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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Radiation, Fukushima Facts and Blogger Frustration

Being a blogger is so frustrating... I guess it comes with the territory... 


At the top of this blog, it says, This blog is about "ALL THINGS ABOUT THE MEDIA, MARKETING AND JAPAN..."


I want to write about Japan and the media and marketing as, good bloggers are supposed to write about their expertise. It is the death-knell of any blogger to go off on subjects that they are not expert in. 
I consider myself an expert on mass media, Japan in particular. 

Surprisingly, this blog never was about nuclear power nor Fukushima. I only wrote about Fukushima when it concerned mass media sensationalism or media reporting. I wrote lots of those....
Especially when idiots said stuff like, "A large chunk of Japan will be  uninhabitable.
Laughable...
Even so, people still attack my former comments on the prophets of doom. 
Here's one that just makes me want to pull my hair out:
You seem to have gone very quiet about the radiation and how safe we are in Japan since the beef story hit? You have no comment about such a big issue? Are we all still safe living with this risk? You think beef will be the last of it? It is amazing how much faith people have here in the authorities ability to manage such an enormous and complex situation. How they try to show support for the region by buying food that will now damage the thing they were trying to support. Is it not obvious that there is contamination and food safety issues relating to the release of radiation in the region??
I responded:
Anonymous! I've written about this much. I am not a radiation expert. I am a media expert. I have written that I wanted to stop writing about Fukushima. When I wrote about (Fukushima) I wrote about media and sensationalism. I don't eat beef - (Mad-cow, chemicals, hormones, etc. that will kill you)... I've even written that if you want factual information on the Fukushima disaster, go to the right of my blog to recommended blog and go to EX-SKF blog and/or Alexander Higgins blog. 
As I've said 100 times, living in Fukushima area near the plants are not... What do you mean, "(Is it safe) Here in Japan?" Do you mean, Okinawa? Nagoya? Osaka? From the information available, Tokyo is safe. The radiation levels are listed at the top of this blog everyday. See for yourself.
Eating beef from Fukushima is probably not (safe). I don't know. When we get a sensationalist story about how radioactive cows are killing "everyone who eats a burger or at McDonalds," I will probably have a comment. 


I've written several times that I want to stop writing about anything to do with Fukushima. Here is the post where I tried to send people to other blogs who need information on facts about Fukushima:


Need Facts on Fukushima Disaster?

I added a link on my blog to this: http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/


Japanese kid who writes well and his English is awesome! Factual reporting on Fukushima... Often makes my blog posts look stupid. Good stuff. Never ventures into conjecture or sensationalism.

I've also linked to my recommended posts a site run by my friend, Alexander Higgins. http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/ and to an excellent blog by Marc Shaffner: http://www.sheffnersweb.net/blogs/accuratemaps/ 

Anyhow, no. I have no intention of writing about anything that has to do with eating beef. In my, opinion, beef is not healthy - in some cases unsafe - to eat anyway. It is too expensive. We don't eat the stuff. Used to. Mad Cow disease finished us off on that... Never really were big beef fans anyway... 

Like I said, though, if some clown comes out in the mass media and starts making wild claims along the lines of "Fukushima beef is irradiating our food supply and 20,000 McDonald's customers are going to die from eating it!" I will write about it...

But, I would write, if only to say that eating McDonald's food regularly will probably kill a hell of a lot more people than the meat from a thousand cows from Fukushima will.

I've gone silent on this? Yes. 

Arnie Gundersen said that "20,000 people were going to die from Fukushima." 

Yawn! 

Many say that Fukushima is much worse than Chernobyl...

Here's fun fact for you about Chernobyl from Wikipedia: At Chernobyl, 237 people suffered from acute radiation sickness soon after the accident, of whom 31 died within the first three months.

Here's a fun fact for you about Fukushima: Total number of people reported to have acute radiation sickness from Fukushima; 0 (zero). Total deaths from Fukushima nuclear accident in first four + months; 0 (zero). Total number of affected cows; almost 1500.

Very bad news for the cows who will be destroyed.

Fukushima: You'd think that foreigners in this country would bother
to learn how to read second-grade kanji... You'd think wrong.


Afraid of irradiated beef? Don't eat beef... 

Also, here's another hint.... Learn to read and write basic Japanese. At ALL grocery stores in Japan they list where produce is from. If it says 福島 (Fukushima) and you are worried about it. Then don't buy it and don't eat it.

Simple. Problem solved. 


UPDATE: on Fukushima from Business Insider: Fukushima Stabilized


UPDATE TWO: The worst thing so far about this tainted beef is that 240 school children were fed it it Yamagata. Now there' some kids parents who, if I were them, I'd be screaming bloody murder!


Yamagata Shimbun Newspaper (7/20/2011) reports:

Concerning the beef from the cows from Asakawa-machi in Fukushima Prefecture that were fed with the rice hay that contained the high level of radioactive cesium, Sakata City (in Yamagata Prefecture) announced on July 19 that 3 nursery schools in the city purchased the beef in late April, and total 290 children and teachers ate the meat in school lunches.

According to Sakata City, the three nursery schools purchased the meat from the same food grocer in the city. The meat was cooked into "hashed beef" dish and served as lunch. 240 children and 50 teachers and administrators ate 20 to 40 grams per person.

The food grocer alerted the nursery schools 
. Sakata City traced the history of the meat, and confirmed that the meat that was delivered to the three nursery schools came from the Yokohama City Central Wholesale Meat Market, and the cow had come from Asakawa-machi in Fukushima Prefecture.
The city notified the parents of children at these nursery schools on July 19, and decided not to use beef in school lunches until the safety is assured.  

NOTE: If you are worried about the government not testing and checking our food. All I can wonder is why in the world after all the recent deaths from food in the west does anyone in the west complain of Japanese government incompetence concerning beef. Just Google search "2010 food deaths" and you'll find 5,000 people die in the USA from tainted food every year and 40,000 die from eating junk food... The USDA doesn't test USA produced milk for radiation. Read here. That the government is incompetent is a foregone conclusion. Why anyone wants that same government to take over the nuclear power plants is beyond comprehension.


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