{"id":19944,"date":"2011-06-13T00:00:09","date_gmt":"2011-06-13T04:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=19944"},"modified":"2011-06-13T07:27:42","modified_gmt":"2011-06-13T11:27:42","slug":"wit-life-171-radiation-fallout-both-literal-and-emotional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2011\/06\/13\/wit-life-171-radiation-fallout-both-literal-and-emotional\/","title":{"rendered":"WIT Life #171: Radiation fallout (both literal and emotional)"},"content":{"rendered":"

WITLife<\/strong><\/em><\/a> is a periodic series written<\/strong><\/em> by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator <\/strong><\/em>Stacy Smith<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(Kumamo<\/a><\/strong><\/em>to-ken<\/a> CIR, 2000-03). She starts<\/strong><\/em> her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shar<\/strong><\/em>es s<\/strong><\/em>ome of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.<\/strong><\/em>\"\"<\/p>\n

As more information comes out regarding the lack of disclosure as well as intentional cover-up that took place regarding Japan’s nuclear crisis, people are becoming more and more empowered.\u00a0 This article<\/a> from Sunday’s New York Times details how citizens have begun protesting, a relatively rare action in Japan.\u00a0 This longer article<\/a> from this morning’s NYT discusses how little PM Kan knew about what was actually happening.<\/p>\n

Media reporting on this issue tends to be either sensational or opaque, so I really value the “on the ground” reports I periodically receive from friends in Tokyo.\u00a0 Here’s an excerpt from a recent mail (long but worth reading) from a close friend describing the continually changing information being provided to them, as well as her thoughts regarding the situation going forward.\u00a0 It provides a backdrop that illuminates why the normally docile Japanese have been taking to the streets:<\/p>\n

“Here life is slowly returning to “normal,” but still lots of worries about the radiation affecting Tokyo and outlying areas.\u00a0 There are new setbacks to the nuclear plant situation each day and we wonder when things will be under control.\u00a0 The weather experts\u00a0are telling us not to get wet!\u00a0 Dog trainers are advising buying raincoats for pets and exercising them indoors on rainy days to avoid the radioactive rain.<\/p>\n

We all attended a nuclear plant update seminar at work yesterday. The latest news\u00a0on the nuclear plants is that most of the data the government and Tepco had been telling the public had been watered down, which means they were lying this whole time (which we had suspected from the start).\u00a0 They\u00a0knew about the meltdowns on the day of the quake, but\u00a0didn’t want\u00a0the public to panic so they didn’t mention it until now.\u00a0 There have been reports of nursing mothers in this area with high levels of radiation in their breast milk!\u00a0 Plus new\u00a0reports that the tea leaves in Shizuoka & Kanagawa have higher-than-normal radiation levels.\u00a0 Radiation is still\u00a0being dispersed into the air and ocean, and the typhoons are going to stir up the radiation in the ocean and\u00a0contaminate the fish even more.
\nSo…here we thought the worst was over, but it seems that the truth is just now coming out.\u00a0 We still have offers from friends in the States who tell us to stay at their homes for a while which sounds like the perfect solution, but it’s just unrealistic.\u00a0 What would we do about our jobs?\u00a0 Parents?\u00a0 How long would we need to be away from Japan?\u00a0 Months?\u00a0 Years?\u00a0 Forever?\u00a0 It’s almost too overwhelming to think about.\u00a0 If it really was that dangerous to live here, why is everyone staying?\u00a0 Does it mean we’re\u00a0worrying needlessly?\u00a0 So many thoughts like this every day, without any
\nanswers–not that I expect a magical answer.\u00a0 I think\u00a0this whole situation makes us think about our lives and how best to live them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations. As more information comes out regarding the lack of disclosure as well as intentional cover-up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,1,36,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translatinginterpreting","category-uncategorized","category-wit-life","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-5bG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19944"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19953,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19944\/revisions\/19953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}