Onegai
If you can't help Japan, please at least remember us. If you don't want to help Japan, fine. But please don't say Japan doesn't need help. 170,000 people are still in emergency shelters. There is a nuclear reactor that needs deactivating.
"But what about stuff happening at home?" You are absolutely right. Tell you what, you do your part for an issue happening in your home country while taking a moment to think about what is happening in mine, and we'll say you're good.
Ichiro would need help walking if he had a broken leg. Please don't say Japan doesn't need help, because it's just not true.
"Songs for Japan", the compilation charity album on iTunes, sells for $9 in the USA and 1,500 yen in Japan. I guess I am supposed to feel lucky for the chance to contribute that much more to a worthy cause, but I wonder how the large difference in cost came about...
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Karoshi
Karoshi
(I had no idea it had its own English Wikipedia entry...)
This past weekend, I passed a gas station. There was no long line snaking along the road for half a mile. There was a line of 3 or 4 cars for each of the 4 pumps. I saw the 16 cars at the gas station and thought "wow, no wait at all!"
The scheduled blackouts are still scheduled, but they're cancelled with increased frequency. There hasn't been one since Friday, and tomorrow's blackouts have been cancelled, so that will make 6 straight days that Group 5 has been blackout free. This is a good thing, because one of the generators at work died. We have yet to hear repairs have been successful. We've been only half joking that it was karoshi. I'm not an engineer, but I can't help but wonder if that generator was really designed to run four, sometimes eight hours a day for 2 weeks straight.
On Yahoo! (original USA flavor and Australia/ New Zealand) and BBC websites, the direct aftermath of the quake/ tsunami is no longer to be seen on the short list of current news. The Fukushima nuclear reactor remains. Yes, it is important, but I suppose nice people trying to do their very best to keep their wits and trying to figure out what to do to get their lives back isn't nearly as eye catching as something straight out of a disaster movie. In one of the most developed countries on the planet, 2 weeks after the quake and evacuation shelter residents still only get a slice of bread and a rice ball per person. A day. I wish I were making this up, but I saw it on Japanese network TV. I personally find this far more outrageous than me and my family receiving 1/ 100,000 the amount of radiation in a single session of radiation therapy over the past 2 weeks or so.
Heroic workers, government and otherwise, are working around the clock to try to change this (both the food issue and the radiation issue), but people are just not designed to work around the clock. I hope we don't see any karoshi from these people, either. The generator was bad enough.
(I had no idea it had its own English Wikipedia entry...)
This past weekend, I passed a gas station. There was no long line snaking along the road for half a mile. There was a line of 3 or 4 cars for each of the 4 pumps. I saw the 16 cars at the gas station and thought "wow, no wait at all!"
The scheduled blackouts are still scheduled, but they're cancelled with increased frequency. There hasn't been one since Friday, and tomorrow's blackouts have been cancelled, so that will make 6 straight days that Group 5 has been blackout free. This is a good thing, because one of the generators at work died. We have yet to hear repairs have been successful. We've been only half joking that it was karoshi. I'm not an engineer, but I can't help but wonder if that generator was really designed to run four, sometimes eight hours a day for 2 weeks straight.
On Yahoo! (original USA flavor and Australia/ New Zealand) and BBC websites, the direct aftermath of the quake/ tsunami is no longer to be seen on the short list of current news. The Fukushima nuclear reactor remains. Yes, it is important, but I suppose nice people trying to do their very best to keep their wits and trying to figure out what to do to get their lives back isn't nearly as eye catching as something straight out of a disaster movie. In one of the most developed countries on the planet, 2 weeks after the quake and evacuation shelter residents still only get a slice of bread and a rice ball per person. A day. I wish I were making this up, but I saw it on Japanese network TV. I personally find this far more outrageous than me and my family receiving 1/ 100,000 the amount of radiation in a single session of radiation therapy over the past 2 weeks or so.
