert/hour
Back net stand: 0.2 microsievert/hour

NHK, who broadcast the game live, showed this during the game.

Since the highest was less than the "safety" limit of 3.8 microsieverts/hour that the Ministry of Education decided, the game was on. None of the games anywhere has been canceled due to the radiation concern. In fact, the final game to decide the Fukushima representative to the national tournament was played in the rain on July 28. A Christian school located in the high radiation Date City won, and will represent Fukushima Prefecture in the national tournament held in Osaka.

The Japanese did the spring tournament also, right after the Fukushima accident. They didn't even measure the radiation back then.

Big money at stake in the high school baseball. Many top players come from outside the prefecture to play for the schools with strong baseball programs. Radiation be damned.

8 comments:

STeVe the JeW said...

"safety" limit of 3.8 microsieverts/hour...


japan = fuckville

Anonymous said...

Hi,

As an expatriate living in Japan (Fukuoka), your blog has become a prime source of information. Not knowing how to contact you, I'll try to leave a comment. I just wanted to inform you that some french media relayed an information explaining that Kan's government has sent recommendations letters to webmasters, internet service providers and telecom actors to do whatever it takes to "purify" the internet concerning Fukushima. It seems that the ministry of internal affairs and communication, of the Economy and the National Policy agency have created a new cell that will send these "letters of recommendation".

According to this article and tweets, some YouTube videos posted since march 11th that may convey wrong or "inconvenient" information have already been removed.

My Japanese is not good enough to see if this has been relayed by the Japanese media.

One of the article source (in french) : http://tinyurl.com/3jnjosh

Keep up your great work !!

Bruce Hayden said...

I think that you can up all those numbers for the kids who are playing as they are breathing harder and faster. The lucky ones are those sitting on the bench...if you can call that lucky.

Anonymous said...

Glad to see the spirit of the Samurai is still going strong in Japan. And high school baseball for that matter. Screw the radiation and the Daiichi 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 reactors. The show must go on! The Japanese spirit will live on just like it has since 1945 after being A-bombed by the Yanks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki! Funny, back then no one was concerned about how the Japanese government dealt with those nuclear fallouts or evacuating what was left of these two great cities!!!

Bruce Hayden said...

Spirit of the Samurai my ass! It's called feeling helpless in a very regimented society that has a cowardly fear of standing up to it's leaders. Those that do are ostracized. Most Japanese believe in the hive mind which is an abominable way to think to most Americans.

They weren't as concerned in 1945 because it was not yet understood exactly how dangerous this stuff was. After about 2500 above ground tests worldwide they finally figured out that nuclear war was fast becoming redundant and agreed to stop above ground testing.

The ugly truth of this situation is that most Japanese are going to die very early in life and there are going to be thousands of grotesque birth defects. The most practical solution is to relocate the entire population to other countries and use the whole island as the nuclear waste repository that is so desperately needed. This sounds pretty drastic at the moment but in a few years many more Japanese will see the sense in this idea. As more people's cell structure becomes even more damaged because of the refusal to consider evacuating their country.

Anonymous, your comments are either the product of senility or just plain ignorance of how difficult this mess is. it's not 1945 and hasn't been for some time!

Anonymous said...

Yeah Bruce, in Japan they are ostracized for standing up to their leaders. And in most western countries, especially the U.S., you get tazered, arrested, or beaten to death for standing up to our leaders.

Yeah Bruce the ugly truth of the situation is that some (not most) Japanese may (not going to) die very early in life and there may (not going to be) thousands of grotesque birth defects. And the ugly truth is millions are dying of starvation in Africa every year. And the ugly truth is children in the U.S. are now developing heart conditions from obesity brought about by eating shit for food produced by our corporate leaders. Now there is the "real" wasteland of the world for you!!

Yeah Bruce relocating the entire population to other countries and using the whole island as a nuclear waste respository is complete nonsense, unless you have an in with the Rothchilds that can create a homeland for 125,000,000 Japanese like they did for the Jews, again something that happened at the end of the last big war.

I'm not senile and not ignorant of the difficult mess Fukushima is. The world, and Japan for that matter, has always been a mess. I lived in Japan for 20 years and feel extremely sad for the Japanese that suffered through this unprecedented disaster. But, bashing the Japanese government and TEPCO for not performing up to our expectations is bullshit. Neither you nor I, nor any blogger knows what really happened throughout this disaster and what is going on behind the scenes now to fix the situation.

Anonymous said...

Baseball, I cant f#@king believe it. To sacrifice ones own children in a game of ritualized warfare only to provide emotional release to the enslaved masses and keep their minds of of important issues.
Each and every one of us owes our lives to our ancestors who managed to pass down their DNA to this generation. To allow your progeny to be exposed in this idotic manner is a betrayal of all those who sacrificed so much for countless generations so you could be here now, imagine their disappointment.
I live in Colorado and don't even allow my dog outside unattended because he will put his nose to the ground and sniff endlessly, think hot particles. I keep him indoors and walk him many times during the day but constantly interact with him so he focuses on me, not smelling everything.
I thought Japanese were an intelligent people, this is insane.
B

Anonymous said...

"Neither you nor I, nor any blogger knows what really happened throughout this disaster and what is going on behind the scenes now to fix te situation."

We could start with they didn't print up some fictitious money to fund reactor control efforts, and Certainly didn't to relocate people or test into the future.
And they also didn't tell the truth to the public.

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