Great. Just great. After 17 months since the accident, not only we're not getting any wiser, but we are actually getting dumber by the day if not by the hour.
And it is not just the Japanese in Japan either.
I already wrote about the "news" by Russia Today on July 21 which almost all Japanese understood to mean fishing had been banned in California because of radiation contamination of fish from the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident. I tweeted in Japanese that it was not true at all. I continue to be the lone voice, and more and more people tweet this RT's "news".
Just now, a person with more than 60,000 followers tweeted the "news", quoting a Japanese blog which quotes another Japanese blog with a link to an English website. So I took a look at the English site called "The Truth Behind The Scenes", and this is what I saw on their July 21, 2012 post:
If the reader take a look at the RT video embedded in the post, he/she will see right away that this photo is a fabrication. The brief post at the site does not say anything about fishing ban in California. Whatever the intention of this website may have been, the two Japanese blogs (here and here) posting the link to this English post say "Bluefin tunas from Fukushima waters are contaminating the ocean there, and it's really a serious problem!", and "Radioactivity in the ocean off the coast of California is rising rapidly!", and they attribute their remarks to RT's "news" as they saw it on this English site.
One of my Japanese followers just tweeted me saying "But it cannot be false, because Russia Today had it in the news!"
I give up.
Another favorite among the Japanese continues even stronger today - the "news" about the Japanese Olympic team escorted out of the Olympic stadium during the opening ceremony because IOC didn't want the radiation contamination from the players. Today, it's got juicier. All these empty seats at almost all Olympic venues because of the poor planning by the organizers and corporate purchasers of these tickets not bothering to show up have now been attributed to ... (drum roll please)... racial discrimination against the Japanese players because people are afraid of radiation contamination! Oh we're hated by everyone in the world! Poor us! All because of the government and TEPCO! And Japanese media is not doing the job, because BBC reported it!
Like I said, I give up.
30-Day free trial by following the link.
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22 comments:
With respect, I disagree that we are getting dumber. The food should be banned. If it takes inaccurate news reporting to open eyes to the dangers of small doses of radiation in all the food we eat and to the dangers of bio-accumulation, so be it. We evacuated to Kyushu and are always criticized when we try to ask for Kyushu food only because in Japan the companies, the media, the government, the restaurants, the supermarkets are ALL in denial. There is no radiation. Good for Russian TV to finally spark a discussion of the very real dangers of bio-accumulation and the spread of Fukushima radiation throughout the northern hemisphere. Great. Great. Great.
Reading the comment like above by John, I see that we are indeed getting dumber by the minute.
The end justifies the means. That's all the dictators in the world says.
Bad money drives out good money. John, I suggest you stick with sites like Fukushima Diary. Or that site in the post.
1. Ex SKF: from the beginning you have been a hero and we cannot thank you enough for your great journalism. I have often disagreed with you on minor points of debate but what is great about this site is we can post our views without censorship.
2. Good point about how the media and twitter and all that crap can make a mountain out of a molehill and a tempest from a teapot. The first casualty in war is the truth, etc.
3. Sometimes you have been a bit vague or presumptuous, and not everyone knows what you know. For example, I don't understand fully your sarcasm about the protesters meeting with the Prime Minister. Also, yesterday you made a snide comment implying that anyone concerned about Unit 4 collapsing was somehow involved in sensationalism. I disagree with your implications there. Worrying about Unit 4 is not foolish at all, and I don't think you covered that topic as much as some of us may have liked, but you did often bring us data from Tepco itself which provided some of the news we needed.
Otherwise, don't give up but pick your battles. 90 percent of the items you post are very relevant and helpful. Keep it up (and keep up debunking internet nonsense)
Oh, the ratio is that low...? (LOL)
About the protest organizers, I'm writing a post. They may be totally fine with anyone else but me. I don't know. Personally, I don't want to be associated with people who trash anyone who dare suggest something different to them with extremely vile words. One of them called the two people who were arrested during the protest as "pieces of garbage".
Reactor 4 talks have all but died in Japan by the way. The time to be really sensational and sounding alarm on Reactor 4 was back in March and April last year, with no support under the pool, with frequent, strong aftershocks. I don't remember hearing anything about imminent collapse or leaning tower of Pisa at that time, but I may have missed it.
John,
An excellent point about even what may appear to be sensational news---can exactly spark a discussion about bio-accumulation.
On another notre, having lived in Japan for over 18 years and a professor at Tokyo University, I feel that I can comment on cultural traits in Japan. Whenever I have posted a comment at this site which may have been perceived as not positive (but not stereotypical or inflamatory)towards the Japanese, my post has been removed.
Anon above, I DO NOT REMOVE POSTS, I FRANKLY DO NOT HAVE TIME TO DO SO. If you are saying I remove your posts, rest assured I don't. What Google does is beyond my control. I haven't checked SPAM filters for quite some time now, and it even removes posts that were posted ages ago. It even removes my comments.
@anon at 11:29PM, that's a cheap insinuation to the site admin.
Racial discrimination to Japanese players ? .ha..talk about the kettle calling the pot black... more projection from the Japanese it seems..
For those who may not know the proverb:The pit calls the kettle black", this means one person (or group) criticize another person (or group) for the same behaviour they engage in. Thanks for the wonderful insight!