Heroic workers, government and otherwise, are working around the clock to try to change this (both the food issue and the radiation issue), but people are just not designed to work around the clock. I hope we don't see any karoshi from these people, either. The generator was bad enough.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Getting through it
Norikiru
A couple days ago, I was driving right when the blackout hit. I knew it was coming, but I stayed at work a little longer than I planned. I was driving knowing it could hit at any minute, and it still made me jump in the driver's seat when the green traffic light in front of me suddenly went dark.
Something sad I read in the news: a woman in her 60's was hit by a car at an intersection during a blackout (the traffic light was out, and there was no traffic policeman). So someone dialed 119, and the ambulance came within a reasonable amount of time, and took her to a good-sized hospital because she seemed to have a head injury. Well, the hospital couldn't take a CT because of the blackout, so they had to transfer her to a different hospital that was in a different blackout zone (and had the electricity to get a CT). She is currently in serious condition. Based on the information I have, I don't know who is to blame for how much, but it is probably fair to say that she might not have been hurt at all if the traffic lights were in order.
Otherwise, people are starting to get used to the whole thing, scheduling work and food preparation and baths around blackouts, and finding creative ways to get through them when they hit. My friend got a camping trailer battery and rigged it so that he could charge it while he had electricity and use the stored power during blackouts. He gets enough power to have the lights on while watching TV, which is so much better than total darkness. I have another friend who actually moves operations to his camping trailer parked outside. It would have been a great plan if he'd remembered to clean the stove. He had heat, lights, TV and a working toilet, and it would have been great if it weren't for the smell of a year's worth of dust burning. Another friend has solar cells on his roof, which is fine when it's light out but not when it's dark and you need it most.
Of course, some areas are blackout free. The area around the local Japanese Self Defense Forces base gets power during blackouts (duh, how are they supposed to run quake relief operations if their home base does not have power). And then there is where I live...probably because we're on the same grid as the local train station that gets its fair share of traffic. So when people start talking about iceboxes and rigging camping car batteries and living in trailers, I kind of sheepishly slink off...
They've re-zoned the blackouts so that there are 5 subgroups for each group, and promised to give more precise and detailed blackout schedules. Makes sense, most people can probably handle one or two 3-hour blackouts a week if they know exactly when they are coming.
And I will now sheepishly slink off.
A couple days ago, I was driving right when the blackout hit. I knew it was coming, but I stayed at work a little longer than I planned. I was driving knowing it could hit at any minute, and it still made me jump in the driver's seat when the green traffic light in front of me suddenly went dark.
Something sad I read in the news: a woman in her 60's was hit by a car at an intersection during a blackout (the traffic light was out, and there was no traffic policeman). So someone dialed 119, and the ambulance came within a reasonable amount of time, and took her to a good-sized hospital because she seemed to have a head injury. Well, the hospital couldn't take a CT because of the blackout, so they had to transfer her to a different hospital that was in a different blackout zone (and had the electricity to get a CT). She is currently in serious condition. Based on the information I have, I don't know who is to blame for how much, but it is probably fair to say that she might not have been hurt at all if the traffic lights were in order.
Otherwise, people are starting to get used to the whole thing, scheduling work and food preparation and baths around blackouts, and finding creative ways to get through them when they hit. My friend got a camping trailer battery and rigged it so that he could charge it while he had electricity and use the stored power during blackouts. He gets enough power to have the lights on while watching TV, which is so much better than total darkness. I have another friend who actually moves operations to his camping trailer parked outside. It would have been a great plan if he'd remembered to clean the stove. He had heat, lights, TV and a working toilet, and it would have been great if it weren't for the smell of a year's worth of dust burning. Another friend has solar cells on his roof, which is fine when it's light out but not when it's dark and you need it most.
Of course, some areas are blackout free. The area around the local Japanese Self Defense Forces base gets power during blackouts (duh, how are they supposed to run quake relief operations if their home base does not have power). And then there is where I live...probably because we're on the same grid as the local train station that gets its fair share of traffic. So when people start talking about iceboxes and rigging camping car batteries and living in trailers, I kind of sheepishly slink off...
They've re-zoned the blackouts so that there are 5 subgroups for each group, and promised to give more precise and detailed blackout schedules. Makes sense, most people can probably handle one or two 3-hour blackouts a week if they know exactly when they are coming.
