Radiation Paranoia in Canada: “We stopped buying fresh food from anywhere except the southern hemisphere”
ViewsHound has published an article about “Life for one coastal family after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.” Its author, Eva van Loon, describes how her family in Canada is overcome with fear of radiation. While some people in Japan are avoiding fruit and vegetables from the Fukushima area, the Loon family is refusing to trust any fresh food from the entire northern hemisphere.
I’d like to think that the article is satire meant to poke fun at paranoia about radiation, but the author appears to be serious:
Everyone, including the dog, has been on bottled water, kelp, and baking soda for two months. We laid in pre-disaster food after researching how best before dates are assigned for various parts of the food supply. We stopped buying fresh food from anywhere except the southern hemisphere (even eggs are pretty well past the safety date by now). The only dairy we buy is aged cheese. Fresh seafood, pork, beef, fowl – all pretty well done; we’re down to the freezer burn specials now. We had reduced processed food earlier; have now cut it out entirely because we can’t be sure what was used in its making, or when. We are going through a couple of kg’s of baking soda every week – the shower has never been so clean! We have stopped going to restaurants or if we do go, ingest only wine, which is still safe, and whatever food choices are probably pre-disaster. The dog has had to learn new commands, not to drink water outside (oddly, he prefers bottled water now and drinks from streams rarely, obeying the “No!” as if he already had that idea).
[...]
Why are we doing all this? Because we don’t know if we’re safe!
Baking soda is added to the dishwasher and to the laundry. Handwash is grateful for double sinks: one is the radiation sink, the other is the clean sink.
Why? Because we can’t find out the extent of our danger.
We will not plant a garden but will layer our fallow garden plot with baking soda to leach out the toxic minerals (although we don’t yet know if it works for plutonium) in hopes that by next year we’ll actually have a reliable radiation measurement tool. We will not be buying local produce, canning fruit, or picking blackberries. The bears will get everything this year, poor souls.
Call me one of the crazy sheeple, but I think the bears in Canada will be just fine.
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Categories: Odd / Strange
Used Radiation Suits Pile Up In Fukushima
Bags of used plastic radiation suits are piling up at the J-Village command center near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant:
About 2,000 people are working at the nuclear power plant each day. When they finish their work shifts, masks are piled up to have filters changed and plastic suits are thrown away.
Because the suits are probably contaminated with low levels of radiation, they cannot be sent to normal waste disposal facilities. Fukushima Daiichi has a building that would handle such waste disposal, but it is currently being used for the clean-up for radioactive water. For the meantime, those plastic bags are going to keep on piling up.
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Categories: General Japan
Unheated Curry Saves Electricity
Saving electricity is the hip thing to do in Japan these days, so House Foods is marketing “Summer Curry” packs that don’t need to be heated up:
They say that they’ve changed the recipe to make the curry easier to eat at room temperature, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they just took their normal curry and slapped “summer” label on it.
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Categories: Japanese Food
Prime Minister Naoto Kan Announces His Resignation
Prime Minister Naoto Kan has tried to stop the passage of a no-confidence motion by preemptively announcing his eventual resignation:
Today’s motion could attract enough support within his Democratic Party of Japan to pass, requiring Kan either to call new elections or resign within ten days. Rising discontent over his handling of the March earthquake that precipitated the worst nuclear disaster in 25 years has emboldened opposition lawmakers to force the vote.
“I’d like to pass on my responsibility to a younger generation once we reach a certain stage in tackling the disaster and I’ve fulfilled my role,” Kan said in a nationally televised meeting of DPJ lawmakers ahead of today’s vote. “Until then I want to fulfill my responsibility with you. I ask you to unite and reject the motion.”
Kan said that he’ll submit wait for the end of the current post-earthquake crisis. With things going the way they are now, that could be months. Opposition lawmakers and anti-Kan DPJ members may not be satisfied with the move, and could pass the no-confidence motion anyway.
If he is able to cling to office for another week, Kan will become the first post-Koizumi Prime Minister to actually stay in office for more than one year. (Update: The no-confidence motion was voted down. Kan will stick around for a little longer.)
Useful Link: Tobias Harris of Observing Japan has spoken to CNBC about Kan’s situation. Watch the video here.
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Categories: Politics
Mikie Hara Becomes Mystique (X-Men: First Class)
One of the top-viewed videos on YouTube Japan today shows gravure idol Mikie Hara playing the role of Mystique to promote the Japanese release of the new X-Men movie (you can skip to 1:10 to see a time lapse of her make-up):
For a few more photos, check out Tokyo Hive.
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Categories: Celebrity News, Japanese Girls
Naoto Kan Accidentally Calls Opposition Leader “Prime Minister”
Prime Minister Kan has delivered a lol-worthy gaffe during a political debate in the Diet today (40 seconds into this video clip):
As he launched into a rebuttal of a scathing review by Mr. Tanigaki of the prime minister’s administration, Mr. Kan said – on live nationwide TV — “First of all, we heard from Prime Minister Tanigaki…oh excuse me…” Mr. Kan had fumbled Mr. Tanigaki’s party president title with his own: the word for Prime Minster in Japanese, souri, is apparently too similar to sousai, which means president, on such hectic occasions.
Cue riotous bellows from the gallery of LDP lawmakers, likely to put a motion of no confidence in Mr. Kan’s government before parliament for a vote Thursday.
“Prime Minister Tanigaki” is now trending on Twitter in Japan. Another trending term is “submitting letter of resignation,” referring to the pro-Ozawa cabinet ministers who have resigned ahead of tomorrow’s no-confidence motion.
Here’s a news graphic that shows the expected vote (as of yesterday):
If the motion clears the Lower House, the Cabinet must either resign or dissolve the chamber and hold a general election.
Most of the opposition parties were set to support the motion, but passage will require around 80 more lawmakers to jump on board.
It was believed that around 40 Ozawa followers were set to support it, including 16 DPJ lawmakers such as Koichiro Watanabe, who launched a revolt against Kan back in February.
But even if the motion is shot down, Kan’s political leadership will be in tatters if dozens of DPJ members abstain from voting or support the motion. And his political base would be shaky at best with his party split in half.
According to the latest estimate from the Asahi Shimbun, between 40 and 60 DPJ lawmakers will either abstain from voting or vote in favor of the no-confidence motion. Kan may survive, but it could be a close-run thing.
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Categories: Politics