The slow steady drumbeat of gloom and doom goes on in Tokyo and will continue for a while. I got some real good news in that front yesterday from NPR. They said that the radiation so far emitted is overwhelmingly radioactive Iodine. Which means, as they said in the article, even the effected area will be about the same radiation readings as Denver Colorado in a month or two.
That is if they can get the 6 nuclear plants in Fukushima under control which is not yet a done deal, and which were spewing out more shit yesterday,
Foreign press headlines are terrifying (selling papers). Japanese press is reassuring (a government tool). But places like the Scientific American on line magazine are very helpful explaining what this stuff really means. So few people have a science background. My kids, though educated for tests here have no idea about radiation or nuclear energy.
Anyway, things in Tokyo are not so bad as they sound. Though there was a shocking development yesterday. There seems to be a beer shortage.
The Japanese personality if funny. No riots. Not complaints really. People are kinder and more civil in the street and in lines, sometimes long lines. But they are hoarders. One minute the stores are full of beer, I mean full to the top. Then word of a shortage, shelves are empty in minutes. Japanese are hoarders.
Maybe it is in the social DNA from generations of oppression by the ruling classes, from floods, fires, wars, and quakes. Remember in the 7 Samurai movie, the farmers eating mullet, ready to starve, but under their floors, rice, sake, swords and treasure.
Too bad about America in terrible debt, but still being the cops of the world. It is an addiction, as you and Eisenhower have both said. A hard habit to break. Will the American people ever get wise to it and complain? Will the Japanese get wise and stop electing the same money eating, nuke building fools? I wish I could say I was optimistic.
Anyway I have no plans to leave. Though it might be a good chance to get Yuki out, get her going on a new direction in America, though I am afraid she wold not go without Sumi and Sumi has a brand now school she worked so hard to get in about to start, first gathering tomorrow.
We are drinking bottled water, staying away from milk and spinach for a while. But it will get better soon, or it will get a whole lot worse, depending upon the nukes and the fools and heroes trying to cool them. Time will tell.
And a friend lent me The Thin Man films from the 30's and 40's, great fun, though all 5 are about the same movie.
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