And I will now sheepishly slink off.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Stocking up
Kaidame
Bread, milk, eggs, rice, batteries, toilet paper.
Actually, I think milk will come of this list of things that are hard to find in stores. They found trace radioactivity in milk from Fukushima about two days ago, so you just know people are going to stop buying milk from Hokkaido...
Something to add to the list: diapers (for both babies and adults) and feminine hygiene products. I've got 1 1/2 packs of diapers for the Pumpkin Prince in the closet, and I expect things will have died down by the time I need to get more. I can deal with the lack of feminine hygiene products if that pack of sanitary napkins went to some poor girl sleeping in her school gymnasium, but somehow I think it went to some local lady who tossed it with about 10 other packs of sanitary napkins in her shopping basket because she "doesn't know when she'll be able to find them next".
Bread, milk, eggs, rice, batteries, toilet paper.
Actually, I think milk will come of this list of things that are hard to find in stores. They found trace radioactivity in milk from Fukushima about two days ago, so you just know people are going to stop buying milk from Hokkaido...
Something to add to the list: diapers (for both babies and adults) and feminine hygiene products. I've got 1 1/2 packs of diapers for the Pumpkin Prince in the closet, and I expect things will have died down by the time I need to get more. I can deal with the lack of feminine hygiene products if that pack of sanitary napkins went to some poor girl sleeping in her school gymnasium, but somehow I think it went to some local lady who tossed it with about 10 other packs of sanitary napkins in her shopping basket because she "doesn't know when she'll be able to find them next".
Monday, March 21, 2011
The spinach is gone!
Hourensou ga nakunatta!
They pulled the spinach off the shelves of my local supermarket, because there was spinach grown in our area found to have trace radioactivity. Why spinach? Probably because of the few vegetables being grown outdoors this time of year (which include but are not limited to broccoli, cabbage, scallions, and various greens including spinach), spinach has a large surface area exposed to the air (so that the radioactive debris has somewhere to fall on, for example, most of a cabbage is not exposed to air, and if it were, you could always peel off the outer leaves and everyone and the Geiger counter would be fine with it), and spinach is the most popular.
I guess milk will be next...
They pulled the spinach off the shelves of my local supermarket, because there was spinach grown in our area found to have trace radioactivity. Why spinach? Probably because of the few vegetables being grown outdoors this time of year (which include but are not limited to broccoli, cabbage, scallions, and various greens including spinach), spinach has a large surface area exposed to the air (so that the radioactive debris has somewhere to fall on, for example, most of a cabbage is not exposed to air, and if it were, you could always peel off the outer leaves and everyone and the Geiger counter would be fine with it), and spinach is the most popular.
I guess milk will be next...
Sunday, March 20, 2011
The insects awaken
Keichitsu
When spring comes, the hibernting insects awaken. When there are three blackout free days in a row, the Pumpkin Family goes shopping.
We wanted to get a "spoon set" for the Pumpkin Prince. This is a flatware set consisting of a spoon, fork and a pair of chopsticks in a plastic carrying case. There are all kinds of sets, Pokemon, Hello Kitty, Peanuts, Disney, etc...The Pumpkin Daddy wanted to get the Pumpkin Prince the same kind he got the Pumpkin Princess, so we went to the big department store in the next city.
I take back what I said about the gas station lines not making any sense. There is an actual supply/ demand discrepancy caused by the quake. Actually, quakes. My uncle, who worked for Mobil until his retirement, explained it to me. The oil refineries stop production and run a safety check every time there is a quake. The past week, there have been quite a few aftershocks, so every time they start production, there's a quake, so they've been checking too much and making too little. The story in the oil refinery probably goes something like this..
"Is everyone OK? Production stopped automatically? Good. OK, begin safety check according to safety manual. Check, check, check...double check...great, everything is in order. Ladies and gentlemen, let's get this show on the road, and...(shake, rattle roll) Is everyone OK? That wasn't nearly as big as the last one. Please begin safety check according to the safety manual. Check, check, check, double check...Ladies and gentlemen, let's get (shake rattle roll) Oh drat. Begin safety check, please. Check, check (shake rattle roll) THIS IS DRIVING ME NUCKING FUTS!!!!"