"pot"
EX-SFK: If possible could you link the racial discrimination stuff please? I couldn't find anything through Google so far but yeah, as anon said already "talk about the kettle calling the pot black"
wow the Japanese are saying they are being discriminated against? the hypocrisy is stunning... it must be a cover for their own racism, wheres the url link exskf? this needs exposing..
The site you mention looks one of those pretentious pseudoscience sites. In the Age of Internet, discriminating sources should be most important.
I can understand that Japanese look outside for anti-nuclear references in these dark times but the fact is that, because of media and government silencing and because Japanese themselves (authorities mostly but also the general citizenry) have been quite low profile on this matter until just a few weeks ago, most people outside Japan wants to think or pretends that Japan is almost like always has been - with only very localized radioactive complications, nothing nation-wide, much less a global problem.
I do not read of people not traveling to Japan because of fear of radiation in Tokyo water (which would be a very realistic fear indeed) but instead people actually traveling and claiming that "I did not see anything out of the normal" (of course, radiation is not visible, c'mon!)
And, if the Japanese are not worried, many think, why should I worry in, say, Los Angeles or Shanghai, many thousand kilometers away? Specially when the government (who they like to imagine like some all-caring strict angel and not the corrupt police states they really are) does not issue any alert...
So the Nuclear Mafia keeps kicking the can once more. After all nuclear weapons are needed for global domination, aren't they?
I give up too.
He he he he he
RutherfordsGhost
This doesn't surprise me in the least, how long did this site endure spam from the tin foil hat brigade on subjects ranging from Jewish A bombs to "deadly" neutrino emissions as the cause of Fukushima? People are going to believe what they want to believe regardless of the facts (or lack of).
I don't agree with the idea that "any news is better than nothing". Remember the boy who cried wolf? Unsubstantiated nonsense like the RT report only serves to make the anti-nuclear position look foolish. Russia Today, is a government-funded and owned TV outreach program and the Russia government is very pro-nuclear. I doubt they'll allow very much serious reporting or debate on nuclear issues. RT doesn't do much reporting to the world about what goes on in their nuclear backyard. Between dumping radioactive subs and waste into the ocean, the multiple major and ongoing disasters in the Chelyabinsk region and the still ongoing Chernobyl disaster not to mention stolen nuclear power sources from remote arctic lighthouses you'd think they'd have plenty of real nuclear news to report.
If this story was backed by a report from an established NGO like Greenpeace or the NRDC pointing to an actual problem they might have a real story. But why go to the trouble when a standard 'No Fishing' sign found on most piers and the slightest innuendo gets the same results regardless of the contamination level.
EXSKF
Don't give the , there have always been "Dummies" in the world wanting others to do their thinking for them and believe what they are being spoon fed.
The dumbed down / sensationalized pages are where many get their "News" because it requires less use of their brains that way. Thinking causes them actual pain it would seem.
Keep up the good work , your site is always top notch.
Ultraman, don't give up, please. Keep on reporting, please. Thank you.
Really would like to know more about these "organizers" who actually do not have any "authority" but do like as if they had.
Honestly, I don't really understand why they wanted the Friday protest series to break up. Luckily people showed that these "organizers" aren't regarded as "leaders of the movement". Maybe they are in fact more a sort of usurpers?
This doesn't surprise me in the least, how long did this site endure spam from the tin foil hat brigade on subjects ranging from Jewish A bombs to "deadly" neutrino emissions as the cause of Fukushima? People are going to believe what they want to believe regardless of the facts (or lack of).
I don't agree with the idea that "any news is better than nothing". Remember the boy who cried wolf? Unsubstantiated nonsense like the RT report only serves to make the anti-nuclear position look foolish. Russia Today, is a government-funded and owned TV outreach program and the Russia government is very pro-nuclear. I doubt they'll allow very much serious reporting or debate on nuclear issues. RT doesn't do much reporting to the world about what goes on in their nuclear backyard. Between dumping radioactive subs and waste into the ocean, the multiple major and ongoing disasters in the Chelyabinsk region and the still ongoing Chernobyl disaster not to mention stolen nuclear power sources from remote arctic lighthouses you'd think they'd have plenty of real nuclear news to report.
If this story was backed by a report from an established NGO like Greenpeace or the NRDC pointing to an actual problem they might have a real story. But why go to the trouble when a standard 'No Fishing' sign found on most piers and the slightest innuendo gets the same results regardless of the contamination level.
Even the slightest tiniest increease in the amount of environmental radiation is bound to be very harmful. This wolrd has been wasted already. The amount of radiation leaked from Fukushima is going to cause endless pain to all forms of life. The only solution is to stop reincarnating in this planet. I for one, will not be born again in this planet where I have been reincarnating for various million years first in various animal vehicles then as human. Now it's time to abandon Earth. Bye.
Good info in this web
You know I started thinking about this and although RT has a lot of good reporting, it is still a State sponsored outlet and I find their reportage on Fukushima to be pretty shallow to begin with. At the time of the accident they did interview people like Busby and Gunderson, but they quickly dropped the story (the world is a busy place). While RT is vastly better than FOX or CNN or BBC, they still will not identify International Zionism being behind many geopolitical machinations, for example. So they do censor. Also, maybe they are providing poor coverage on Japan because they do not like Japan or see it as a long time enemy of sorts. Just some ideas. But I also would read carefully any of their stories on Fukushima, the data they provide may not be precise and better just to go to enenews.com
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