On the way to the department store, we saw a gas station line over a kilometer long.
The parking tower near the department store was really empty. We got to the store at around 11, and only had to go up to the 2nd floor to find parking space, which is a new record (par that time of day is the 3rd or 4th level). The tower is usually packed with shoppers and also people taking the train into Tokyo. The stores were pretty empty for a Sunday morning with nice weather. So much for keichitsu...
Someone made this Scheduled Blackout Calendar. I'd leave them a tip if I knew how. I now have the blackout schedule on my computer and iPad, so I can schedule work stuff and housework around them.
And there is this...the American gentleman, and I call him this in every sense of the word, is Daniel Kahl. He's known for his fluent Yamagata dialect Japanese. I am having problems coming up with a good American equivalent. I think in the UK it would be a lot like a very heavy Welsh accent, but my Brit friends might disagree. Anyway, his American network standard English really threw me off, and I almost didn't know he was. I think most who know of Daniel Kahl would find the lack of accent amusing, whether they share my perspective on the "nuclear disaster" or not.
One thing I would like to add to Mr. Kahl's words is if the international media are guilty of generating and riding the hysteria, the Japanese media are guilty of exactly the same thing.
When spring comes, the hibernting insects awaken. When there are three blackout free days in a row, the Pumpkin Family goes shopping.
We wanted to get a "spoon set" for the Pumpkin Prince. This is a flatware set consisting of a spoon, fork and a pair of chopsticks in a plastic carrying case. There are all kinds of sets, Pokemon, Hello Kitty, Peanuts, Disney, etc...The Pumpkin Daddy wanted to get the Pumpkin Prince the same kind he got the Pumpkin Princess, so we went to the big department store in the next city.
I take back what I said about the gas station lines not making any sense. There is an actual supply/ demand discrepancy caused by the quake. Actually, quakes. My uncle, who worked for Mobil until his retirement, explained it to me. The oil refineries stop production and run a safety check every time there is a quake. The past week, there have been quite a few aftershocks, so every time they start production, there's a quake, so they've been checking too much and making too little. The story in the oil refinery probably goes something like this..
"Is everyone OK? Production stopped automatically? Good. OK, begin safety check according to safety manual. Check, check, check...double check...great, everything is in order. Ladies and gentlemen, let's get this show on the road, and...(shake, rattle roll) Is everyone OK? That wasn't nearly as big as the last one. Please begin safety check according to the safety manual. Check, check, check, double check...Ladies and gentlemen, let's get (shake rattle roll) Oh drat. Begin safety check, please. Check, check (shake rattle roll) THIS IS DRIVING ME NUCKING FUTS!!!!"
On the way to the department store, we saw a gas station line over a kilometer long.
The parking tower near the department store was really empty. We got to the store at around 11, and only had to go up to the 2nd floor to find parking space, which is a new record (par that time of day is the 3rd or 4th level). The tower is usually packed with shoppers and also people taking the train into Tokyo. The stores were pretty empty for a Sunday morning with nice weather. So much for keichitsu...
Someone made this Scheduled Blackout Calendar. I'd leave them a tip if I knew how. I now have the blackout schedule on my computer and iPad, so I can schedule work stuff and housework around them.
And there is this...the American gentleman, and I call him this in every sense of the word, is Daniel Kahl. He's known for his fluent Yamagata dialect Japanese. I am having problems coming up with a good American equivalent. I think in the UK it would be a lot like a very heavy Welsh accent, but my Brit friends might disagree. Anyway, his American network standard English really threw me off, and I almost didn't know he was. I think most who know of Daniel Kahl would find the lack of accent amusing, whether they share my perspective on the "nuclear disaster" or not.
One thing I would like to add to Mr. Kahl's words is if the international media are guilty of generating and riding the hysteria, the Japanese media are guilty of exactly the same thing.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Cancelled tomorrow, too
Ashita mo chuushi
The blackout has been cancelled tomorrow, too. I was thinking "fix lunch by 11:30, blackout at 12:20 until 16:00, start fixing dinner shortly after (but not immediately after) blackout is over..." so so much for that.
Before they cancelled tomorrow's blackout, I suggested we go out to dinner on a day we knew for sure there would be no blackout. The Pumpkin Daddy said he wanted sushi, so we went to the local conveyer belt sushi place. We were in the store at around 6:20 p.m. The belt appeared to have less sushi than usual. The Pumpkin Daddy ordered a plate of salmon sushi, and they brought a single piece (they usually come in sets of two) and told him it was the last piece they had, and since there was only one it was on the house. Good service, but it was concerning that a sushi place would run out of a cut of fish before 7 p.m. Part of the quake/ tsunami shortages...
Apparently, Brits have been advised to consider leaving parts of Japan further north than Tokyo. Just a couple of days ago, the British Embassy had released a transcript of a conference with the Chief Scientific Officer of the UK, so I was kind of surprised, but I guess it's more about shortages and traffic congestion than anything.
On network TV, they are running the same 3 commercials over and over and over again. They are for Advertising Council Japan. They're an organization that advocates the use of advertising to educate the public on things like cancer screening and bullying prevention. The networks are running these AC commercials because no regular corporations will sponsor the programs. The corporations don't want to be associated with quake related news, so the networks have pulled all the regular commercials and replaced them with the AC commercials. AC won't pay for the commercials, and they are usually public service related content, so neither the networks or AC make much money off of the commercials. So you're hearing the nuclear physicist say "NUCLEAR ARMAGEDONN!!!!!" and then they cut to a commercial where a pretty older woman talks about how she tells her pretty young daughter the importance of Pap smears because she doesn't want her daughter to get cervical cancer the way she herself did, and then people think CANCER and think I SO DO NOT NEED TO HEAR THAT RIGHT NOW, and...
...they get angry and complain to AC. Gosh, I wish I were making this stuff up.
The international media are saying how calm and collected the country has been the past week. I guess we are calm by most standards, but the toll does show in things like panic hoarding and lashing out in strange directions.
The blackout has been cancelled tomorrow, too. I was thinking "fix lunch by 11:30, blackout at 12:20 until 16:00, start fixing dinner shortly after (but not immediately after) blackout is over..." so so much for that.
Before they cancelled tomorrow's blackout, I suggested we go out to dinner on a day we knew for sure there would be no blackout. The Pumpkin Daddy said he wanted sushi, so we went to the local conveyer belt sushi place. We were in the store at around 6:20 p.m. The belt appeared to have less sushi than usual. The Pumpkin Daddy ordered a plate of salmon sushi, and they brought a single piece (they usually come in sets of two) and told him it was the last piece they had, and since there was only one it was on the house. Good service, but it was concerning that a sushi place would run out of a cut of fish before 7 p.m. Part of the quake/ tsunami shortages...
Apparently, Brits have been advised to consider leaving parts of Japan further north than Tokyo. Just a couple of days ago, the British Embassy had released a transcript of a conference with the Chief Scientific Officer of the UK, so I was kind of surprised, but I guess it's more about shortages and traffic congestion than anything.
On network TV, they are running the same 3 commercials over and over and over again. They are for Advertising Council Japan. They're an organization that advocates the use of advertising to educate the public on things like cancer screening and bullying prevention. The networks are running these AC commercials because no regular corporations will sponsor the programs. The corporations don't want to be associated with quake related news, so the networks have pulled all the regular commercials and replaced them with the AC commercials. AC won't pay for the commercials, and they are usually public service related content, so neither the networks or AC make much money off of the commercials. So you're hearing the nuclear physicist say "NUCLEAR ARMAGEDONN!!!!!" and then they cut to a commercial where a pretty older woman talks about how she tells her pretty young daughter the importance of Pap smears because she doesn't want her daughter to get cervical cancer the way she herself did, and then people think CANCER and think I SO DO NOT NEED TO HEAR THAT RIGHT NOW, and...
...they get angry and complain to AC. Gosh, I wish I were making this stuff up.
The international media are saying how calm and collected the country has been the past week. I guess we are calm by most standards, but the toll does show in things like panic hoarding and lashing out in strange directions.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)